What do you think?
Replies
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beatthebinge3464 wrote: »Lets see; when MFP completes my day it completes it off of my info entered. So, its taking into account the 3000 calories I have consumed and the 2800 calories I have burned through exercise and bmr...
At the end of the day MFP thought you had more than a 3000-calorie deficit, because YOU told it to double-count most of your caloric burn. Of course it tells you you’re going to lose weight if you’re under eating by 3k calories....but you’re not.8 -
beatthebinge3464 wrote: »I didnt want different approaches , I just wanted to know if my approach would work
Personally, I don't think your approach will work. You have massively complicated things. I think you should start over and put accurate info in MFP with activity level without exercise, then sync whatever device that is giving you your calorie burn and eat about 1/2 - 3/4 of those exercise calories. See how that works for you for a month. If you don't lose, you need to lower your calories more.5 -
The first number in your picture, the 3000 goal, is derived from the non exercise activity level you've given MFP and from your deficit.
So, if you tell MFP that you're very active and want a zero deficit, MFP will give you an eating goal equal to BMR x 1.8.
If you tell MFP that you're sedentary and want to lose 0.25 lbs a week, MFP will give you an eating goal equal to BMR x 1.25 - 250
If you perform either deliberate exercise OR daily living that exceeds the amount that is included in your selected activity setting you are supposed to log it in separately as exercise.
This increases your eating goal and allows you to fuel your actual exercise and activity while keeping your selected deficit constant.
The usual mantra of only eat 50% of your exercise calories back stems from: a) most "you burned 1000 Cal during the past 100 minutes" calculations include the calories you would have burned by virtue of being alive. MFP is already assigning 1.25x bmr to 1.8x bmr (depending on selected activity level) calories to the time period. Thus to get net exercise calories you would have to subtract that. It is easier to tell people to eat a few calories less from their exercise than to explain the above. b) some exercise machines are not calibrated and do not take into account who is on them thus yielding very optimistic numbers c) most people are pretty crappy loggers when it comes to logging their intake and want to lose weight. They optimistically hope that the occasionally larger deficit will be to their benefit and not detriment and thus err on the side of always creating a larger deficit
Do what you will but really there are two usual ways of using this tool and you're ignoring both of them.
"real" MFP method: select an activity level close to actual NEAT, select deficit or surplus, get eating goal that includes deficit or surplus. Separately account for any activity or exercise that was not included in selection and eat it back to preserve selected deficit or surplus. Monitor results over 4 to 6 weeks using trending weight application, and adjust based on actual results.
"TDEE MFP method" used by most activity tracker integration. Select activity level on MFP. Wear tracker or otherwise track your TDEE. Calculate the difference between what the tracker detected and MFP was expecting you to have spent by the end of day and use the exercise activity entry to generate an adjustment to equalise the two (the tracker basically determines how many calories you've spent)
The SECOND method is closest to what you're doing, I think, maybe.
Where it breaks down is that instead of putting in your TOTAL value like you're doing, you would be entering as an "exercise" the DIFFERENCE between what you calculated and what MFP was expecting the day to end up at.
So. If MFP expects you based on your activity level to spend 3500 Calories today, and you calculate that including BMR you've spent 4500 calories, the exercise adjustment is +1000; not +4500.
Similarly if MFP based on your activity level was expecting your to spend 3500 Calories today, and you calculate that including BMR you've spent 3000 Calories today, the exercise adjustment would be -500; not +3000
And you still adjust in 4 to 6 weeks based on actual results based on trending weight level.
Best of luck.11 -
beatthebinge3464 wrote: »MFP says I should lose weight eating and exercising this way, but will I really?
According to what I understand based on your various posts, it looks like you calculate that you are burning about 2,850 calories in a day including your BMR and exercise calories. On this particular day, you ate about 2,725 calories. That is about a 125 calorie deficit. If these are typical days and your methods for calculating your BMR, exercise calories burned, and calories consumed are all pretty precise, you will have a 875 calorie deficit for the week. Based on the idea of it taking a 3,500 calorie deficit to lose a pound of fat, you would be projected to have a loss of .25 pound.
Whether or not you really lose that depends on the accuracy of the numbers you are inputting. You'll have to ignore MFP's projections, though, as you are not using their formula correctly. Its calculations will be based on you burning an additional 1300 calories through exercise, as you are entering your BMR as exercise.
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PickledBeets8 wrote: »beatthebinge3464 wrote: »MFP says I should lose weight eating and exercising this way, but will I really?
According to what I understand based on your various posts, it looks like you calculate that you are burning about 2,850 calories in a day including your BMR and exercise calories. On this particular day, you ate about 2,725 calories. That is about a 125 calorie deficit. If these are typical days and your methods for calculating your BMR, exercise calories burned, and calories consumed are all pretty precise, you will have a 875 calorie deficit for the week. Based on the idea of it taking a 3,500 calorie deficit to lose a pound of fat, you would be projected to have a loss of .25 pound.
Whether or not you really lose that depends on the accuracy of the numbers you are inputting. You'll have to ignore MFP's projections, though, as you are not using their formula correctly. Its calculations will be based on you burning an additional 1300 calories through exercise, as you are entering your BMR as exercise.
But if I am netting 125 , thats way under 1200 calories ( the typical calorie intake for weight loss)3 -
beatthebinge3464 wrote: »PickledBeets8 wrote: »beatthebinge3464 wrote: »MFP says I should lose weight eating and exercising this way, but will I really?
According to what I understand based on your various posts, it looks like you calculate that you are burning about 2,850 calories in a day including your BMR and exercise calories. On this particular day, you ate about 2,725 calories. That is about a 125 calorie deficit. If these are typical days and your methods for calculating your BMR, exercise calories burned, and calories consumed are all pretty precise, you will have a 875 calorie deficit for the week. Based on the idea of it taking a 3,500 calorie deficit to lose a pound of fat, you would be projected to have a loss of .25 pound.
Whether or not you really lose that depends on the accuracy of the numbers you are inputting. You'll have to ignore MFP's projections, though, as you are not using their formula correctly. Its calculations will be based on you burning an additional 1300 calories through exercise, as you are entering your BMR as exercise.
But if I am netting 125 , thats way under 1200 calories ( the typical calorie intake for weight loss)
You're using a sort of hybrid TDEE method, so you wouldn't be talking about net calories then.
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beatthebinge3464 wrote: »PickledBeets8 wrote: »beatthebinge3464 wrote: »MFP says I should lose weight eating and exercising this way, but will I really?
According to what I understand based on your various posts, it looks like you calculate that you are burning about 2,850 calories in a day including your BMR and exercise calories. On this particular day, you ate about 2,725 calories. That is about a 125 calorie deficit. If these are typical days and your methods for calculating your BMR, exercise calories burned, and calories consumed are all pretty precise, you will have a 875 calorie deficit for the week. Based on the idea of it taking a 3,500 calorie deficit to lose a pound of fat, you would be projected to have a loss of .25 pound.
Whether or not you really lose that depends on the accuracy of the numbers you are inputting. You'll have to ignore MFP's projections, though, as you are not using their formula correctly. Its calculations will be based on you burning an additional 1300 calories through exercise, as you are entering your BMR as exercise.
But if I am netting 125 , thats way under 1200 calories ( the typical calorie intake for weight loss)
But you aren't netting 125. If you burn 2850 calories a day you have to eat 2850 calories a day to maintain. If you eat 2725 you have a deficit of 125, not a net of 125.7 -
beatthebinge3464 wrote: »PickledBeets8 wrote: »beatthebinge3464 wrote: »MFP says I should lose weight eating and exercising this way, but will I really?
According to what I understand based on your various posts, it looks like you calculate that you are burning about 2,850 calories in a day including your BMR and exercise calories. On this particular day, you ate about 2,725 calories. That is about a 125 calorie deficit. If these are typical days and your methods for calculating your BMR, exercise calories burned, and calories consumed are all pretty precise, you will have a 875 calorie deficit for the week. Based on the idea of it taking a 3,500 calorie deficit to lose a pound of fat, you would be projected to have a loss of .25 pound.
Whether or not you really lose that depends on the accuracy of the numbers you are inputting. You'll have to ignore MFP's projections, though, as you are not using their formula correctly. Its calculations will be based on you burning an additional 1300 calories through exercise, as you are entering your BMR as exercise.
But if I am netting 125 , thats way under 1200 calories ( the typical calorie intake for weight loss)
125 calorie deficit is *not* the same as netting 125 calories. Not. At. All.
When you use TDEE -- as you're attempting to -- net calories aren't really a thing, because you're already accounting for your activity in your calculations, so you're neither adding nor subtracting calories from exercise.
If you were using MFP as the formula intends, 125 calories in deficit still would not be a net 125 calories. That 125 calories would occur if you burned 1300 calories through exercise, but then only ate 1425 calories.7 -
beatthebinge3464 wrote: »
But if I am netting 125 , thats way under 1200 calories ( the typical calorie intake for weight loss)
You are misunderstanding how this works.
1200 calories is the minimum calorie intake for women, usually geared toward petite sedentary females who don't have a lot to lose. Such an individual might burn about 1700 calories per day when BMR and activity are combined. That would give this person a daily deficit of 500 calories, which would equate to a weekly deficit of 3500 calories and a projected weekly weight loss of 1 pound of fat.
Your daily burn is very close to your daily intake, which results in a very small daily deficit. Since you are already at a healthy weight, going for a small deficit is appropriate. It also means that you need to measure/weigh all that you consume very precisely and make sure that your estimated calorie burn from exercise is very accurate, as you have very little room for error.
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beatthebinge3464 wrote: »I didnt want different approaches , I just wanted to know if my approach would work
I don’t think you will lose weight this way, since your MFP calorie goal includes BMR and you’re adding it in again and therefore “double dipping.”
Your calorie burns outside of that, for exercise, are very high for someone with your current height, weight, and gender as some have already commented. How are you calculating those? Your 3000 calories a day doesn’t seem to be setting you up to lose weigh, especially only 20 pounds.3 -
I think you need to read the stickies and learn how MFP really works. It sounds like you really don't understand any of it, so you need to do some reading.9
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I think that if you somehow end up losing weight, it will be by pure luck - because I'm not sure you understand how the process works, and you're introducing a lot of unnecessary variables and making it a lot more complicated than it needs to be.15
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beatthebinge3464 wrote: »Lets see; when MFP completes my day it completes it off of my info entered. So, its taking into account the 3000 calories I have consumed and the 2800 calories I have burned through exercise and bmr...
MFP calculates your expected losses on the amount of calories you take in per day minus the exercise. Lets forget for a moment that the predictor is completely unreliable for most people, with your random numbers you are putting it, it looks to the system like you are netting about 0 calories per day (give or take). Of course it's going to tell you that you'll lose if you are netting 0. It's just a calculator, it can't tell that you've chosen to change what is included or not included in those values.5 -
beatthebinge3464 wrote: »I didnt want different approaches , I just wanted to know if my approach would work
Doubtful. When people over complicate and are unopen to guidance from others with more experience it usually fails, sometimes a few times, and then hopefully they learn from the experience and start listening8 -
How many calories do you estimate that you burn when you run 5k?3
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With your approach, the calories shown as "net" is your deficit. If you keep that under zero you will lose weight (provided you have calculated your BMR + exercise calories correctly). If your net calories show over zero consistently, you will gain weight. If you are planning your net to be under zero by 125 calories, you will lose about 1/4 pounds a week. When MFP yells at you for having low net calories, it doesn't apply to you because you aren't using MFP the way it was designed to be used. What MFP calculates you would lose doesn't apply to you for the same reason, so it's not a useful number to look at. You will have to manually calculate your deficit to arrive at a prediction.
To lose weight, you need to eat fewer calories than you input for exercise+activity+BMR, so the first number needs to be lower than the second number. The "calories left to eat" part is not relevant to you at all, so don't even look at it.
You are way overcomplicating it, but whatever floats your boat.7 -
In your method as described, the first number is not relevant to anything at all.
The second is what you have eaten and logged
The third is what you have burned for the day from exercise plus being alive (btw you need to multiply BMR by an activity factor to accounting stuff that burns more than BMR but is not formally recorded exercise)
To lose weight the second number has to be smaller than the third!!
The fourth is again not relevant to you.
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MFP tells you you will lose weight because it thinks you have added purposeful exercise only. If it knew you added your BMR too it would've changed its mind.
Personally, I don't think you will be successful with your approach.5 -
This may well be the most confusing post I've ever read on here (and I read a lot of them!) Fwiw, if I'm understanding the OP correctly, I predict a pretty rapid weight gain as those numbers are just ridiculous.11
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This may well be the most confusing post I've ever read on here (and I read a lot of them!) Fwiw, if I'm understanding the OP correctly, I predict a pretty rapid weight gain as those numbers are just ridiculous.
That's what I was thinking. If the OP is eating 3000 calories worth, but only burning 2800 or so... it's not going to be rapid weight gain, but there's going to be weight gain.
And, it's hard to say whether that's actually a 2800-calorie burn. They say they run and cycle, but not how much.3 -
Well, I am down 5.2 pounds6
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I use a Garmin Forerunner 235 for HR tracking and calorie burn0
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See ya all next week for the next weigh in , I guess.7
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Personal Trainer seemed to understand my approach just fine, gave me a big stamp of approval and said that I ate better than he did9
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beatthebinge3464 wrote: »Lets see; when MFP completes my day it completes it off of my info entered. So, its taking into account the 3000 calories I have consumed and the 2800 calories I have burned through exercise and bmr...
Taking those numbers at face value... no that will not lead to weight loss.2 -
beatthebinge3464 wrote: »Well, I am down 5.2 pounds
That's great. This is water weight. Think it through. You're weighing weekly. To lose 5.2 lbs of fat in a week, you'd have to create a deficit of 2600 calories per day. You're eating 3000 calories a day so you'd have to burn 5600 calories every single day. Does that sound right to you?
ETA: It shouldn't because it's not right. Oh and trainers are often idiots. Read the stickies. Educate yourself and you'll realize you're making this infinitely more difficult than it has to be.12 -
beatthebinge3464 wrote: »Personal Trainer seemed to understand my approach just fine, gave me a big stamp of approval and said that I ate better than he did
What was the point in asking what people thought if your PT's opinion seems to be the only one that matters to you?15 -
OP's approach is fine (her numbers may not be, but her approach is fine). She's basically doing TDEE, just not explaining it very well.2
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NextRightThing714 wrote: »beatthebinge3464 wrote: »Well, I am down 5.2 pounds
That's great. This is water weight. Think it through. You're weighing weekly. To lose 5.2 lbs of fat in a week, you'd have to create a deficit of 2600 calories per day. You're eating 3000 calories a day so you'd have to burn 5600 calories every single day. Does that sound right to you?
This. Unless the deficit is that great -- which we know by it isn't, at least based on what the OP said -- it's mostly water.
When you see losses that great, you need to step back and do the math. Did you have a deficit of 2600 calories a day? If you didn't, you didn't lose 5.2 pounds of fat.3 -
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