people who have had success by upping their calories!

i dont understand this. Why does consuming more calories make you loose weight faster? x

If you lose weight too quickly, you'll lose as much lean body mass as you do fat. Losing a bit more slowly, but maintaining muscle and metabolism is the big picture. It's the difference between caring what the scale says, and caring what the mirror says (plus it's much healthier and easier to maintain long term.)

So we will still be getting 'smaller' as in toned but the scales won't show the work? I bought scales just as a concrete measurement, I'm much more concerned with how I look in the mirror (which might make me sound a bit vain but hey!)

::bump:: for later...

what a great read this has been. I have only been using MFP for about 3 weeks, and have now upped my calorie intake from 1200.

i dont understand this. Why does consuming more calories make you loose weight faster? x

If you lose weight too quickly, you'll lose as much lean body mass as you do fat. Losing a bit more slowly, but maintaining muscle and metabolism is the big picture. It's the difference between caring what the scale says, and caring what the mirror says (plus it's much healthier and easier to maintain long term.)

So we will still be getting 'smaller' as in toned but the scales won't show the work? I bought scales just as a concrete measurement, I'm much more concerned with how I look in the mirror (which might make me sound a bit vain but hey!)

I would suggest that you take measurements - you will often see results better than way

Now I am wondering if I have upped my calories enough. I am set to sedentary, of course MFP gives me 1200 cals a day to lose 2 lbs a week which I am not doing. I upped it to 1400 calories and have been eating back my calories frequently. I feel like I am starving all the time, but I am not losing.. I am bouncing between 219 and 225 lbs. I am a 55 year old Female, 5' 11" tall. Currently (this morning) I am at 222.2 lbs. I went to Fat2fit and saw that they say my body fat percentage is 42.2%, my BMR is 1627. I copied and pasted below their dietary recommendations and am wanting some feedback from you on this!

Based on your goal weight, the following chart was generated. The chart shows the number of calories that you should eat on a daily basis to reach your goal weight. At Fat 2 Fit Radio we advocate eating like the thin, healthy person that you want to become. The calorie levels you see in the chart are not extreme, but they do create that all important caloric deficit that is required to get you to your goal weight in a safe manner. Once you reach your goal weight, you will continue eating the same number of calories for the rest of your life to maintain that weight. You'll never be on a diet again.

Based on how much activity you do on an average day, the calories in the right column will be the number of calories that you will be able to eat at your goal weight. If you start eating those calories right now (eating like the thinner you), you will eventually become that thinner person. As you get closer to your goal weight, your weight loss will start to slow down. It is OK to eat a few hundred calories less per day (200-300) to speed up your weight loss at this point.

Activity Level Daily Calories
Sedentary (little or no exercise, desk job) 1711
Lightly Active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk) 1961
Moderately Active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk) 2210
Very Active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk) 2460
Extremely Active (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2X day training, i.e marathon, contest etc.) 2709

Which should I select? Does this sound right to you? Sorry to be such a PITA but it is so important to me to be successful!!

Depends on what method you want to use? Manually set once and forget it, or set MFP to change automatically and feed workouts? Oh, I think Moderately Active - you walk 3-5 days you said. And that is excellent workout.

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If you want to eat back all your exercise calories, and for that serious walking you are getting pretty decent estimates, and you want MFP to set goal calories that lower as you lower weight, then do the following.
Settings - Diet/Fitness Profile
Change Activity Level to Sedentary.
Change Loss Goal to 1 lb weekly.
Your goal should be set to 1624. Right at BMR estimate.
Now log your workouts and calories, and eat them back on the day they apply.

When you get within 20lb of goal weight, you'll need to change to 1/2 lb weekly loss goal.

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If you want to manually set it and forget it, and don't worry about exercise calorie eat-back, then do the following.
Settings - Diet/Fitness Profile
Change Activity Level to Very Active. (trust me on this, difference in calculations between MFP and other site)
Change Loss Goal to Maintain. (trust me on this, you are manually setting your goal)
Now go to Goals - Change - Custom.
Your Net daily goal should be set to 2633, change it to 2210.
Change your Macros as desired.
Change your workout goals as desired, if you want to visually see on Exercise logs how you are doing for your goal. Change calories to 0.

You just created cal deficit to your better estimated TDEE. Now when you finish your Food diary daily, you'll receive encouragement "in 5 weeks you'll weigh..."
And as you get closer to goal weight, the amount of deficit automatically is less, without changing anything.

Do NOT eat back your exercise calories in this case. If you want to log the workout for records, use 1 calorie. Or just remember what your daily number is, and record the calories if desired. Just remember your Daily number in green should match the footnote that says so many credit calories for workout.

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So the difference there is, the manual method daily eat is always the same no matter exercise or not, and that will be less calories than the auto-method where you eat more because of the exercise on just those days. Your NET on a weekly basis ends up being the same.
On a weekly basis though, it would all be the same.

And you learn to eat according to your workouts. Miss a workout, skip 2 snacks that day. Add a workout, add a snack. Big dinner Sat night, leave 200 in green on Fri and Sun, eat smaller meals rest of Sat, enjoy dinner out. Workout that day.

I have been fascinated reading this thread, but am still a little confused. I am 5ft 3 and weigh 150lbs my goal is 120lbs. not only do I want to lose weight (the healthy safe way) but I want to tone up my wobbly bits and be able to see some muscle definition (but NOT be muscly/bulky I want a soft yet defined body) I currently do at least 30 minutes a day of 30DS (on day 6 of level one) plus at least 2 times a week I will do Zumba for between 20 - 45 minutes plus most evenings I do some work on my arms with weights (only 2.5lbs weights) plus ab work. I have been fighting with the same 2-3lbs for the past few months now, so need a kick start, and thought this may help IF I know what to do properly.

MFP puts me at 1200 a day, but when I work out my BMR is states 1360. I have also worked out my TDEE I was not sure what activness to put as Mon - Fri I am sitting at a desk all day, so I worked it out for little or no exercise and that was 1743 (*0.8) 1394, light exercise was 1990 (*0.8) 1592 and moderate was 2243 (*0.8) 1794.

In all of your opinions what would you recommend I do? Apologies if this is a repeat of what somebody else has asked, I am pretty new here and getting slightly confused lol Jen x

You are not at Sedentary level with that much exercise. Definitely Moderate level. Could round down to nearest hundred.

What site did you use for TDEE estimate, because those values don't work out?
For instance, Moderate is BMR * 1.55, which ends up 2108 * 0.8 = 1686 (or round to 2100 * 0.8 = 1680).

Then you would eat to that every day, workout or not. You would NOT eat back exercise calories since already in there. And if you spot checked calories burned with HRM, would likely be at or slightly under BMR for those days. Rest days allows recovery.

And since you have been so underfeeding your system for that workout level - you will see great body improvements first, weight loss will come later until body catches up with what you are asking it to do.

I think it was fitness frog?! But my BMR I also got on here?!

bump...



Created by MyFitnessPal.com - Free Calorie Counter

I have been fascinated reading this thread, but am still a little confused. I am 5ft 3 and weigh 150lbs my goal is 120lbs. not only do I want to lose weight (the healthy safe way) but I want to tone up my wobbly bits and be able to see some muscle definition (but NOT be muscly/bulky I want a soft yet defined body) I currently do at least 30 minutes a day of 30DS (on day 6 of level one) plus at least 2 times a week I will do Zumba for between 20 - 45 minutes plus most evenings I do some work on my arms with weights (only 2.5lbs weights) plus ab work. I have been fighting with the same 2-3lbs for the past few months now, so need a kick start, and thought this may help IF I know what to do properly.

MFP puts me at 1200 a day, but when I work out my BMR is states 1360. I have also worked out my TDEE I was not sure what activness to put as Mon - Fri I am sitting at a desk all day, so I worked it out for little or no exercise and that was 1743 (*0.8) 1394, light exercise was 1990 (*0.8) 1592 and moderate was 2243 (*0.8) 1794.

In all of your opinions what would you recommend I do? Apologies if this is a repeat of what somebody else has asked, I am pretty new here and getting slightly confused lol Jen x

You are not at Sedentary level with that much exercise. Definitely Moderate level. Could round down to nearest hundred.

What site did you use for TDEE estimate, because those values don't work out?
For instance, Moderate is BMR * 1.55, which ends up 2108 * 0.8 = 1686 (or round to 2100 * 0.8 = 1680).

Then you would eat to that every day, workout or not. You would NOT eat back exercise calories since already in there. And if you spot checked calories burned with HRM, would likely be at or slightly under BMR for those days. Rest days allows recovery.

And since you have been so underfeeding your system for that workout level - you will see great body improvements first, weight loss will come later until body catches up with what you are asking it to do.

I think it was fitness frog?! But my BMR I also got on here?!

You may want to go to this link and ask Helloitsdan to run your numbers - should help with the confusion.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/538381-in-place-of-a-road-map?

You just need to give the stats data asked for in the first post in the thread.

bump

I would suggest that you take measurements - you will often see results better than way

Yeah, I measure myself weekly as well as the using scales. I only recent bought the scales just as an extra measurement, trying to not become obsessed with weighing myself! Thanks

Thank you so much for this post! I've stalled on my weight loss (could be from just starting Turbo Jam- I have lost a couple inches), so I've raised my net to 1565 which is my current BMR. Will be happy if I can eat more & lose Thanks again for all of this info, it was fun to read.

Okay. So I was wondering if I could get some help. This is all confusing me a little bit.

I eat 1440 - or I'm supposed too.

Bmr according to mfp is 1399. My TDEE is estimated at 2525. I am floating just under 150 at 5'5". (I put my activity level as very active as I just started running again and I have 2 kids under 3 so lots of lifting and on my feet all day? Don't know if this is right?)

According to everything on this thread, I should probably be eating 2000 or so calories?

I started fasting once a week for personal reasons, not weight loss and quit losing weight. That was four weeks ago. Since then I have put on 3 ish lbs. but in that same amount of time I have eaten over 2000 calories 2 times. So did I super screw up my metabolism? I was losing like crazy there for a while. I just want my body fat percentage to go down. I don't care so much about the weight.

Can somebody give me some tips?

First off, congrats on selecting a goal that was NOT 2lb weekly. And selecting 1.5 lbs left you with NET goal above your BMR.

Question is, have you been logging true exercise and eating back the majority of those calories?

Because 1440 is already a big deficit. If your avg calorie use from JUST running was say 400 cal daily, that means your body is actually only getting about 1000 to do basic functions of metabolism with (BMR).
When you miss a whole day fasting, and don't make it up by every other day being slightly more, that's a big hit too.
If you exercise on that day or the next (please say you don't), you are digging into muscle breakdown for conversion to glucose.

Shoot, if you slept all day you fasted (impossible with 2 kids), your BMR calories would be 30% carbs, or 1399 * .3 = 420. Your liver, which supplies your blood sugar, only holds 400-450 cal of glucose. If you start moving that day, or the next for exercise, more glucose can only come from muscle.
So you can fast, but gotta fast smart. And don't exercise that day or the next, until you top off that carb storage. If you eat 400 cal worth of carbs before you exercise the next day, that should be fine.
And you want to go into the fast day totally topped off too, which means no big intense run burning off carbs mainly that you don't eat back by bedtime.
And that will be tough on eating so close to your BMR - unless you are feeding your workouts what they burn.

And of course, bad news, when you burn off muscle, lower metabolism. And running that close to BMR, about impossible to put it back on too, so it's gone until you eat at maintenance and start lifting.

So if you trust that TDEE figure, and you were honest there, your are exactly correct, 2000, nice easy to remember goal.
Now, with that method of everyday, you do NOT eat back exercise - it's already included in your selection of activity level.

But, with fasting a whole, you got some other work to do, because this 2000 everyday makes up for some days more workout, rest days allowing a recovery. If one rest day has no food, that's no good.

So you probably should increase that 2000 missed / 6 other eating days = 333, so really 2333. Not as nice a round number, bummer.

Probably didn't screw metabolism up, because your normal eating level has been pretty good. Well, depends on how long you have been running and if not eating back calories anyway.

And you did lose like crazy, because 1440 compared to what you were eating before starting the diet, what, above 2500 you think? So 1000 deficit, 2lbs weekly.

Best bet for your body to know it can increase metabolism when it sees extra food:
Increase by 200 per day for a week. And don't run that week. Take the time and do a gentle walk, less than 3mph. That is just more fat-burning daily activity level movement. May even lose some fat that week since still eating so close to BMR, and all your substantial daily activity is creating your true deficit.

Bump

thanks!