Confusion and Trying Times

caitlynd5
caitlynd5 Posts: 11 Member
edited November 2024 in Health and Weight Loss
Hi all

I'm looking for a little advice/reassurance.

Have been logging relatively consistently since June and have dropped 14kg (was 15, but given that October has been full of events like birthdays and I've had bad news, I've lapsed a little).

Essentially I started out at around 104kg and due to a knee injury (only now properly diagnosed and I'm waiting for referral to orthopedics) I'm currently limited in exercise due to pain and also restrictions related to the injury - but honestly, at the moment, mainly the pain.

The pain I'm in means I'm on a number of painkillers (ibuprofen being one) which sit better when I've eaten. This was having a big impact on me regularly going over the 1250 calories I'd been set by the app. Being accountable for my own eating habits though I have to say that I've had a milestone birthday and a few other events where I've overindulged and I've done a fair bit of comfort eating alongside that.

I decided the other day to look at my MFP settings to see if I'd set too aggressive a goal and it's set to lose 0.5kg per week so I figure even at my current weight (90kg at 5 foot 3ish) that's a fairly sensible one. Anyway, while checking that out I noticed that even though I was set to not active I had 2 workouts listed at around 40 minutes each (just in the Goals section) from when I was doing regular classes. I removed these and this was the only adjustment I made in those settings.

When I went back to the diary page my allowance was now set to 1440 - which is lovely as those extra calories mean a lot, but I'm slightly confused (could be my misunderstanding of the app) that doing no exercise and being a lower weight has added those calories on?

I'm conscious that I need to get accountable again and particularly if surgery is on the cards I need to be super careful with my weight but I just wanted general advice I guess - is my app right in adding those calories on? Is anyone else trying to lose while injured?

Sorry for the essay and thanks in advance!

Replies

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,883 Member
    The planned exercise settings in MFP have zero impact on the calorie goal MFP gives you: They only affect some motivational messaging in the app about how you're doing against those exercise goals.

    I have no idea why your calories went up, but anytime you do resetting of any values in your profile, it can re-evaluate your calorie goal and give you a new one. Usually, that results in calories going down, not up, but I suspect the answer still is that some other value changed, and it re-evaluated upward on account of that.

    It wouldn't be the exercise goal: If that's all that changes, goal calories stay the same.
  • caitlynd5
    caitlynd5 Posts: 11 Member
    Thank you so much for your reply. I thought that it was more likely to lower the limit rather than raise it. Would you say I'm safe to stay on the 1440 now, or should I aim lower to be sure?
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,883 Member
    caitlynd5 wrote: »
    Thank you so much for your reply. I thought that it was more likely to lower the limit rather than raise it. Would you say I'm safe to stay on the 1440 now, or should I aim lower to be sure?

    Since it appears you have several months of logging data, I'd suggest you use that to estimate your maintenance calories (each kg lost = about 7700 calories). Take your kg lost, multiply by 7700 calories, divide the result by the number of days. Add that to your average daily intake for your approximate maintenance calories (which includes your exercise).

    If you're stopping exercise, knock your average daily exercise off that to get an estimated non-exercise maintenance number. Subtract 1000 off that to lose a pound a week. If that's too low to be achievable, lose slower (eat more, but less than the estimated maintenance number).

    (Someone will speak up, I hope, if I missed a step in the math.)

    Or, if that's a scary amount of arithmetic, try really sticking to the 1440 for around 6 weeks, then see what your average loss rate is over that time period.

    If you're healing, consider going to a very slow loss rate, or even maintenance calories for a bit. Healing requires nutrition and calories, and should be priority #1.
  • caitlynd5
    caitlynd5 Posts: 11 Member
    Thank you very much for your help on this. I think I'll try keeping on the 1440 for a period of time and see how it goes (I fear maths haha). I'm adding some very low impact swimming so hopefully that will offset. I don't intend to eat back exercise calories as I'm hardly going at any speed.

    I've been advised to drop more weight as any potential surgery would be better at a lower weight.

    Thank you so much again for your advice.
  • TrishSeren
    TrishSeren Posts: 587 Member
    Side note: Well done on losing 14kg!
  • caitlynd5
    caitlynd5 Posts: 11 Member
    Thank you! Need to get motivated again to hopefully drop 20kg more.
  • caitlynd5
    caitlynd5 Posts: 11 Member
    Thank you - I'm a vegan so protein tends to be a concern. The type of surgery would mean I'd be unable to put weight on one leg for some time so definitely no scales which is probably a good thing.

    I was wondering about calories while healing because I'd be considerably less active than I am now, but I didn't really consider that healing would require extra calories, but it makes sense. Maybe I'll set my goals to maintain during that period. I've been advised by physio to drop more weight in advance so can be a bit more strict with myself for now.
  • nutmegoreo
    nutmegoreo Posts: 15,532 Member
    edited October 2018
    caitlynd5 wrote: »
    Thank you - I'm a vegan so protein tends to be a concern. The type of surgery would mean I'd be unable to put weight on one leg for some time so definitely no scales which is probably a good thing.

    I was wondering about calories while healing because I'd be considerably less active than I am now, but I didn't really consider that healing would require extra calories, but it makes sense. Maybe I'll set my goals to maintain during that period. I've been advised by physio to drop more weight in advance so can be a bit more strict with myself for now.

    You may want to play around with some vegan protein sources. I'm not vegan or even vegetarian myself, so it's not a concern for me, but beans and lentils are pretty good, seitan, tofu, tempeh, and vegan protein powders (I like the vega1 all-in-one nutritional shake, it's less chalky than the pea protein powders that I've tried, and does contain some fibre, omega 3, and a nice range of vitamins and some minerals - it's flavour can be a bit strong, but works well if you throw in some fruit).

    ETA: of course this may all be information you already know, so just ignore if it's nothing new. I'm not trying to sound condescending.
  • caitlynd5
    caitlynd5 Posts: 11 Member
    Not condescending at all - thank you. Something like a shake could be really useful during recovery for sure
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