NEAT Improvement Strategies to Improve Weight Loss

So, January is over, new folks on the path of success are still around, maybe I'll bump this in hope it can be food for February thought. . . .

Enthusiast84 wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

When it comes to devices, they can be a great inspiration/incentive, with step counts, move reminders, and the like . . . but do keep in mind that there are movements that they don't recognize, but that still burn a couple of calories. The devices count a lot of things. Your body counts every little thing.

In your opinion do you think the devise underestimates then?

I think the devices estimate calories, they don't measure them. Heck, I don't just think that, it's objectively true.

As a generality, they could over-estimate or under-estimate, or they could be spot on. For most people, I think a well-designed, well-programmed device will be pretty close, because most people are close to the averages on which the estimates are based: That's the very definition of "average".

The devices will over or underestimate for some people (people further from average, not necessarily for obvious reasons), and be quite far off for a very few. This is just how statistics work.

The devices measure certain things; different devices vary in what they measure. What is measured can include arm movements (wrist based device, using accelerometer); speed/pace/distance (using gps, or motion-based step estimates); heart rate (wrist or chest belt); and elevation change (through altimeter). (Some of those values are measured more accurately, or less accurately, under certain conditions, or by certain devices.)

Some of those measurements correlate somewhat with calorie burn, but even taken in context with perfectly accurate user settings (height, weight, VO2max, maximum heart rate, age, stride length, etc.), they don't perfectly predict calorie burn. They're estimating calorie burn.

I'll give you a couple of examples where these sometimes go wrong, under and over:

Once in a while on here, we see someone report that their fitness tracker thinks they're walking, when in actually they're doing something like playing the piano. The arm movements have been interpreted by the device as walking movements. It's likely that calories will be over-estimated, in that scenario.

We also occasionally see someone say that their fitness tracker thinks they're not walking when they're pushing a grocery cart through a store, because they're not making the arm movements that are typical of walking. It's likely that calories will be under-estimated, in that scenario.

When I made the statement you quoted: " . . . keep in mind that there are movements that they don't recognize, but that still burn a couple of calories. The devices count a lot of things. Your body counts every little thing", I meant to be suggesting that there are things a person can do that are small calorie burners, compared to sitting still, that their fitness tracker won't register.

Any movement burns calories, even if your tracker-wearing arm doesn't move, your body doesn't move through space, your heart rate doesn't go up much, you don't change altitude, etc. If I sat here in my chair all day long, slowly waving my left arm over my head (a dumb thing to do, but just an example), I'd probably burn a few dozen calories in 8 hours. The fitness tracker on my right wrist wouldn't notice.

There's been research suggesting that persistent fidgeting can burn as many as low-hundreds of calories per day. How much of that do you think your fitness tracker would catch?

You go on to write:

I still don't eat all the adjustment back even though I've been in maintenance for a few months. I've lost a few more pounds too during this period. Starting to think now that I should probably eat all the adjustment back to stop losing. Just so frightened of gaining.

Take the number of pounds you've lost in that period, multiply that by 3500. Compare that to the total number of calories from your tracker that you didn't eat back, over the same time period. If the numbers are close, you can eat all of the adjustment. If there's a gap, divide by the number of days to get a rough estimate of how many calories lower or higher than the adjustment you'd have to eat to maintain.

Bonus fact: Some people find that when they go up to actual maintenance calories, they get an energy bump from doing it. After a couple of months, maybe sooner, they start losing slowly again, even at what was previously their actual maintenance calories. So: Go to maintenance calories, as best you can estimate them. If you want, add 50 daily calories once a week or so, and watch what happens, to find your stability point. You don't have to add all of the adjustment at once. Maybe you'll get a bonus TDEE increase; never know until you try.

(Note that you could see a small pseudo-gain on the scale from water balance, if you add an increment of calories, that is bigger than that calorie increase could cause as fat gain. Don't let that water weight adjustment make you think you're gaining fat.)

What's the worst that could happen? If you eat 100 calories more than your actual maintenance calories for a whole month, you will gain less than one pound. You know how to lose a pound.

Best wishes!