Am I losing too fast again?
Replies
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The average is fine if you also have the total number of exercise calories for the same period. I can also work with daily numbers if you accidentally forget.
Hardcore is a matter of perspective.
I am not in a position yet to burn 600+ calories in a day.
Okay, thank you!!
Once I replace my tracker (by mid-October at the latest) I will have a known calories-out measure. This is why I wanted to get one sooner, but I'm so overwhelmed with trying to research and compare and keep the price reasonable (ending up on a rabbit hole of $300+ devices and then being like 'this is not actually feasible please stop').
Without work making it necessary, I wouldn't have. I am not sure I am technically in that position either, given my knee issues. It flared up really badly the 2nd and 3rd weeks of August. I was supposed to limit my activity to 20min of slow walking once a week and 20 min of swimming & cycling 3x. That didn't happen lol.
And 600 sounds like a ton, I don't think I'm doing that?? But maybe that's what the adjustment was giving me for a bit. A fellow MFP-er mentioned that my tracker and MFP were disagreeing on my BMR or something like that, because the adjustment seemed ridiculously massive but then when I looked through the backlog of what it was giving me it actually more or less accounted for my speed of loss. That's why I'm considering sticking with that brand...even though they don't have the HR monitors and other fancy features. (I don't know what to do on that side of things lol my brain is breaking a little bit XD)0 -
You have several days listed at 600+ calories from exercise.
I don't have a tracker yet but I have been casually starting to shop for one. Until you get one though I think comparing your projected deficit loss against the actual loss along with monitoring your rate of loss will tell you most of what you need to know so no pressure.1 -
@annpt77 For my part I think I made it clear that some people are in between activity levels (or more accurately the multipliers used on the BMR) which is the same as saying that even if you pick the correct activity level you might still need to adjust.
(more snipped by responder)
This is not what I'm saying. The estimates can just be incorrect for an individual.
It's not about in between, or misunderstanding, or anything. It's very rare, but I'm talking about being out toward a tail of the implicit bell curve. It's rare, but it happens.
There are two reasons I harp on this:
1. I see people, especially new people, get criticized, ridiculed even, for reporting unusual results. I think it's important to make sure people have everything set up correctly, and are thinking about the whole problem correctly, and are being meticulously accurate and not overlooking any intake or activity, because those are the common problems.
There's also a possible very uncommon problem: The calculators are plain wrong for a person, because they're statistically unusual. (Something explains this, but it's something not captured by these statitical models.) People for whom this is true are more likely to post "can't lose" or "losing too fast" posts. They - and people who mistakenly believe they're like them - don't need to be ridiculed as thinking they're "defying physics" because a large mass of people on MFP are bad at statistics.
2. I believe I am one of those people, on the lucky side of the statistics.
MFP estimates me at around 1500 net, because I'm somewhere in the sedentary to lightly active range outside of intentional exercise. I'm retired; my non-exercise hobbies are sedentary. I recently got a (well regarded) all-day activity tracker. It says I'm averaging around 6600 steps daily. I actually maintain in real life, tracking meticulously, in the 2100-ish range (net), eating back all of my exercise calories, for a gross intake in the mid-2000s. I'm borderline sedentary/lightly active, but I have MFP set on active. That gets its estimate up into the correct general region, but still results in it thinking I'll gain at a calorie level that, if sustained, will have me losing a pound a month or slightly less. When I first started losing weight here (too fast, BTW ), I couldn't believe what I was seeing, and thought it would change at some point. It didn't. I'm in year 3 of maintenance. MFP underestimates my calorie needs significantly. I don't know why (not that I haven't tried to figure it out, short of an expensive RMR test).
It happens, but only very rarely. I have to believe there are people who are rare on the lower-than-expected end, as well (I've watched one very closely among my MFP friends, for example, and I'm pretty confident she's tracking accurately).
Sometimes the estimates are just wrong. It's one of quite a few reasons - some of which you mentioned - why people need to pay attention to results, and adjust.
Apologies, OP, while this post was intended to further explain some of my statements above, the post itself goes beyond being on topic for the thread - I'm sorry for the hijack.4 -
@annpt77 So you picked the correct activity level for yourself and then you were forced to adjust. I think I might have said that somewhere.
I understand that you want to make the distinction and you are absolutely correct but I am not sure how much it matters. If you think your CI is fairly correct and you are losing faster or slower than expected you have to consider that the CO part of your equation is wrong.
If you want to correct me again please do. I have too much platonic internet message board love for you to debate too much.
5 -
You have several days listed at 600+ calories from exercise.
I don't have a tracker yet but I have been casually starting to shop for one. Until you get one though I think comparing your projected deficit loss against the actual loss along with monitoring your rate of loss will tell you most of what you need to know so no pressure.
Yes, that was definitely the tracker - I went back and looked. Thank you! I do feel a bit of pressure because it’s an Unknown right? But I also want to make a good decision so I’m trying to not rush.1 -
what app is that you are using?0
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@annpt77 For my part I think I made it clear that some people are in between activity levels (or more accurately the multipliers used on the BMR) which is the same as saying that even if you pick the correct activity level you might still need to adjust.
(more snipped by responder)
This is not what I'm saying. The estimates can just be incorrect for an individual.
It's not about in between, or misunderstanding, or anything. It's very rare, but I'm talking about being out toward a tail of the implicit bell curve. It's rare, but it happens.
There are two reasons I harp on this:
1. I see people, especially new people, get criticized, ridiculed even, for reporting unusual results. I think it's important to make sure people have everything set up correctly, and are thinking about the whole problem correctly, and are being meticulously accurate and not overlooking any intake or activity, because those are the common problems.
There's also a possible very uncommon problem: The calculators are plain wrong for a person, because they're statistically unusual. (Something explains this, but it's something not captured by these statitical models.) People for whom this is true are more likely to post "can't lose" or "losing too fast" posts. They - and people who mistakenly believe they're like them - don't need to be ridiculed as thinking they're "defying physics" because a large mass of people on MFP are bad at statistics.
2. I believe I am one of those people, on the lucky side of the statistics.
MFP estimates me at around 1500 net, because I'm somewhere in the sedentary to lightly active range outside of intentional exercise. I'm retired; my non-exercise hobbies are sedentary. I recently got a (well regarded) all-day activity tracker. It says I'm averaging around 6600 steps daily. I actually maintain in real life, tracking meticulously, in the 2100-ish range (net), eating back all of my exercise calories, for a gross intake in the mid-2000s. I'm borderline sedentary/lightly active, but I have MFP set on active. That gets its estimate up into the correct general region, but still results in it thinking I'll gain at a calorie level that, if sustained, will have me losing a pound a month or slightly less. When I first started losing weight here (too fast, BTW ), I couldn't believe what I was seeing, and thought it would change at some point. It didn't. I'm in year 3 of maintenance. MFP underestimates my calorie needs significantly. I don't know why (not that I haven't tried to figure it out, short of an expensive RMR test).
It happens, but only very rarely. I have to believe there are people who are rare on the lower-than-expected end, as well (I've watched one very closely among my MFP friends, for example, and I'm pretty confident she's tracking accurately).
Sometimes the estimates are just wrong. It's one of quite a few reasons - some of which you mentioned - why people need to pay attention to results, and adjust.
Apologies, OP, while this post was intended to further explain some of my statements above, the post itself goes beyond being on topic for the thread - I'm sorry for the hijack.
Oh I don’t mind, I like reading these ideas. Never apologize for explaining more things 😁
What you talk about is part of why I’m tempted to stick with the Misfit brand of tracker. It seemed like it was doing a good job of accounting for my rate of loss. I don’t know if another brand will be as accurate as they are all working on different algorithms. And that one seemed to work for me.0 -
I've read that a small percentage of people who are on carb restrictive diets experience hair loss. I took a quick look through your diary and noticed you're not on a very low carb diet but everyone is different and maybe you're ~100 net carbs a day isn't enough. You could try adding in some non-bread/non-sugar complex carbs like oatmeal and brown rice? It will take your body time to regrow your hair so don't worry!
https://www.dietdoctor.com/can-low-carb-diets-result-in-hair-loss0 -
@annpt77 So you picked the correct activity level for yourself and then you were forced to adjust. I think I might have said that somewhere.
I understand that you want to make the distinction and you are absolutely correct but I am not sure how much it matters. If you think your CI is fairly correct and you are losing faster or slower than expected you have to consider that the CO part of your equation is wrong.
If you want to correct me again please do. I have too much platonic internet message board love for you to debate too much.
Obviously, the CI or the CO is somehow wrong, because at a high level those are the only relevant variables . . . but not necessarily because someone has misunderstood or incorrectly defined the inputs to a calorie "calculator", or logged something inaccurately. Putting it another way, the idea that they're misapplying the model is not the only possible explanation (even though misapplication - or "defying physics" is what is sometimes imputed here in MFP threads even after the OP has made decent case that they're doing the right things).
The model (the calculator) itself has limitations. It's taking limited inputs, and producing a singular output, the calorie goal. It's a statistical estimate. You don't have to be "setting it wrong" or "between levels" to get an inaccurate estimate. The model itself can be inaccurate for some n = 1 cases.
It matters because the answer isn't always to send people scurrying back to the calculator to set better inputs, so still implying that the calculator is right, and their experience is wrong. Usually, the problems are in how a person is applying the calorie-counting process, or how they're setting inputs to the calculator, but not always. Sometimes the calculator is just wrong, IMO, for reasons having to do with limitations of the underlying model.
Why is this important? Because helping people understand the tools - what they really do - is important. Over on the maintenance forum, it's not unusual to see "Eating maintenance calories, why am I losing?". If people understood the limitations of the calculators, it would be easier for them to process the idea - the platitude, in this case - that if they're losing weight, they're not eating maintenance calories, no matter what the calculator says.
Or, in our current thread, it can create a little conceptual room for someone to understand that they can be losing faster than expected, even if they used the calculator (MFP settings) correctly. There doesn't have to be a demonstrable reason for it to be true; the calculator can be inaccurate in and of itself. It's not a crystal ball; it's an estimate, subject to error.
Experience, once carefully calibrated, trumps calculator estimates. There doesn't have to be an obvious user error. It can be limitations of the calculator.5 -
I don't think I ever said to adjust the calculator I just said make an adjustment. If a person wants to go back to the calculator and adjust it up like you did that is fine too. I also made it pretty clear (or I thought I did) that it doesn't have to be user error.
The calculator gives people a starting place. I imagine for most people it is probably pretty close to accurate. Everyone should watch their results and make adjustments as needed.
I think keeping things on simple terms is best. If you are eating your maintenance calories and losing weight you are not, in fact, eating your maintenance calories you are eating less. User errors or calculator inadequacies it still comes down to adjusting how much food is eaten or perhaps taking the gas off of exercise if there is a lack of moderation problem there.
Kind of fun watching you go rogue and hijack threads though...5
This discussion has been closed.
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