Calorie intake & activity level?
alid8333
Posts: 233 Member
Curious if not eating enough can really prevent you from not losing weight. I know it can slow the metabolism down. I’m walking anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000 steps a day with a average of around 14,000. But I do also walk a hour a day for exercise. I have my activity level set at sedentary. But doing that it gives me calories of 1200 a day and I can’t eat that low, I start to feel sick and sluggish so I have my calories set at 1330 a day and only eat back 50% or less of my exercise calories. My net average is around 1245.
I think I’m going to start deleting my walking workouts out of MFP. I really only initiate the Apple Watch for a outdoor walk so I can watch my heart rate (I have a heart condition) so I can’t let my heart rate get above 145. Then let MFP calculate my calories based on my steps taken. I’ll only log my indoor walks on the treadmill and when I use my elliptical as exercise. Which I haven’t really been using either since I’ve been walking outside.
On the health app there is resting energy and then there’s active energy. To get my TDEE wouldn’t I add the 2 of them? So that would be between 2050 and 2082. Would I then subtract 500 and get the calories I should be eating so 1582, but just not log any exercise?
I just want to make sure I’m eating enough. I also have Crohn’s disease so it’s important I get all the nutrition I’m suppose to be and not eat way under.
I think I’m going to start deleting my walking workouts out of MFP. I really only initiate the Apple Watch for a outdoor walk so I can watch my heart rate (I have a heart condition) so I can’t let my heart rate get above 145. Then let MFP calculate my calories based on my steps taken. I’ll only log my indoor walks on the treadmill and when I use my elliptical as exercise. Which I haven’t really been using either since I’ve been walking outside.
On the health app there is resting energy and then there’s active energy. To get my TDEE wouldn’t I add the 2 of them? So that would be between 2050 and 2082. Would I then subtract 500 and get the calories I should be eating so 1582, but just not log any exercise?
I just want to make sure I’m eating enough. I also have Crohn’s disease so it’s important I get all the nutrition I’m suppose to be and not eat way under.
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Replies
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if you're not sedentary why would you set your calorie goal to sedentary?
if you want to calculate your TDEE then scooby.com is good.8 -
what is your current weight and goal weight? is it set too agressive for what you are trying lose (i.e. 2lbs a week) - 1200cal isn't really an appropriate goal unless you are elderly, petite or sedentary1
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TavistockToad wrote: »if you're not sedentary why would you set your calorie goal to sedentary?
if you want to calculate your TDEE then scooby.com is good.
Because I wasn’t as active every day and a lot of my steps are taken on my hour walk every day. I was always told on here if you aren’t sure of your activity level to set it to sedentary and eat back a portion of you exercise calories. But now that I’m more active with it being warm out, I’m thinking I’m at least lightly active.
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I was set at sedentary but also get about 15-20k steps a day (includes my exercise) I was eating a portion of my exercise calories back. Initially MFP was giving me 1250 calories a day, plus about 1000 exercise calories from my fitbit excericse calories. I changed my profile to lightly active, now i'm allowed 1460 calories a day and get about 600 exercise calories...I eat half of those so I'm getting about 1600-1700 calories a day0
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deannalfisher wrote: »what is your current weight and goal weight? is it set too agressive for what you are trying lose (i.e. 2lbs a week) - 1200cal isn't really an appropriate goal unless you are elderly, petite or sedentary
I’m 5’3 and I’m 162. Goal is 130. Activity is set to sedentary with losing 1 pound a week it will give me 1200 calories a day. If I choose .5 a week it puts me around 1400 a day. So I chose 1330 calories a day to eat at and eat 50% of my exercise calories back so my average net is around 1245
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deannalfisher wrote: »what is your current weight and goal weight? is it set too agressive for what you are trying lose (i.e. 2lbs a week) - 1200cal isn't really an appropriate goal unless you are elderly, petite or sedentary
I’m 5’3 and I’m 162. Goal is 130. Activity is set to sedentary with losing 1 pound a week it will give me 1200 calories a day. If I chose .5 a week it puts me around 1400 a day. So I chose 1330 calories a day to eat at and eat 50% of my exercise calories back so my average net is around 1245
I am 5'2 166lbs goal is also 130. We should be MFP buddies!0 -
deannalfisher wrote: »what is your current weight and goal weight? is it set too agressive for what you are trying lose (i.e. 2lbs a week) - 1200cal isn't really an appropriate goal unless you are elderly, petite or sedentary
I’m 5’3 and I’m 162. Goal is 130. Activity is set to sedentary with losing 1 pound a week it will give me 1200 calories a day. If I chose .5 a week it puts me around 1400 a day. So I chose 1330 calories a day to eat at and eat 50% of my exercise calories back so my average net is around 1245
I am 5'2 166lbs goal is also 130. We should be MFP buddies!
Sure! Last year I lost 44.2 pounds in 7 months and was down to 152, but gained a little back over the winter and holidays. I had like zero motivation as our winter was horrible this year. So I’m back at it to get the rest of the weight I want off.
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Would you think I would be considered at least lightly active if I walk a hour or more everyday without logging it as exercise, but also doing 20 min of 3mph to 3.5mph on the treadmill and 20min of 4mph on the elliptical (total of 40min) 4 to 5 days a week? I own a business so there is a good couple hours spent at the computer doing invoicing etc, but other then that I try to stay busy. Like I said on average (without working out on the treadmill or elliptical) I’m taking around 14,000 steps. If I workout then it’s closer to 20,0000
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Would you think I would be considered at least lightly active if I walk a hour or more everyday without logging it as exercise, but also doing 20 min of 3mph to 3.5mph on the treadmill and 20min of 4mph on the elliptical (total of 40min) 4 to 5 days a week? I own a business so there is a good couple hours spent at the computer doing invoicing etc, but other then that I try to stay busy. Like I said on average (without working out on the treadmill or elliptical) I’m taking around 14,000 steps. If I workout then it’s closer to 20,000
14000 is more than light active4 -
I work behind a desk during the day, try to get up and move as much as possible and then go to the gym 4-5x a week. I do cardio and weights. I have myself
Set at active. I wonder the same thing though with calorie intake & outtake. I was told the only
Real way to know is have a metabolic test done. I struggle with losing weight, unless I’m in a flare (I have Crohn’s disease too). And the whole increased fiber can cause problems. It’s a struggle for sure!1 -
I work behind a desk during the day, try to get up and move as much as possible and then go to the gym 4-5x a week. I do cardio and weights. I have myself
Set at active. I wonder the same thing though with calorie intake & outtake. I was told the only
Real way to know is have a metabolic test done. I struggle with losing weight, unless I’m in a flare (I have Crohn’s disease too). And the whole increased fiber can cause problems. It’s a struggle for sure!
I think having Crohns makes it much harder to lose weight. I tend to also hold onto water, but it’s probably because I know I don’t drink enough. As much as I try to drink the recommended amount it makes me feel so sickly lol.
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It is challenging, that’s for sure! It’s hard to follow daily recommended amounts of macronutrients (for me anyways). I get the recommended amount of water and then some. I’m using the bathroom a lot, but it does wonders for your skin.0
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Sedentary means mostly seated - that's not 10,000 - 20,000 steps.
For your one hour exercise walk calorie burns are easy to estimate reasonably, no need to take a random percentage off.
Suggest you go back to your settings and make a fresh start with accurate information otherwise you just get a totally inappropriate calorie goal which leads to......."doing that it gives me calories of 1200 a day and I can’t eat that low, I start to feel sick and sluggish..."
You have undercut your activity setting.
You are undercutting your exercise.
To succeed at this the process has to be sustainable, if that means 30 weeks (or more) to lose 30 lbs then that's way better than falling off the wagon because you are making it so hard.
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How long have you been at this, and how fast are you actually losing weight?
How fast you actually lose is the crucial thing, not the estimated calculator values. "Too fast" would be more than 1% of your body weight lost per week on average, and the limit would be lower as you get closer to goal weight (say within 25-50 pounds of goal).
The sometimes-challenging part is that it takes about 4-6 weeks to get a reasonably accurate handle on your average weekly weight loss: The first couple of weeks often have water-weight weirdness, and in premenopausal women the cycle-related water weight fluctuations can make the scale readings misleading until you've been through one full cycle plus a little.
In general, I encourage new weight loss folks to pick a reasonable starting point without agonizing too much about the details, then stay the course for 6 weeks to get their own real-world results data. Only if bad symptoms show up - weakness, fatigue, dizziness, etc. - would I make a major adjustment before the 4-6 week point.
Ideally, our weight loss is just the starting point for permanent life and behavior changes, so it seems reasonable to me to invest the time to do it sensibly.2 -
Sedentary means mostly seated - that's not 10,000 - 20,000 steps.
For your one hour exercise walk calorie burns are easy to estimate reasonably, no need to take a random percentage off.
Suggest you go back to your settings and make a fresh start with accurate information otherwise you just get a totally inappropriate calorie goal which leads to......."doing that it gives me calories of 1200 a day and I can’t eat that low, I start to feel sick and sluggish..."
You have undercut your activity setting.
You are undercutting your exercise.
To succeed at this the process has to be sustainable, if that means 30 weeks (or more) to lose 30 lbs then that's way better than falling off the wagon because you are making it so hard.
I adjusted my settings yesterday from Sedentary to lightly active at losing 1 pound per week which put me at 1470 calories a day. I worked out for 40 min between the treadmill and elliptical which was around 200 calories burned. Then a couple hours later I took my walk, but didn’t initiate my Apple Watch that I was taking a outdoor walk. It gave me a calorie adjustment of 67 for the steps taken outside of exercise. Outside of exercise yesterday I took about 10,500 steps. Which is lower then I normally would get because I started not feeling well. My plan is to only loose 1 pound a week. Definitely not trying to rush it.
Last year I lost 44 pounds in 7 months the first 10 came off VERY fast which I assume was water weight. I worked out for 30 to 40 min 3 to 5 days a week and ate at 1330 calories, BUT I wasn’t as active as I am now. Last year most days I wouldn’t even hit 10k steps even on days I exercised. So I know I was considered sedentary.
Now granted a lot of my steps do come from the walk I take everyday but I enjoy walking. I own a business so I do sit for a couple hours everyday at the computer. But other then that I’m up and down the rest of the day trying to keep myself busy.
I wouldn’t say I’m “active” I’d say I’m at least lightly active. Now days I take my walk around the neighborhood and then take my 4 mile walk at the reservoir I’m getting well over 20k steps even if I don’t exercise that day.
I’ve seen where people will eat at their calorie allowance but then twice a week eat at their maintenance calories as refeed days. What I did last year was have 1 day where I would eat over my allowance that day but made sure I still ate within what calories I had left that week. What was weird is every time I did that I’d wake up the next morning and be a pound of so lighter. Lol.
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I have my activity set as sedentary because the number of steps a day varies immensely. My lowest over the past year has been 5000ish and my highest 70,000ish! I use the app Pacer on my phone (can't justify buying a Fitbit at the moment) which is synced in with MFP. I don't bother where the steps are coming from, be it walking, treadmill or elliptical. They are just lumped together and the extra calories are all added as exercise. I eat as many of them back as I can fit into that body of mine.3
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Sedentary means mostly seated - that's not 10,000 - 20,000 steps.
For your one hour exercise walk calorie burns are easy to estimate reasonably, no need to take a random percentage off.
Suggest you go back to your settings and make a fresh start with accurate information otherwise you just get a totally inappropriate calorie goal which leads to......."doing that it gives me calories of 1200 a day and I can’t eat that low, I start to feel sick and sluggish..."
You have undercut your activity setting.
You are undercutting your exercise.
To succeed at this the process has to be sustainable, if that means 30 weeks (or more) to lose 30 lbs then that's way better than falling off the wagon because you are making it so hard.
I adjusted my settings yesterday from Sedentary to lightly active at losing 1 pound per week which put me at 1470 calories a day. I worked out for 40 min between the treadmill and elliptical which was around 200 calories burned. Then a couple hours later I took my walk, but didn’t initiate my Apple Watch that I was taking a outdoor walk. It gave me a calorie adjustment of 67 for the steps taken outside of exercise. Outside of exercise yesterday I took about 10,500 steps. Which is lower then I normally would get because I started not feeling well. My plan is to only loose 1 pound a week. Definitely not trying to rush it.
Last year I lost 44 pounds in 7 months the first 10 came off VERY fast which I assume was water weight. I worked out for 30 to 40 min 3 to 5 days a week and ate at 1330 calories, BUT I wasn’t as active as I am now. Last year most days I wouldn’t even hit 10k steps even on days I exercised. So I know I was considered sedentary.
Now granted a lot of my steps do come from the walk I take everyday but I enjoy walking. I own a business so I do sit for a couple hours everyday at the computer. But other then that I’m up and down the rest of the day trying to keep myself busy.
I wouldn’t say I’m “active” I’d say I’m at least lightly active. Now days I take my walk around the neighborhood and then take my 4 mile walk at the reservoir I’m getting well over 20k steps even if I don’t exercise that day.
I’ve seen where people will eat at their calorie allowance but then twice a week eat at their maintenance calories as refeed days. What I did last year was have 1 day where I would eat over my allowance that day but made sure I still ate within what calories I had left that week. What was weird is every time I did that I’d wake up the next morning and be a pound of so lighter. Lol.
That (the bolded) isn't unique to you. Speculating slightly, I'd take it as an indication you might be someone who's water weight fluctuations will be more extreme and misleading in an over-restriction scenario. Advice: Avoid over-restricting.
Your recent choice to eat more is a sensible one.
Looking back, I see that I didn't answer your original question: Eating too few calories can slow your weight loss rate beyond what you'd expect, but not stop it entirely (otherwise no one would ever starve to death, as they sadly do, right?). The general mechanism is imperceptible or subtle changes in behavior that result from very low calories affecting energy level, so that workouts are less intense (even though still equally tiring), one makes daily life choices that reduce activity (not walking as much on shopping trips, putting off energy-intensive chores, fixing simpler meals, less active play with the kids, etc.), and that sort of thing. I think you used the word "sluggish"? At a very low calorie level - how low is somewhat individual - energy decreases, therefore NEAT and exercise-intensity burn (not necessarily logged exercise calories) decrease, so TDEE is lowered, so weight loss rate is slower than you'd expect. There can be some BMR down-regulation, but the NEAT/exercise part is probably the bigger deal.
Furthermore, the stress of eating too few calories can lead to whackier water weight retention and fluctuation, which isn't fat gain, but can mask the slower fat loss on the scale temporarily and make people think they're not losing for a period of time.
In that scenario, eating more could lead to better energy, higher NEAT/TDEE, more energetic exercise, and a faster loss rate. Most people in plateaus are undercounting eating, or overcounting exercise, but dysfunctional over-restriction is possible. They'd lose eventually, slowly, but it would be kind of a miserable experience.1 -
Try keeping to a reasonable deficit and evaluating whether your progress normalises over the course of 4 to 6 weeks.
You're pushing yourself to an extreme deficit by pretending you're less active than you are. There is a high likelihood that this is impacting on how vigorously you're actually moving throughout your day.
10K steps is quantified as ACTIVE given the activity factor that MFP assigns to the label "active".
20K steps exceeds VERY ACTIVE by almost a full activity setting as very active tops out for most people by 16K steps.
The above assumes that you don't log your step generating activities by themselves. For most people a brisk walk will yield between 6 and 7,000 steps an hour (that's if you want to keep the walk separate).
I just find it easier to use something like a Fitbit or similar device.
Since someone mentioned PACER, I will mention that, in my experience it gives less calories than Fitbit for the same activity (probably because the phone is not ALWAYS on me, possibly because it doesn't detect with the same granularity). And since it probably goes with PACER (as I would assume apple people would be using different apps) in my own case in particular I find that Google Fit is egregiously low balling my activity level (on average by about 25% given my actual results). Again not always having the phone on me may impact on that.2 -
Try keeping to a reasonable deficit and evaluating whether your progress normalises over the course of 4 to 6 weeks.
You're pushing yourself to an extreme deficit by pretending you're less active than you are. There is a high likelihood that this is impacting on how vigorously you're actually moving throughout your day.
10K steps is quantified as ACTIVE given the activity factor that MFP assigns to the label "active".
20K steps exceeds VERY ACTIVE by almost a full activity setting as very active tops out for most people by 16K steps.
The above assumes that you don't log your step generating activities by themselves. For most people a brisk walk will yield between 6 and 7,000 steps an hour (that's if you want to keep the walk separate).
I just find it easier to use something like a Fitbit or similar device.
Since someone mentioned PACER, I will mention that, in my experience it gives less calories than Fitbit for the same activity (probably because the phone is not ALWAYS on me, possibly because it doesn't detect with the same granularity). And since it probably goes with PACER (as I would assume apple people would be using different apps) in my own case in particular I find that Google Fit is egregiously low balling my activity level (on average by about 25% given my actual results). Again not always having the phone on me may impact on that.
I have a Apple Watch that syncs over my steps and exercise. So far today I’m at 13K steps but that also includes about 4000 steps from my workout this morning.
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