Advice Please - Hormones, Aging & Weight, Oh My! (warning - long post)

krael65 wrote: »

PAV8888 wrote: »

Sigh. Not to throw oil on fire and especially when people are having trouble.

OK. Here is the thing. MFP and FITBIT USE THE SAME FORMULAS. The same.

They are both estimating calories spent based on the Mifflin St Jeor RMR equation. They both use MET tables for calculating activity. THE ONLY DIFFERENCE is that MFP assigns four levels of activity ahead of time. Fitbit "detects" your activity and doesn't start with a pre-conceived notion.

The only reason the suggested eating calories would be different is because you deliberately omit activity from MFP or because Fitbit is mis-detecting extra steps or activity or higher activity due to heart beat increases.

So there is functionally no difference and no reason to change the "base method". In fact, assuming that the Fitbit is not broken and you're not engaged in an activity that confuses it, the Fitbit can be considered to be a more CONSISTENT estimator, and this means that it is a better tool to use to do exactly what the OP is proposing to do.. adjust calories based on your body's feedback--without increasing the estimation uncertainties.

So I would stay with the tried and true and worked to date method--use Fitbit TDEE and adjust from that.

Now you said, OP, that you had a weight gain during a vacation and, in fact, your graph shows a major increase sometime after July.

Wow. You're good! Thank you so much for detailing all of this.
Yes - that major spike in early August was the post-vacation weigh in.

In my opinion your answer lies in the pre-vacation weight reduction you did most recently and which was actually quite as fast as any weight loss in your maintenance level situation should be... Looks like you didn't weight from April to May or so... but you should have data from June to July when you weighed regularly before leaving for vacation... and this was definitely a downward trend and with a good enough slope to take you to where you want to be.

In April to May, I was so incredibly frustrated that in fact I only weighed in once a week during that time, instead of daily. So I have data, just weekly not daily. (And I always record my intake - except on vacation).

Assuming your activities now are similar IN NATURE to then... I would eat that small or that large of a deficit as you were eating at that time and re-access my situation a good 4-6 weeks later. I suspect it will be a smaller deficit than you are targeting now.

This is along the lines with what I was thinking. When I look at my graph now, it does show a consistent downward trend pre-vacation. I guess I get spooked now given that I'm already hovering slightly above where I want to be, and I'm finding it more difficult to get back down into my preferred weight zone.

And at the risk of being chastised for omitting information , I did start back up my weight training again at the end of July. I've been around the forums enough to know that adding new exercise can increase water retention.

I really do appreciate all of you seasoned veterans and your insight. It helps to have others review the situation and point out things we may not be able to see.

ginnytez wrote: »

I just sync MFP and my Fitbit. I let steps come over but don't add any extra for them (just whatever credit it gives me). I have read that to do both is to double count.