Before MFP I was in a huge calorie deficit?
ArmouredMuscle
Posts: 64 Member
Long post alert!
Ok, I've been using MFP for about 2 weeks now. My weight goal is set to maintain. I'm not doing any extra fitness or activity now than before I started tracking my food on MFP. I'm concerned that what I used to eat before MFP and my exercise levels I was in around a 1000 calorie deficit daily! (on average). I.e. I added up my meals and snacks I have on a regular basis at about 2500 cal which is fine for a light activity level. However, I'm burning about an extra 800-1400 cal a day through exercise, cycling to work and walking my dog. I've been at this routine for about 6 months, so my question is why am I not as skinny as paper (not that I want to be)?
Another MFP user pointed out that my set activity level takes into account my daily steps (generally), which were being added onto my TDEE. I've now set my activity level to sedentary but left the step count on to have a better accuracy on days where I do end up at a desk. That looks to shave about 300 cal off on inactive days. On active days my step count should make up the difference. I've checked my exercise recording and nothing has repeated. My steps on MFP are out by about 2000 steps so I do factor in to take off around 100 cal from the estimate. This sits me at 3500 cal total consumption needed a day. Taking what I usually consumed before using MFP (2500 cal). My past daily deficit was around 1000 cal a day! This could explain why I was ALWAYS hungry and often tired but I'm no skinny fella either, although I'm naturally an Ectomorph.
To the present day, I'm now eating back my TDEE calories to break even. I do feel a bit better and I'm not so hungry. I plan to leave it another 4 weeks to see whats going on with my body/weight. I've taken body measurements, tracking my weight and looking to get body fat calipers to track my lean muscle mass too. The future will be monitored but it does not explain the past.
P.s I use UA Record from my Samsung watch to track exercise and commutes, and my steps through the watch also via the Samsung S Health App. I keep them all up do date with my weight. As UA Record also takes my heart rate I'd like to think its withing a good estimation of accuracy.
Ok, I've been using MFP for about 2 weeks now. My weight goal is set to maintain. I'm not doing any extra fitness or activity now than before I started tracking my food on MFP. I'm concerned that what I used to eat before MFP and my exercise levels I was in around a 1000 calorie deficit daily! (on average). I.e. I added up my meals and snacks I have on a regular basis at about 2500 cal which is fine for a light activity level. However, I'm burning about an extra 800-1400 cal a day through exercise, cycling to work and walking my dog. I've been at this routine for about 6 months, so my question is why am I not as skinny as paper (not that I want to be)?
Another MFP user pointed out that my set activity level takes into account my daily steps (generally), which were being added onto my TDEE. I've now set my activity level to sedentary but left the step count on to have a better accuracy on days where I do end up at a desk. That looks to shave about 300 cal off on inactive days. On active days my step count should make up the difference. I've checked my exercise recording and nothing has repeated. My steps on MFP are out by about 2000 steps so I do factor in to take off around 100 cal from the estimate. This sits me at 3500 cal total consumption needed a day. Taking what I usually consumed before using MFP (2500 cal). My past daily deficit was around 1000 cal a day! This could explain why I was ALWAYS hungry and often tired but I'm no skinny fella either, although I'm naturally an Ectomorph.
To the present day, I'm now eating back my TDEE calories to break even. I do feel a bit better and I'm not so hungry. I plan to leave it another 4 weeks to see whats going on with my body/weight. I've taken body measurements, tracking my weight and looking to get body fat calipers to track my lean muscle mass too. The future will be monitored but it does not explain the past.
P.s I use UA Record from my Samsung watch to track exercise and commutes, and my steps through the watch also via the Samsung S Health App. I keep them all up do date with my weight. As UA Record also takes my heart rate I'd like to think its withing a good estimation of accuracy.
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Replies
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How do you estimate an exercise burn of 800-1400 calories? It's a lot.
Your weight will always reflect your calories in/calories out.16 -
kommodevaran wrote: »How do you estimate an exercise burn of 800-1400 calories? It's a lot.
Your weight will always reflect your calories in/calories out.
Through UA Record on my watch with HR and steps also through my watch. For example yesterday I burned 1409 cal, through steps, commuting on my bicycle, my hour long callisthenics session and about an hour walking my dog.
Granted I can take the 353 cal off from my steps as they are already taken into account through my set activity level. That still leaves 1056 cal.0 -
I doubt you are burning that many calories through exercise. You are also probably eating more than you think.23
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If you find out what caused it please let me know since i have had similar problem in the past.2
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It's probably a combination of underestimating/undercounting the calories you are consuming and overestimating the amount of calories burned through exercise. I think that it's good that you set your MFP to sedentary, and then I'd probably search a few different sites to get various calculations of calorie burn. I'm not familiar with the Samsung platform, but know that my FitBit is really pretty accurate, so I'm not sure if it's the watch overestimating or what.3
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I believe UA Record to overestimate calories burned. I also have a Samsung watch. I noticed that when I record an activity (running or CrossFit) I will get a significantly different reading of calories burned. For example, if I record a CrossFit class using the built in Samsung health app, I burn on average 250-300 calories per class. Using the UA record app, it says I burn 450-550 calories per class. Pretty significant. Based on my own results, I find the Samsung health calorie burned to be much more accurate for me.3
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MalkinMagic71 wrote: »I doubt you are burning that many calories through exercise. You are also probably eating more than you think.
^^ this1 -
Cassandraw3 wrote: »I believe UA Record to overestimate calories burned. I also have a Samsung watch. I noticed that when I record an activity (running or CrossFit) I will get a significantly different reading of calories burned. For example, if I record a CrossFit class using the built in Samsung health app, I burn on average 250-300 calories per class. Using the UA record app, it says I burn 450-550 calories per class. Pretty significant. Based on my own results, I find the Samsung health calorie burned to be much more accurate for me.
I found the opposite with the s health. My 4 min dteady bike ride would come in at 80 cal with Samsung but with UA is 30. While Samsung said that 10 mins of balls out rowing , sweat dripping off me and struggling to breath was on 40 cal?!? Hence I now us UA.
I'm struggling to think my food is off as I'm weighing everything. Plus my daily meals are not any different now than before.
As for dog walking all I can think is that my steps are being tracked AND in tracking the walk specifically through UA so I'm doubling up there.
Even taking off the dog walks and allowing a factor of say, 200 cal for app exercise over estimation I was still 500-600 short a day0 -
This app, the watch, UA Record are all just estimates to help you understand your personal energy balance and guide you to achieve whatever your personal goal is.
You weight, the mirror, a tape or calipers are, overtime, what really matters. The mid and long term trends are what's really important right?
If you were maintaining before on the same food and activity levels then you'll still maintain no matter what MFP is telling you.
If you really were in a daily 1000kcal deficit you'd be dropping weight very rapidly. I'd hazard a guess that if you add 1000kcals per day to what you were doing before you'll gain pretty quickly too.6 -
If you have both apps connected, then yes you can get duplicate entries.
If you weren't tracking for the last 6 months and are wondering why you didn't lose any weight, then either you were not burning as much as you thought you were eating more than you thought, or both. Without the data to back it up though, it is hard to say. And if you are saying you were always tired before, it is likely you weren't moving as much as you are now though you may not have noticed.3 -
You are either eating more than you think or burning less calories than you think. That's really the only explanation. CICO is what it's all about. I'm sure now that you are tracking more carefully you will see a change. I'd invest in a food scale if you want true measurement.4
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CookieVenator wrote: »
I found the opposite with the s health. My 4 min dteady bike ride would come in at 80 cal with Samsung but with UA is 30. While Samsung said that 10 mins of balls out rowing , sweat dripping off me and struggling to breath was on 40 cal?!? Hence I now us UA.
At steady state cardio no matter how "balls out" you are going there is going to be some threshold of burn. The 4 minutes burning 80 cals is just nonsense, sorry. The truth is obviously somewhere in the middle, but you can't just "hence I now use" the one you prefer the count of or we'd all use the very generous gym machine readouts and enjoy our extra hundreds of cals each day. Anecdotally, to maybe help you narrow down, working at a good clip but not "balls out" I burn 50-60 cals max every ten minutes on the rower, elliptical, brisk jog. I get less cals for the stationary bikes. Using these numbers I lost my weight and maintained it for 18 months or so now.7 -
CookieVenator wrote: »kommodevaran wrote: »How do you estimate an exercise burn of 800-1400 calories? It's a lot.
Your weight will always reflect your calories in/calories out.
Through UA Record on my watch with HR and steps also through my watch. For example yesterday I burned 1409 cal, through steps, commuting on my bicycle, my hour long callisthenics session and about an hour walking my dog.
Granted I can take the 353 cal off from my steps as they are already taken into account through my set activity level. That still leaves 1056 cal.
I don't know how to ask this gently... Are you considerably overweight? Because I ran yesterday + walking commute + daily living activities, and even I only managed to hit ~500 in intentional exercise. Even on half marathon race days, my intentional activity comes to only 1300.9 -
collectingblues wrote: »CookieVenator wrote: »kommodevaran wrote: »How do you estimate an exercise burn of 800-1400 calories? It's a lot.
Your weight will always reflect your calories in/calories out.
Through UA Record on my watch with HR and steps also through my watch. For example yesterday I burned 1409 cal, through steps, commuting on my bicycle, my hour long callisthenics session and about an hour walking my dog.
Granted I can take the 353 cal off from my steps as they are already taken into account through my set activity level. That still leaves 1056 cal.
I don't know how to ask this gently... Are you considerably overweight? Because I ran yesterday + walking commute + daily living activities, and even I only managed to hit ~500 in intentional exercise. Even on half marathon race days, my intentional activity comes to only 1300.
Look at his profile picture. He's not even trying to loose weight. He says above he's trying to maintain. Actually he implies he is maintaining and has been for some time.
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Stockholm_Andy wrote: »collectingblues wrote: »CookieVenator wrote: »kommodevaran wrote: »How do you estimate an exercise burn of 800-1400 calories? It's a lot.
Your weight will always reflect your calories in/calories out.
Through UA Record on my watch with HR and steps also through my watch. For example yesterday I burned 1409 cal, through steps, commuting on my bicycle, my hour long callisthenics session and about an hour walking my dog.
Granted I can take the 353 cal off from my steps as they are already taken into account through my set activity level. That still leaves 1056 cal.
I don't know how to ask this gently... Are you considerably overweight? Because I ran yesterday + walking commute + daily living activities, and even I only managed to hit ~500 in intentional exercise. Even on half marathon race days, my intentional activity comes to only 1300.
Look at his profile picture. He's not even trying to loose weight. He says above he's trying to maintain. Actually he implies he is maintaining and has been for some time.
Yup -- and that's why I'm side-eyeing that 1400 calorie burn from exercise.4 -
MelanieCN77 wrote: »CookieVenator wrote: »
I found the opposite with the s health. My 4 min dteady bike ride would come in at 80 cal with Samsung but with UA is 30. While Samsung said that 10 mins of balls out rowing , sweat dripping off me and struggling to breath was on 40 cal?!? Hence I now us UA.
At steady state cardio no matter how "balls out" you are going there is going to be some threshold of burn. The 4 minutes burning 80 cals is just nonsense, sorry. The truth is obviously somewhere in the middle, but you can't just "hence I now use" the one you prefer the count of or we'd all use the very generous gym machine readouts and enjoy our extra hundreds of cals each day. Anecdotally, to maybe help you narrow down, working at a good clip but not "balls out" I burn 50-60 cals max every ten minutes on the rower, elliptical, brisk jog. I get less cals for the stationary bikes. Using these numbers I lost my weight and maintained it for 18 months or so now.
If using a Concept 2 rower, use the calories from the rower, and the calorie adjustment calculator at https://www.concept2.com/indoor-rowers/training/calculators/calorie-calculator to adjust for bodyweight (machine assumes 175 or something like that). This is one of the few machines that's likely to be somewhat close in estimating calories.
FWIW, rowing 2K in 9:07.3 (2:16.8 split) at 130 pounds is good for about 105 calories, for me. I grant that's not "balls out" because li'l ol' ladies don't have balls, but 100+ calories in 10 minutes for a moderately strong person wouldn't be crazy extreme at all. My splits aren't that great. They'd be terrible for a young male.
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CookieVenator wrote: »Cassandraw3 wrote: »I believe UA Record to overestimate calories burned. I also have a Samsung watch. I noticed that when I record an activity (running or CrossFit) I will get a significantly different reading of calories burned. For example, if I record a CrossFit class using the built in Samsung health app, I burn on average 250-300 calories per class. Using the UA record app, it says I burn 450-550 calories per class. Pretty significant. Based on my own results, I find the Samsung health calorie burned to be much more accurate for me.
I found the opposite with the s health. My 4 min dteady bike ride would come in at 80 cal with Samsung but with UA is 30. While Samsung said that 10 mins of balls out rowing , sweat dripping off me and struggling to breath was on 40 cal?!? Hence I now us UA.
I'm struggling to think my food is off as I'm weighing everything. Plus my daily meals are not any different now than before.
As for dog walking all I can think is that my steps are being tracked AND in tracking the walk specifically through UA so I'm doubling up there.
Even taking off the dog walks and allowing a factor of say, 200 cal for app exercise over estimation I was still 500-600 short a day
Are you sure you are using accurate database entries? Some are extremely off.1 -
Inaccurate logging probably3
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shadow2soul wrote: »CookieVenator wrote: »Cassandraw3 wrote: »I believe UA Record to overestimate calories burned. I also have a Samsung watch. I noticed that when I record an activity (running or CrossFit) I will get a significantly different reading of calories burned. For example, if I record a CrossFit class using the built in Samsung health app, I burn on average 250-300 calories per class. Using the UA record app, it says I burn 450-550 calories per class. Pretty significant. Based on my own results, I find the Samsung health calorie burned to be much more accurate for me.
I found the opposite with the s health. My 4 min dteady bike ride would come in at 80 cal with Samsung but with UA is 30. While Samsung said that 10 mins of balls out rowing , sweat dripping off me and struggling to breath was on 40 cal?!? Hence I now us UA.
I'm struggling to think my food is off as I'm weighing everything. Plus my daily meals are not any different now than before.
As for dog walking all I can think is that my steps are being tracked AND in tracking the walk specifically through UA so I'm doubling up there.
Even taking off the dog walks and allowing a factor of say, 200 cal for app exercise over estimation I was still 500-600 short a day
Are you sure you are using accurate database entries? Some are extremely off.
I checked a couple of the food entry stats against that on the packet and they were ok. Though I've not checked every packet as the few I did check were correct.1 -
I love my Garmin, but it grossly overestimated the calories burned from non-exercise steps. By a lot. I invite their calculation and use weight * miles * .325 (I’ve seen .3 and .35 so I went for the happy medium.) it’s one of the reasons my diary is private; at the end of the day, because of all the steps calories, plus other exercise (I get at least 10,000 a day and log intentional exercise) my net looks ridiculously low and people commented).
I’ve noticed it’s more off when I get more steps earlier in the day. And the calories burned through exercise seem spot on as I lost a lot and have been maintaining for a few years. So, I’m obviously not with a negative net at the end of the day.
I do like keeping everything connected, so use mentally figure out my actual deficit using the formula plus my exercise calories.1 -
if you were in a 1000 calorie deficit you would be losing 2lbs a week. if you arent losing you arent in a deficit. even though weight loss isnt linear you would still see losses here and there. also you are matching your food packets to the database entries and they are correct but are you weighing said food? food packaging can be off by up to 20% PER SEERVING. so a 35g serving if not weighed can end uo being 45 or more. my protein bars says 60g on the packet. most are over 62g. some as high as 68g. rarely are they less. same with bread or anything else.
some apps overestimate calories. I know one I used to use would give me 1 calorie every 5 seconds. there was NO way I was working that hard and thats impossible. if Im really working hard and my heart rate is up I know for me I burn about 5-8 calories a minute. now if its low impact and Im not working that hard its like 3-5 calories a minute. I can get 10 calories a minute but thats doing Hiit or something very high impact which I dont do often. even when I biked I would get 8 calories a minute which may not be a lot.0 -
CharlieBeansmomTracey wrote: »if you were in a 1000 calorie deficit you would be losing 2lbs a week.....but are you weighing said food? food packaging can be off by up to 20% PER SEERVING. ....
some apps overestimate calories. I know one I used to use would give me 1 calorie every 5 seconds. there was NO way I was working that hard and thats impossible. if Im really working hard and my heart rate is up I know for me I burn about 5-8 calories a minute. now if its low impact and Im not working that hard its like 3-5 calories a minute. I can get 10 calories a minute but thats doing Hiit or something very high impact which I dont do often. even when I biked I would get 8 calories a minute which may not be a lot.
I didn't monitor myself before (hence I'm doing it now) but on the odd occasion I did weigh myself I was going down in weight however, nothing rapidly.
Yes I do weigh my food and I do appreciate the packets can vary but I'd like to think it averages out over time.
I also take my exercise now with 'a pinch of salt'. However even though my apps could be saying I'm burning more than I think and I've been going to negative calories by 100-200 a day for 2 weeks, I have lost 0.5kg. Despite eating more than I used to.
YES I'm weighing my food, YES I'm checking the figures against the packets, YES I'm making allowances for inaccurate exercise tracking, YES I've lowered my activity level and being aware of double tracking, YES I weigh myself at the same time each week. By my BMI I'm overweight but my profile pic is about a month ago so you tell me (80kg 5ft11" BF% don't know).
BUT if I'm overeating calories and completing my dairy where MFP says I'll gain weight...I've actually lost...albeit not much. I'm beginning to wonder why bother tracking my intake and output?0 -
How long have you been at it (sorry if I missed it in an earlier post)? If you're looking at a maintenance situation, it's a very slow moving thing. You could try logging your weight daily (weigh under the same circumstances each day) and log in an app like Libra (Android) or Happy Scale (Apple). This helps smooth out any loss/gain/maintain trends.
It really does come down to CICO, but it's also not super linear. We don't all have one true weight--it's constantly changing. Keeping an eye on the trend will help you keep your exercise/diet goals in check.1 -
I guess you're right, then. Counting calories doesn't work for you.
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CookieVenator wrote: »CharlieBeansmomTracey wrote: »if you were in a 1000 calorie deficit you would be losing 2lbs a week.....but are you weighing said food? food packaging can be off by up to 20% PER SEERVING. ....
some apps overestimate calories. I know one I used to use would give me 1 calorie every 5 seconds. there was NO way I was working that hard and thats impossible. if Im really working hard and my heart rate is up I know for me I burn about 5-8 calories a minute. now if its low impact and Im not working that hard its like 3-5 calories a minute. I can get 10 calories a minute but thats doing Hiit or something very high impact which I dont do often. even when I biked I would get 8 calories a minute which may not be a lot.
I didn't monitor myself before (hence I'm doing it now) but on the odd occasion I did weigh myself I was going down in weight however, nothing rapidly.
Yes I do weigh my food and I do appreciate the packets can vary but I'd like to think it averages out over time.
I also take my exercise now with 'a pinch of salt'. However even though my apps could be saying I'm burning more than I think and I've been going to negative calories by 100-200 a day for 2 weeks, I have lost 0.5kg. Despite eating more than I used to.
YES I'm weighing my food, YES I'm checking the figures against the packets, YES I'm making allowances for inaccurate exercise tracking, YES I've lowered my activity level and being aware of double tracking, YES I weigh myself at the same time each week. By my BMI I'm overweight but my profile pic is about a month ago so you tell me (80kg 5ft11" BF% don't know).
BUT if I'm overeating calories and completing my dairy where MFP says I'll gain weight...I've actually lost...albeit not much. I'm beginning to wonder why bother tracking my intake and output?
You bother tracking your input to quantify how many more calories you need to eat in order to accomplish your goals.
MFP just gives you a starting estimate, based on very limited input of data in your profile, and on formulas that peg you at the middle of some bell curve for others with those stats in research studies.
You follow that starting estimate for 4-6 weeks, logging carefully, then you know whether and how much you as a unique individual need to adjust to meet your goals.
That's it. It's estimates, approximation, and statistics, not magic or revealed truth.3
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