My Fat2Fit experiment

Bump.

My plan: Eat a minimum of 1700 net calories every day, and eat to a daily average of 1739-1939 net calories. (I.e., after counting exercise, my daily calories should never drop below 1700 and should average a little higher over the course of the week.)

MFP's hypothesis: MFP estimates my BMR at 2060, and predicts that if I eat 1939 net calories per day, my weight loss will drop to 0.2 pounds per week.

My hypothesis: Based my last few weeks of calorie intake and weight loss, I think I have a true BMR of about 2477, and I hypothesize that I will lose about a pound per week.

Week 1 report: Average net calories/day: 1936. Weight change: Lost 1.8. Estimated BMR: 2836

Well, like the man said, no plan survives contact with the enemy. ;-)

Fri-Sun was a class reunion out of town. I didn't get much exercise, and I ate and drank a ton, resulting in an average 2921 net calories per days for the first three days.

At that point, probably the right F2F response would be to stick to 1700 cal/day, but instead, I tried to get back to my average. I averaged 1197 net calories per day for the last four days of the week, for an overall average of 1936 cal/day for the week.

Bottom line: this week isn't a good test of the program, since I didn't follow it. On the other hand, I did average close to 2000 calories per day and still lost 1.8, so the bottom line is so far, so good.

This week I'm going to try to stick to the program I've described. My guess is that I'll gain a little water weight for a net marginal loss, but we'll see.

I found your post too interesting to ignore so I checked out Fat2Fit and used their calulators and I must say, I'm just not sure about this.

So, you can see my stats in my siggy.
EVERY single chart in the world tells me I am at least 'obese' and some even have me at 'morbidly obese'.

But not Fat2Fit~ they've got my body fat % in the healthy range (28%) for my age!!

THEY tell me my goal weight should be 179 pounds! Are ya kidding me?

I'm missing something, right?

My plan: Eat a minimum of 1700 net calories every day, and eat to a daily average of 1739-1939 net calories. (I.e., after counting exercise, my daily calories should never drop below 1700 and should average a little higher over the course of the week.)

MFP's hypothesis: MFP estimates my BMR at 2060, and predicts that if I eat 1939 net calories per day, my weight loss will drop to 0.2 pounds per week.

My hypothesis: Based my last few weeks of calorie intake and weight loss, I think I have a true BMR of about 2477, and I hypothesize that I will lose about a pound per week.

Week 1: Average net calories/day: 1936. Weight change: Lost 1.8. Estimated BMR: 2836
Week 2: Average net calories/day: 1693. Weight change: Lost 1.6. Estimated BMR: 2493

This week was much closer to my plan than last week. Instead of a massive weekend followed by four starvation weekdays, I stayed pretty much exactly at 1700 calories per day. (Wednesday was closer to 1900, and Thursday I just couldn't eat all 1700, so I ended up at about 1550, so my overall average was right around 1700). The losses are still more than I predicted, but we definitely need more data.

Thanks for the update!!

Tracy

BumP

I found this thread and find it very interesting and I hope to follow you. I am 5 9 and 155 trying to get down to 140 and MFP set me on 1200 cals, I soon found this was too low so I upped it to 1400. I dropped a couple lbs and here I am stuck again. I have a desk job but work out 5-6 days per week and am trying to find the calorie intake that is right for me. I look forward to your results and notes.

Hello, I don't know if I am on a plateau or not just having trouble getting started, I started at 158 and am just 155 now. I have been looking at the fat 2 fit website and it wants me to eat a little over 1700 cals a day with a sedentary lifestyle. I am willing to try anything, I am not one of these that doesn't want to eat. The only thing I know for a fact is 1200 cals and under is not for me.

It is a crazy math game, and I am not good with math lol Will be coming back to this thread, good luck to you

My plan: Eat a minimum of 1700 net calories every day, and eat to a daily average of 1739-1939 net calories. (I.e., after counting exercise, my daily calories should never drop below 1700 and should average a little higher over the course of the week.)

MFP's hypothesis: MFP estimates my BMR at 2060, and predicts that if I eat 1939 net calories per day, my weight loss will drop to 0.2 pounds per week.

My hypothesis: Based my last few weeks of calorie intake and weight loss, I think I have a true BMR of about 2477, and I hypothesize that I will lose about a pound per week.

Week 1: Average net calories/day: 1936. Weight change: Lost 1.8. Estimated TEE: 2836
Week 2: Average net calories/day: 1693. Weight change: Lost 1.6. Estimated TEE: 2493
Week 3: Average net cal/day: 2036. Weight change: Lost 0.4. Estimated TEE: 2236
Week 4: Average net cal/day: 1795. Weight change: Lost 3.6. Estimated TEE: 2617

Notes: After 4 weeks, I'm definitely not following the F2F plan. I'm averaging 1700-2000 net calories per day, but I'm dropping to 1200 net calories some days to make up for 2400 or 3000 calorie days in the same week. So far, I'm pretty happy with that plan, but it's definitely not what Jeff and Russ would propose.

Still, increasing the average calories has made it a lot easier to follow the diet, and is producing results. I'm still losing a lot faster than the pound per week I'm shooting for, so I'm increasing my range to 1,800-2,000 this week.

* TEE: Maintenance calories, not including logged exercise calories but including all other activities

Thank you Derv for keeping us posted on your "experiment". I know if it were me, I would be frustrated with the end result, but in the end you ate more and didn't gain either. So that is a good thing!

Good luck on the rest of your Journey

Tracy