I'm sorry i still dont get it :(
JK1542020
Posts: 73 Member
Feeling a bit silly but i still dont get it 🤦♀️and i figured id try one last time to see if anyone can try to explain it in a way that sinks in rather then keep trying not knowing what im doing!
So...here is a photo of my diary. I've finished eating and moving for the day. I have it synced with a fitbit. So today i did nearly 9000 steps which includes a workout. I didnt log my workout in mfp because i know i cant "double dip" i just let fitbit adjust my calories.
So as you can see fitbit has added quite a lot of calories to the baseline of 1200. (Yes i know that's too low, its set to that with the assumption i will get a calorie adjustment.)
I've only eaten some of the calorie adjustment back. I generally aim for 1500 cals but as its given me extra ive allowed myself to spill over - is this ok?
My questions i still dont understand the answers to are:
1) in THEORY if i went and ate the full adjustment am i still going to lose 2lbs a week? This doesnt seem right? Do other people do this succesfully?
2) does the fact i have been given a substancial calorie adjustment indicate i should set myself to lightly active and not sedentary? I tried changing it to lightly active and the adjustment went UP!? This makes zero sense to me. Surely if my baseline cals go up my adjustment is less?
3) should i change my activity level? Should i eat these calories back if im hungry? How come before i put my fitbit on mfp only let me have 1200 and now i can have 2200🤔🤔🤔
I'm just confused and dont understand what im seeing or how this works. It's 10pm and in theory i could now eat another 600 cals 🤔🤔 that doesnt seem realistic or likely to make me lose weight....
Please please i know ive posted a million times but i am getting frustrated with myself that i dont understand it .
So...here is a photo of my diary. I've finished eating and moving for the day. I have it synced with a fitbit. So today i did nearly 9000 steps which includes a workout. I didnt log my workout in mfp because i know i cant "double dip" i just let fitbit adjust my calories.
So as you can see fitbit has added quite a lot of calories to the baseline of 1200. (Yes i know that's too low, its set to that with the assumption i will get a calorie adjustment.)
I've only eaten some of the calorie adjustment back. I generally aim for 1500 cals but as its given me extra ive allowed myself to spill over - is this ok?
My questions i still dont understand the answers to are:
1) in THEORY if i went and ate the full adjustment am i still going to lose 2lbs a week? This doesnt seem right? Do other people do this succesfully?
2) does the fact i have been given a substancial calorie adjustment indicate i should set myself to lightly active and not sedentary? I tried changing it to lightly active and the adjustment went UP!? This makes zero sense to me. Surely if my baseline cals go up my adjustment is less?
3) should i change my activity level? Should i eat these calories back if im hungry? How come before i put my fitbit on mfp only let me have 1200 and now i can have 2200🤔🤔🤔
I'm just confused and dont understand what im seeing or how this works. It's 10pm and in theory i could now eat another 600 cals 🤔🤔 that doesnt seem realistic or likely to make me lose weight....
Please please i know ive posted a million times but i am getting frustrated with myself that i dont understand it .
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Replies
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How much weight are you trying to lose? How old are you? What is your height and current weight?
Mfp is designed for you to eat back your exercise calories.5 -
1. MFP is designed for you to eat back your exercise calories. Assuming your estimates of calories in and out are accurate and your initial goal puts you at a deficit to lose two pounds a week, you will still lose two pounds a week eating back your adjustment. Sometimes people find they need to adjust based on their real life results and they wind up just eating a portion of them back.
2. You can choose to change your activity level if you want. Some people like smaller adjustments, some like lower. You'll get to the same endpoint either way. Changing it mid-day may mess with that, that could be why you saw something odd today.
3. The difference with a higher activity level is that you get more of your calories "in advance." So you start the day with more to eat and you begin generating activity adjustments after more activity.6 -
How much weight are you trying to lose? How old are you? What is your height and current weight?
Mfp is designed for you to eat back your exercise calories.
30
5ft 4
214lbs
I need to lose 60lbs
Im not actually trying to lose 2lbs a week and everytime i post i get told off for "trying to lose weight over night " ...that is absolutley not what im aiming for. But i was told on here to set my mfp to sedentary and 1200 so the fitbit wpuld add on that so ive done that. Previous to having the fitbit i had it set to 1500 cals.1 -
How much weight are you trying to lose? How old are you? What is your height and current weight?
Mfp is designed for you to eat back your exercise calories.
30
5ft 4
214lbs
I need to lose 60lbs
Im not actually trying to lose 2lbs a week and everytime i post i get told off for "trying to lose weight over night " ...that is absolutley not what im aiming for. But i was told on here to set my mfp to sedentary and 1200 so the fitbit wpuld add on that so ive done that. Previous to having the fitbit i had it set to 1500 cals.
Remember your activity doesn't include your added exercise.1 -
How much weight are you trying to lose? How old are you? What is your height and current weight?
Mfp is designed for you to eat back your exercise calories.
30
5ft 4
214lbs
I need to lose 60lbs
Im not actually trying to lose 2lbs a week and everytime i post i get told off for "trying to lose weight over night " ...that is absolutley not what im aiming for. But i was told on here to set my mfp to sedentary and 1200 so the fitbit wpuld add on that so ive done that. Previous to having the fitbit i had it set to 1500 cals.
Remember your activity doesn't include your added exercise.
Yes but...does it not?? Because fitbit just keeps counting i didnt take it off to excersise so...it doesnt matter if i worked out or if i just walked a lot through the day its the same thing surely? I didnt change anything to excerises. I didnt log my excersise on mfp.0 -
janejellyroll wrote: »1. MFP is designed for you to eat back your exercise calories. Assuming your estimates of calories in and out are accurate and your initial goal puts you at a deficit to lose two pounds a week, you will still lose two pounds a week eating back your adjustment. Sometimes people find they need to adjust based on their real life results and they wind up just eating a portion of them back.
2. You can choose to change your activity level if you want. Some people like smaller adjustments, some like lower. You'll get to the same endpoint either way. Changing it mid-day may mess with that, that could be why you saw something odd today.
3. The difference with a higher activity level is that you get more of your calories "in advance." So you start the day with more to eat and you begin generating activity adjustments after more activity.
Yes ok this is what i was trying to say above. So i was told before to set everything to like the minimum then if i have a less active day or dont work out i dont over eat. But tbh i know that if it didnt give me a postive adjustment i would still aim for 1500 as below that im starving hungry. I guess i was just really shocked how many extra calories i earned. I thpught id get 100 maybe 200 at most...0 -
How much weight are you trying to lose? How old are you? What is your height and current weight?
Mfp is designed for you to eat back your exercise calories.
30
5ft 4
214lbs
I need to lose 60lbs
Im not actually trying to lose 2lbs a week and everytime i post i get told off for "trying to lose weight over night " ...that is absolutley not what im aiming for. But i was told on here to set my mfp to sedentary and 1200 so the fitbit wpuld add on that so ive done that. Previous to having the fitbit i had it set to 1500 cals.
Remember your activity doesn't include your added exercise.
Yes but...does it not?? Because fitbit just keeps counting i didnt take it off to excersise so...it doesnt matter if i worked out or if i just walked a lot through the day its the same thing surely? I didnt change anything to excerises. I didnt log my excersise on mfp.
It's not distinguishing between the two. It's distinguishing between the activity MFP estimated you'd do as a sedentary person and the activity Fitbit estimated you actually did. Once you move more than estimated for a sedentary person, you begin generating adjustments whether it is intentional exercise or just strolling around.6 -
The first assumption is that integration is working correctly.
When you change settings in the middle of the day, integration may or may not work correctly that same day.
Given the information your gave your Fitbit about your height and weight and what it detected during the day it came up with a personalized estimate based on its detection and on statistical data about what it thinks you burned today.
Then integration takes that figure that Fitbit came up with and creates an adjustment that corrects the estimates that mfp made about your potential daily burn given the information you gave to MFP and the extremely similar to Fitbit statistical estimates that it also uses.
I don't know if you're starting with 2 pounds a week.
The only potential place you might be getting tripped is that 1200 is a minimum floor.
So even though you think you're set to losing 2 pounds a week, when you hit that minimum MFP does not go below and just tells your you're likely to lose at a different rate than what you selected.
I think it's likely that you continue with that lower rate in spite of the Fitbit adjustment which indicates that you could probably have avoided hitting the minimum
Only because of that, I think that you should adjust your activity level on mfp so that your starting calories are above 1200 at the rate you selected to lose, assuming that this is a reasonable rate for you.
you should also have negative calories enabled which will start your day at 1200 and take away some of your calories between 10 p.m. and midnight if you're less active. This last part gets magnified at higher activity levels.
So. Assuming you track your food and your weight in ways that fall broadly close to statistical estimates. Set MFP so you don't hit the 1200 floor. Eat most if not all of your adjustment (less of your adjustment if your heart rate runs high). Evaluate using your expected weight change vs actual weight trend changes over 4-6 weeks and adjust.
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That doesn't sound right to me. I'm 5'3", 176 lbs and am set to sedentary and 1200 allowed calories per day. I'm at 16,000 steps today and have only earned 640 extra calories. So I'm not seeing how 9000 calories (workout or not) could earn you over 1000, even at a higher weight. I don't use a Fitbit though. Just the Samsung Health app step tracker. But I do lose consistently at about a lb and a half per week so I think it's pretty accurate. I would be afraid to eat all of those back if it were me. Maybe eat half of what it says you can and see what your average loss is over about 6 weeks or so and then adjust accordingly?
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9000 steps translated to MFP speak is "active" if anyone needs to double check levels of calories.
16000 is just above very active. Samsung health and MFP integration is currently listed in the bugs section for certain situations so it may be worthwhile running a double check that your level of calories reflects a very active setting (MFP BMR * 1.8 if you don't want to mess with your actual settings to calculate)
Since you're set to 1200 you may want to consider what I wrote above where being at the floor may be keeping to a smaller deficit even after it is obvious that you could have created the larger deficit without hitting the floor.4 -
janejellyroll wrote: »1. MFP is designed for you to eat back your exercise calories. Assuming your estimates of calories in and out are accurate and your initial goal puts you at a deficit to lose two pounds a week, you will still lose two pounds a week eating back your adjustment. Sometimes people find they need to adjust based on their real life results and they wind up just eating a portion of them back.
2. You can choose to change your activity level if you want. Some people like smaller adjustments, some like lower. You'll get to the same endpoint either way. Changing it mid-day may mess with that, that could be why you saw something odd today.
3. The difference with a higher activity level is that you get more of your calories "in advance." So you start the day with more to eat and you begin generating activity adjustments after more activity.
Yes ok this is what i was trying to say above. So i was told before to set everything to like the minimum then if i have a less active day or dont work out i dont over eat. But tbh i know that if it didnt give me a postive adjustment i would still aim for 1500 as below that im starving hungry. I guess i was just really shocked how many extra calories i earned. I thpught id get 100 maybe 200 at most...
So you have a choice ( a few choices actually. )
First of all, even Fitbit is just an educated guess based on the amount of movement and your settings.
So.
You could try accepting that the Fitbit is right and go ahead and eat the 2236 calories it is suggesting you eat. Doesn't sound that unreasonable of an amount to me.
Or
You could ignore the Fitbit entirely and you could stay at what you want, 1500 plus some random number for exercise. I would think you could easily be set at "lightly active" if you used ONLY MFP's calculation.* That would put you at probably around 1500-1700. Then any additional exercise ( say, 300-400 for a good hour of LOGGED exercise) would top you up at around 1900-2100 ish.
*edit to say* I didn't see you said 9000 steps. If you decide to use JUST MFP choose Active. That would put you at almost exactly where the Fitbit has you, your calories before exercise would be higher than 1500, I think. Probably closer to 1700 and then 300-400 more for exercise. So as you can see, very close to Fitbit.
There are other options, of course, but I would suggest you pick one of these two and stick with it for 4-6 weeks. With good food logging you would know one way or the other which is closer. Fitbit may be over or under-estimating. MFP could be doing the same.
The only way to know is to run the experiment yourself. We can't decide for you.4 -
cmriverside wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »1. MFP is designed for you to eat back your exercise calories. Assuming your estimates of calories in and out are accurate and your initial goal puts you at a deficit to lose two pounds a week, you will still lose two pounds a week eating back your adjustment. Sometimes people find they need to adjust based on their real life results and they wind up just eating a portion of them back.
2. You can choose to change your activity level if you want. Some people like smaller adjustments, some like lower. You'll get to the same endpoint either way. Changing it mid-day may mess with that, that could be why you saw something odd today.
3. The difference with a higher activity level is that you get more of your calories "in advance." So you start the day with more to eat and you begin generating activity adjustments after more activity.
Yes ok this is what i was trying to say above. So i was told before to set everything to like the minimum then if i have a less active day or dont work out i dont over eat. But tbh i know that if it didnt give me a postive adjustment i would still aim for 1500 as below that im starving hungry. I guess i was just really shocked how many extra calories i earned. I thpught id get 100 maybe 200 at most...
So you have a choice ( a few choices actually. )
First of all, even Fitbit is just an educated guess based on the amount of movement and your settings.
So.
You could try accepting that the Fitbit is right and go ahead and eat the 2236 calories it is suggesting you eat. Doesn't sound that unreasonable of an amount to me.
Or
You could ignore the Fitbit entirely and you could stay at what you want, 1500 plus some random number for exercise. I would think you could easily be set at "lightly active" if you used ONLY MFP's calculation. That would put you at probably around 1500-1700. Then any additional exercise ( say, 300-400 for a good hour of LOGGED exercise) would top you up at around 1900-2100 ish.
There are other options, of course, but I would suggest you pick one of these two and stick with it for 4-6 weeks. With good food logging you would know one way or the other which is closer. Fitbit may be over or under-estimating. MFP could be doing the same.
The only way to know is to run the experiment yourself. We can't decide for you.
So do i need to log my excersise? I thought if i am wearing my fitbit and its aerobics i dont have to, the fitbit detected it?
Also does it maje any difference if i set to lightly active or sedentary? I really dont know what to do as it seems to be a matter of opinion...1 -
cmriverside wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »1. MFP is designed for you to eat back your exercise calories. Assuming your estimates of calories in and out are accurate and your initial goal puts you at a deficit to lose two pounds a week, you will still lose two pounds a week eating back your adjustment. Sometimes people find they need to adjust based on their real life results and they wind up just eating a portion of them back.
2. You can choose to change your activity level if you want. Some people like smaller adjustments, some like lower. You'll get to the same endpoint either way. Changing it mid-day may mess with that, that could be why you saw something odd today.
3. The difference with a higher activity level is that you get more of your calories "in advance." So you start the day with more to eat and you begin generating activity adjustments after more activity.
Yes ok this is what i was trying to say above. So i was told before to set everything to like the minimum then if i have a less active day or dont work out i dont over eat. But tbh i know that if it didnt give me a postive adjustment i would still aim for 1500 as below that im starving hungry. I guess i was just really shocked how many extra calories i earned. I thpught id get 100 maybe 200 at most...
So you have a choice ( a few choices actually. )
First of all, even Fitbit is just an educated guess based on the amount of movement and your settings.
So.
You could try accepting that the Fitbit is right and go ahead and eat the 2236 calories it is suggesting you eat. Doesn't sound that unreasonable of an amount to me.
Or
You could ignore the Fitbit entirely and you could stay at what you want, 1500 plus some random number for exercise. I would think you could easily be set at "lightly active" if you used ONLY MFP's calculation. That would put you at probably around 1500-1700. Then any additional exercise ( say, 300-400 for a good hour of LOGGED exercise) would top you up at around 1900-2100 ish.
There are other options, of course, but I would suggest you pick one of these two and stick with it for 4-6 weeks. With good food logging you would know one way or the other which is closer. Fitbit may be over or under-estimating. MFP could be doing the same.
The only way to know is to run the experiment yourself. We can't decide for you.
So do i need to log my excersise? I thought if i am wearing my fitbit and its aerobics i dont have to, the fitbit detected it?
Also does it maje any difference if i set to lightly active or sedentary? I really dont know what to do as it seems to be a matter of opinion...
It's not a matter of opinion.
If you use only MFP's calorie goal, then you use the Goal setup tool, you answer the questions as best you can and then you log exercise.
If you choose to use a Fitbit, you set MFP to Sedentary and you do not log exercise, the Fitbit syncs with MFP and gives you one number.
Have you gone to the Fitbit Group here on MFP? There is a FAQ that goes into detail:
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/1290-fitbit-users
Regardless, it's an experiment.
You have a lot of weight to lose. This beginning part will be easy to lose weight, you don't have to understand it all right away.
These things will become important when you get closer to your goal weight, because it gets much harder to lose weight when you're nearing a healthy weight.
By then, you will have come up with your own numbers because you will have run the experiment and you will know exactly how much to eat.
Relax! This is the easy part - where pounds of fat just melt away.
You're okay! You don't have to know the exact numbers, just log your food and you'll see a trend. Then you'll adjust.
It's what we all do. :flowerforyou:7 -
9000 steps translated to MFP speak is "active" if anyone needs to double check levels of calories.
16000 is just above very active. Samsung health and MFP integration is currently listed in the bugs section for certain situations so it may be worthwhile running a double check that your level of calories reflects a very active setting (MFP BMR * 1.8 if you don't want to mess with your actual settings to calculate)
Since you're set to 1200 you may want to consider what I wrote above where being at the floor may be keeping to a smaller deficit even after it is obvious that you could have created the larger deficit without hitting the floor.
I see what you're saying. I list as sedentary because I have a desk job so all exercise is intentional after work. It varies....I don't always get that many steps though I try to get at least 8 or 10000 most of the time.
I have found that if I eat very many of my exercise calories back I stop losing. So I'm not sure where the issue is (I do weigh everything with a food scale) but after over 500 days on mfp I just kinda have learned what works and what doesn't. I do wish I could eat more (oh how I wish I could) but nope I can't. I maintained the past 8 months at 1400 per day regardless of exercise. I've since upped my activity and decreased calories and am losing again finally. Tis frustrating!
Anyway sorry OP didn't mean to hijack your thread!3 -
Just as a comparison I am set at 1500 and try and only eat half my calories from the fitbit. If I found the weight was falling off
I would adjust and eat more. I accept I have errors in food logging and there will also be errors on the burn side. You can only go by your data and how that relates to your losses/gains on a weekly or longer basis. 4 -
Also to add - I also find there is a difference between whether I log an exercise in my fitbit (if you have one that does that) so a HIIT workout logged separately might give me 250 exercise calories but if I don't log it and just take my fitbit activity burn across the day I don't necessarily see a 250 bump compared to other days.
I suggest you take it back to basics- what does MFP say to eat (sounds like it should be 1500 rather than 1200?) Eat half the calories that your fitbit has given. After 4-6 weeks look at your numbers. Are you losing as expected? Or is it a faster or slower rate? Adjust how many exercise calories you eat accordingly. Be as consistent and honest as possible with your food logging. Done as accurately as possible and consistently as possible the MPF formula is frankly like magic. (Note to self - take own advice more often!)4 -
cmriverside wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »1. MFP is designed for you to eat back your exercise calories. Assuming your estimates of calories in and out are accurate and your initial goal puts you at a deficit to lose two pounds a week, you will still lose two pounds a week eating back your adjustment. Sometimes people find they need to adjust based on their real life results and they wind up just eating a portion of them back.
2. You can choose to change your activity level if you want. Some people like smaller adjustments, some like lower. You'll get to the same endpoint either way. Changing it mid-day may mess with that, that could be why you saw something odd today.
3. The difference with a higher activity level is that you get more of your calories "in advance." So you start the day with more to eat and you begin generating activity adjustments after more activity.
Yes ok this is what i was trying to say above. So i was told before to set everything to like the minimum then if i have a less active day or dont work out i dont over eat. But tbh i know that if it didnt give me a postive adjustment i would still aim for 1500 as below that im starving hungry. I guess i was just really shocked how many extra calories i earned. I thpught id get 100 maybe 200 at most...
So you have a choice ( a few choices actually. )
First of all, even Fitbit is just an educated guess based on the amount of movement and your settings.
So.
You could try accepting that the Fitbit is right and go ahead and eat the 2236 calories it is suggesting you eat. Doesn't sound that unreasonable of an amount to me.
Or
You could ignore the Fitbit entirely and you could stay at what you want, 1500 plus some random number for exercise. I would think you could easily be set at "lightly active" if you used ONLY MFP's calculation. That would put you at probably around 1500-1700. Then any additional exercise ( say, 300-400 for a good hour of LOGGED exercise) would top you up at around 1900-2100 ish.
There are other options, of course, but I would suggest you pick one of these two and stick with it for 4-6 weeks. With good food logging you would know one way or the other which is closer. Fitbit may be over or under-estimating. MFP could be doing the same.
The only way to know is to run the experiment yourself. We can't decide for you.
So do i need to log my excersise? I thought if i am wearing my fitbit and its aerobics i dont have to, the fitbit detected it?
Also does it maje any difference if i set to lightly active or sedentary? I really dont know what to do as it seems to be a matter of opinion...
Option 1- sync Fitbit and eat back added calories (you'll get 1200 + Fitbit calories)
Option 2- don't sync Fitbit and set yourself to active or lightly active (you'll get 1x00 calories straight away).0 -
Don't sync. Just manually add your exercise cals that you plan to eat back. Keep the % from total burned consistent. Adjust the % if you find you are losing too fast (and too hungry) or too slow. I play with the minutes of my exercise to get the correct number--I measure my walk/jog cals on a separate site. https://tools.runnerspace.com/gprofile.php?do=title&title_id=802&mgroup_id=45577
I've just reset my settings to "sedentary" and am eating back 100% of the cals this calculator gives me after subtracting base metabolism. Will see if I lose at a rate I can sustain and will adjust as needed to get that rate--not so fast I'm too hungry, not so slow I'd need to live to 150 to lose all my weight
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In case it hasn't been covered clearly above, what happens when you sync FitBit or Garmin is that MFP uses THEIR daily calorie burn estimates (TDEE). In the FitBit/Garmin app, you've entered your height, weight, age, and sex from which FitBit/Garmin calculates your baseline TDEE. To this, these apps add an estimate of calories burned via activities that day. This number is passed to MFP and, if you've set it up this way, MFP uses their estimate, subtracting enough calories such that you lose weight (1 lb per week equals a deficit of 500kcals per day).
A result is that, if you enter manually enter some arbitrarily low daily calorie goal in MFP, you will always see a positive adjustment from your external app to bring you up to their TDEE estimate minus deficit goal regardless if you exercise that day or not.
Now, your only question is whether you believe FitBit/Garmin. I have tried both and I found them to be just a bit too generous based on my weight loss goal. In other words, I did lose weight, but at a somewhat slower rate than planned. In addition, certain activities will totally confuse them. It is best to tell the device when you're doing an actual workout rather than allowing it to auto-detect.
Best of luck! Remember that your weight trend is the best indicator of how you're doing, and this must be averaged over several days.3 -
Outside of the fact your food diary is full of estimates, and your fitbit is estimating.
Look at your Fitbit near the end of the day after dinner.
Find the screen that gives the daily burn.
Or find that in the Fitbit app.
Subtract 1000 calories from that number.
You could eat that and lose 2 lbs weekly.
If still 4 hrs away from midnight, you are going to burn more than you see because you aren't dead - so you could eat more and lose 2 lbs weekly.
You've just done what MFP is going to do with that number.
Simple and done.
Past that there are tweaks to help improve accuracy.
A lot of steps with inaccurate stride length setting means inaccurate distance means inaccurate daily calorie burn.
A lot of interval type cardio daily leads to inflated HR readings for true effort expended, means inflated calorie burn.
Logging food by volume instead of weight means inaccurate calorie count.
Trusting food labels are better than potentially 20% off means inaccurate calorie count.
See - problems on both sides of the equation for weight loss. You can tweak to improve accuracy as best you can - but guess what - you'll never nail it perfectly.
And as many have told you in these many threads - you need patience.
Get it setup as best you can and move forward with consistency.
I almost figure the stress you are showing so far on this matter is going to likely cause you to not lose any weight on the scale while you keep it up.
So should start taking some measurements right now since water weight can hide fat loss on the scale, but measurements can tell a better story usually.
To your questions:
1 - you don't understand what the adjustment is doing. Follow the steps I gave above. It's doing that.
2 - You made adjustment in middle of day probably and didn't wait for the next sync - don't do that.
3 - plan your day better now that you know the adjustment amount. Yes leave on sedentary and just know a round figure that is close for end eating goal based on NOT making your deficit bigger than 1000. Miss your goal by 300 calories is not good for long term.
Be consistent with something and then take 4 weeks to look at trend weight. Your metabolism literally changes through the month, so it takes that long to discern something.3 -
Outside of the fact your food diary is full of estimates, and your fitbit is estimating.
Look at your Fitbit near the end of the day after dinner.
Find the screen that gives the daily burn.
Or find that in the Fitbit app.
Subtract 1000 calories from that number.
You could eat that and lose 2 lbs weekly.
If still 4 hrs away from midnight, you are going to burn more than you see because you aren't dead - so you could eat more and lose 2 lbs weekly.
You've just done what MFP is going to do with that number.
Simple and done.
Past that there are tweaks to help improve accuracy.
A lot of steps with inaccurate stride length setting means inaccurate distance means inaccurate daily calorie burn.
A lot of interval type cardio daily leads to inflated HR readings for true effort expended, means inflated calorie burn.
Logging food by volume instead of weight means inaccurate calorie count.
Trusting food labels are better than potentially 20% off means inaccurate calorie count.
See - problems on both sides of the equation for weight loss. You can tweak to improve accuracy as best you can - but guess what - you'll never nail it perfectly.
And as many have told you in these many threads - you need patience.
Get it setup as best you can and move forward with consistency.
I almost figure the stress you are showing so far on this matter is going to likely cause you to not lose any weight on the scale while you keep it up.
So should start taking some measurements right now since water weight can hide fat loss on the scale, but measurements can tell a better story usually.
To your questions:
1 - you don't understand what the adjustment is doing. Follow the steps I gave above. It's doing that.
2 - You made adjustment in middle of day probably and didn't wait for the next sync - don't do that.
3 - plan your day better now that you know the adjustment amount. Yes leave on sedentary and just know a round figure that is close for end eating goal based on NOT making your deficit bigger than 1000. Miss your goal by 300 calories is not good for long term.
Be consistent with something and then take 4 weeks to look at trend weight. Your metabolism literally changes through the month, so it takes that long to discern something.
I am patient. I'm sorry if ive annoyed you with my "many posts" but you don't have to read them or reply. The info youve preovided os helpful and i am learning as i go. When i have questions, i ask. Perhaps im just not as intelligent as you? Who knows? I'm trying my best. I think my title made it clear i was a bit embarrassed to ask again.
I am actually very prepared to lose this weight slowly over years. I have stressed this repeatedly in previous posts. Like i said i am learning about weight loss, and trying to get it right. I don't understand why im constantly being told im not being patient and I'm trying to lose it fast. Im just trying to do as I'm told ny people here, what im reading etc
I'm doing my best but being told off for not being patient when im clearly trying hard is very unhelpful.4 -
You haven't annoyed me or I wouldn't answer.
You are just showing a response I and many have seen, many times. It's not a matter of "getting" or not getting something - it's coming back to it again not trusting what's been mentioned.
And it's usually indicative of stressing over something.
Maybe it is just back of your mind questions - in which case that's great not getting stressed over it.
But many of your words express disbelief that things could be as people are telling you they are.
But just as ones wanted to call out what appeared to be too great a deficit being created would be unhealthy,
I was getting the sense of stress building up over the whole thing.
And that can lead to side effects that invariably leads to more stress.
Stress adds water weight - that's the result I'm thinking that will cause more stress.
Pretty sure if you added weight right now with all this examining and non-trust of what's going on (your words say not trusting it) - you'd want to chuck the whole thing and get more stressed out.
I've seen it many times.
Maybe I'm wrong in this case to warn what may happen - but if it doesn't apply, then no problem.
Sorry if it came off as telling you off. But trying very hard as you've been doing doesn't mean you are being patient - and that's what is indeed needed whether you know it or not.
Others have said that too - you'll need to wait after using trend weight for awhile - that's being patient isn't it?4 -
I still think that if the adjustment part bugs you, stop syncing. Stop setting for 1200 expecting an adjustment. Set MFP for sedentary and losing 1 lb/week and log your exercise with a realistic estimate of those EXERCISE cals. Ignore everything else. You are seeing only part of the math when you look at your diary, and both you, MFP, and Fitbit are adding and subtracting.
Why would you continue to do something that confuses you? I get confused, too, and I know I'm not stupid. I'm just lazy. I don't want to do all the mental math to make it make sense to myself, especially when it is so much easier and less messy (with fewer "adjustments") if you just use MFP for sedentary and log exercise cals. Keep consistent the percentage of exercise cals you eat back and give it about 3 weeks (unless you are too hungry). You will have a better sense of your true burn over all if you do that and see how much you actually lose over a period of time, b/c that math is easy.1
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