Gain muscle and lose body fat.

Beverly2Hansen wrote: »

So are you eating 1500 without eating back exercise calories? Because if you eat 1500+ 400 exercise calories in most cases for your height that's maintenance calories even with exercise. I plateaued for nearly 2 years by eating back my exercise at 5'5". If I drop to 1500calories and don't eat back exercise calories I begin to lose weight especially if I stay well hydrated.

And at that same 5'5", if I ate 1500+exercise calories, I'd lose at least a pound a week, even at age 65. I lose (slowly, the only way I *should* lose at 125 pounds, if I should lose at all!) at 1850+exercise. On person's experience doesn't shed much light on what another person should do.

What does shed light? Using a reasonable "calculator" estimate (MFP + exercise sensibly estimated, or the estimate from a detailed TDEE calculator) as a start, logging intake and exercise carefully, then adjusting based on personal experience over at least 6 weeks or so.

@ashishjaincs, Mr. @heybales is very knowledgeable. When he types, pay attention.

You asked what he meant when he said "Your described workouts are exactly opposite - intervals and lifting is anaerobic, and HR all over the place constantly."

In my understanding, a heart rate monitor *may* give a reasonable calorie estimate for steady state cardiovascular exercise for someone who has a statistically average maximum heart rate.

A good part of your exercise, as you describe it, is strength exercise (upper/lower body) and intervals (HIIT). Those are very much *not* what heart rate monitors (HRM) are good at estimating.**

That's true, even if you have a statistically average maximum heart rate as estimated from age. I don't have statistically average HRmax, and many people don't. If I believed exercise calorie estimates based on my age-estimated maximum heart rate (155), I'd get crazy-high calorie estimates, because my actual HRmax is around 180. This is not a fitness thing, it's more of a genetic thing, and it's pretty common. The age estimates, to which many HRM default, are inaccurate for many people.

** Read this, give it a think:
https://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/Azdak?month=201003

Heart rate increases for lots of reasons that have nothing to do with calorie expenditure: High emotion, dehydration, warm ambient temperature, internal body pressure (common during strength training), limited endurance (an issue with new exercisers especially), and much more.

HRMs can be useful for estimating calories, but they're not gospel like some people think. For strength exercise specifically, the MFP data base estimate (strength training, under cardiovascular) is pretty realistic, better than a heart rate estimate. (MFP estimates exercise based on METS, which is a research-based thing, too. There's a flaw in how MFP does this, but the basic approach works for many activities.

There are pros and cons for most exercise calorie estimating methods, with some methods better for some exercise types.) You can learn more about METS exercise estimating here: https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/

There have been some very informed responses here already.

I agree about targeting 250 deficit. If you're logging your food input well (and your drinks?), which it sounds like you are, then the issue may be your watches estimation of calories burned is too high (as some have explained already why), so if you're eating back all of those calories you won't be at the deficit you think you are.

Are you having "cheat days" or "cheat meals" where you maybe don't track those? At a small daily deficit, that will wipe out your deficit on a weekly basis.

Have you taken pictures from a few months ago to the present, to verify for sure that you aren't really making any progress? If so, perhaps your strength training isn't taxing enough, and you need to progress there. Increase the sets, the reps, the weight, etc.

How much protein are you getting? You should be aiming for at least 90g-100g per day.

The body fat scales are notoriously inaccurate, and best used for a general trend at most.

ashishjaincs wrote: »

Thanks so much to all of you amazing people for taking the time to reply to my query.
As suggested, I have started to eat more and got close enough to 1500 + my exercise calories.
My daily protein intake is about 100-120 gms using a protein shake, cottage cheese, peanut butter, etc.
I keep myself hydrated and drink about 120-160 Oz of water every day. I have stopped putting sugar in my tea/coffee and haven't had a beer in months.:).
I keep reading a lot about exercising/body building and food etc, and when I see people post like 4 months tranformation or 6 months tranformation, I starts to feel like if I am diong anything wrong in my routines.
But I guess everyone's body is diffrent and getting into a good shape is a process that takes time and 4 months are not good enough for that. I'll continue working towards that. I think it was me just being impatient.:)

I ll keep you all posted with my progress.

Thanks again!

Besides the very realistic views of the role of genetic potential and patient/persistent work, there's also the very real possibility that on some sites, the stats with the before and after photos (like the dates) are just not true.

There have been stories in the past here on MFP about people posting before and after pictures here or on IG or whatever, then seeing their photos show up later on some scammy commercial site with some other person's name, shortened time between before/after dates, misrepresentation about process used to get from before to after (usually claiming they'd used the sites products/process when they'd done no such thing), or things like that.

Not all claims are true.

Cut out peanut butter! High calories when you can have greek yogurt and get loads more protein too