Beginning to think it's Calories consumed vs. NET instead

When I figured out that protein doesn't count (I heavily exercise and strength train, somehting I noted in my data and BMR calculation, BMR rose with protein intake) I busted a plateau where I thought I had a 750 deficit/day but really had a 1250 deficit per day.

I've pretty much reached my goal weight now, and am down to a 500 cal/day deficit tapering out.

My calcuated BMR varies with protein intake linearly.

Right now my total food intake is in the 3000-3500 cal/day area (@190 lbs) and I've got a 500 cal/day deficit (500-100 cal/day exercise). My current calculated BMR is a hair over 3000/day. Before I heavily exercised and strength trained, and upped my protein intake, it was in the 2400/day area @ 220 lbs and over.

My last stall was @ a 1000 cal deficit @ 12% BF, with my target set to 2050 cal/day net (was losing precisely 2 lb/wk for a couple months prior). Upping it to 2300 cal/day busted the stall, now I'm in the 9% BF area.

Lest anyone is confused, everywhere you said BMR, you meant TDEE.

Your BMR would not change with change to eating protein, actually, neither would your TDEE for that matter.

Actually, it does.

BMR/TDEE whatever, the value that is left when you reconcile scale weight over time with calories in and calories burned.

Protein that is used for muscle building and maintence doesn't count toward your daily energy balance when you are calculating how much fat you should be gaining and losing based on your intake. I've never seen this written anywhere before but self experiments confirm this is the case as do experiements on themselves others have done. The key is though that you have to be able to calculate the setpoint yourself from real weight data, MFP's formula for your setpoint uses all 3 macros and doesn't work nearly enough.

Once I figured this out I had absolute precision in my loss and didn't plateau once until I reached a point that I expected it (1000 cal/day deficit @ 12% BF is where it occurred). My weight graph was a straight line, 2 lb per week precisely. My weight (fat) loss can be predicted 100% by my fat and carb intake alone and a BMR/TDEE for those macros alone calculated from weight data. To use MFP protein is treated as a constant, a 2nd goal to hit every day.

Like I said, my cacluated BMR/TDEE, the reconciled value, rose from almost exaclty what MFP calcuated for me (2450 cal/day) to over 3000 cal/day as I increased my exercise and protein intake. And I do not underestimate my exercise, 750-1000 cal/day is the norm for me (hence my maintence calorie levels will be in the 4000 cal/day area total intake).

@ 12% bf% your deficit should not be more than 300 or so calories/day, otherwise you are going to lose lean muscle along with fat.

I am going to say this...I was stuck last week at 133.2 from last Wed to Sunday...today..the scale reads 129.8. I normally eat 1200-1250 cals a day I run 25 miles a week. I am 5'2. Saturday..I ran 12 miles...and burned 900 cals. I ate 2100 cals Saturday....but take off the 900...I only netted 1200. So..my body got tons of fuel (food). I think that dropped the scale almost 3lbs this week! Take a spike day..but make it a harder exercise day. To this day..my dr says there is no science to eating back burned cals. Consume (as in put in your mouth) 1200-1500 cals a day..and lose weight.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here, since you contradict yourself. You say that you should only eat 1200-1500 calories per day, yet you also say "take a spike day and make it a heavy workout day." In different words, you've just described what it means to eat back your exercise calories, while also claiming that your doctor says there is "no science behind it".

The short-term weight change over the weekend is fairly meaningless, but even that, you attributed to eating back your exercise calories in your post.

I called it a spike day..not eating back exer cals. I doubled my 1200 intake. But only netted 1200 with the run I did earlier.

I took a food chemistry course at McGill awhile ago and one of the experiments we looked at showed that on average patients did not lose weight when they ate the same way but added exercise to their routines. So in a way this tells me that exercise calories are not "real" calories and that's why I don't eat mine. (Although they are really useful to save up for emergency calories).

I think the purpose of exercise is not to add additional calories to your day but to raise your metabolism. When it comes to weight loss it is really important for preventing your metabolism from slowing down. Overall it might allow you to eat more because you have a higher metabolism, but not in the sense that you can eat the exact calories you burn.

Anyway, I don't eat mine, and I'm losing weight fine. Just my two cents

Are you sure the experiment didn't have the same caloric deficit, not the same caloric intake, as what you are saying does not make any logical sense and I would have to see this repeated with a large enough sample to prove your theory.

I've read back a couple of pages and I'm trying to figure out how I figure out what my BMR is... I've lost 41 pounds since about Christmas, so I'm currently doing ok working off of net, but frequently I'm well below it.

So are you saying that we eat around what our BMR is in calories and then make sure we are burning calories, but don't calculate those in to eat back?
EX. My BMR is 1404, so do I eat 1404 and then if I burn 400-600 calories in a workout, don't eat those back. So say I burned 400 calories in a workout, I have a caloric deficit of 1004?

So are you saying that we eat around what our BMR is in calories and then make sure we are burning calories, but don't calculate those in to eat back?
EX. My BMR is 1404, so do I eat 1404 and then if I burn 400-600 calories in a workout, don't eat those back. So say I burned 400 calories in a workout, I have a caloric deficit of 1004?

actually your caloric intake should be around your BMR in Net cals, so if you BMR is 1404 and you burn 400, eat 1804. MFP usually will put you below BMR, which is only a good idea if you have 75+ lbs to lose.

FYI Your deficit would not be 1004, that would be your net intake, your deficit would be maintenance - 1004 in your example. If you BMR is 1404 and you are set at sedentary and burn 400 cals your maintenance that day would be 2084 (1404*1.2+400) so your deficit would be 1080 (2084-1004).

Are you sure the experiment didn't have the same caloric deficit, not the same caloric intake, as what you are saying does not make any logical sense and I would have to see this repeated with a large enough sample to prove your theory.

If anything, it probably means that the way calorie expenditure is measured, is inaccurate. That was my experience at least. Whenever I use an HRM for calorie burn, it is always WAY higher than the machine I might be working on. So I estimated the burn from the lower machine reading, and plateaued almost immediately. This tells me that had I used the HRM reading, I would have been way off.

bump for later

I have my daily calorie intake set to 2,680 cals. When I eat exactly that, my fat loss is just a tad over 2lbs per week, with no changes in lean weight. When I started hitting the treadmill, I decided to use the machine burn reading to cover any variances. When the machine said I burned 560 cals one day, I entered it and MFP automatically bumped up my total calories eaten. Even the MFP calculator had estimated a higher calorie burn than the machine. Now mathematically, I am still only eating 2,680 IF I truly burned 560. My HRM broke, so I only use the chest strap to tap heart rate during a session. The machine doesn't account for heart rate, in fact if you step off of a treadmill while it is running it will burn the same amount of calories as if you were on it. When my HRM worked, it was ALWAYS about 180 to 200 calories higher than the machine I was training on. The longer I went, the higher the variance. I also know that eating 2,680 straight and adding aerobic training doesn't affect weight loss very much, if at all. My body seems to only respond to diet. I lose more fat sitting on the couch with a solid calculated deficit, than I do training aerobically in the same deficit - with all else remaining the same. In other words, the added effort doesn't have a great yield. I seem to get by just fine with just strength training and diet.

Very true, cardio isn't going to add much but heart health.
Your lifting is better if that is not needed for like blood pressure, cholesterol, ect type reasons.

The other reason treadmills are wrong, they got the speed wrong. But I'm sure they don't use the correct MET tables either for calories burned, those could be decently accurate, except for grossly out of shape, or super-fit.

I think it's different for everyone. I've been eating back my exercise calories for awhile now and I'm not losing any weight so this week I started to eat near maintenance and not eat my exercise calories back. I'm sure I'll be below my BMR some days but over the week I bet I'll be pretty close to it or even a bit over.

I don't believe it's just physics. Some people's bodies respond to stress differently then others. Mine goes into shut down mode if I do too intense cardio and my belly starts to expand despite the calorie deficit. Others can eat a diet full of sugar and lose weight, others can't.

I think everyone should try different approaches and find what allows them to lose weight and keep it off!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ THIS

it's not "just physics", otherwise no one would be fat. Everyone's body is different. Even medication has "side effects" because.... you guessed it...... everyone's body is different, and some people experience those side effects while others do not.

I lived with a girl that ate 4,000+ calories a day and stayed under 120 lbs for 2.5 years without exercise. Some people just have that metabolism, but she was "skinny fat" since she got winded walking up the stairs.

HOLY CATS.

Whoever you are, you have seriously answered any and all desperate questions I've been having lately- I've tried measuring portion sizes and 'eating back' my excersize calories, and I've gained and lost the same 7 pounds so often that I've been SO confused as to what's really been going wrong- I can do all the 'perfect' math I want with this, but it virtually means nothing because as you said, a one-size-fits-all intake formula is bound to be faulty with certain unlucky individuals... Such as me

I feel SO stupid for falling victim to this misconception for almost 5 MONTHS now! Even though I train hard, I've been gaining when I should be cutting recently and it's frustrated me beyond belief.

Would you recommend eating at or below BMR and not doing the 'net' thing at all?
Also, if I feel genuinely hungry beyond that threshold, to listen to my body to an extent and eat just enough to keep me going?
(Since that may mean I overestimated calorie intake or underestimated caloire expenditure?)

Bump....will read later ...

HOLY CATS.

Whoever you are, you have seriously answered any and all desperate questions I've been having lately- I've tried measuring portion sizes and 'eating back' my excersize calories, and I've gained and lost the same 7 pounds so often that I've been SO confused as to what's really been going wrong- I can do all the 'perfect' math I want with this, but it virtually means nothing because as you said, a one-size-fits-all intake formula is bound to be faulty with certain unlucky individuals... Such as me

I feel SO stupid for falling victim to this misconception for almost 5 MONTHS now! Even though I train hard, I've been gaining when I should be cutting recently and it's frustrated me beyond belief.

Would you recommend eating at or below BMR and not doing the 'net' thing at all?
Also, if I feel genuinely hungry beyond that threshold, to listen to my body to an extent and eat just enough to keep me going?
(Since that may mean I overestimated calorie intake or underestimated caloire expenditure?)

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/599949-tired-plateaud-scale-not-moving-found-my-answer

A perspective to take on this too, with this idea that perhaps your system is reacting totally differently.

You can come at this from 2 directions.

Eat very close to estimated TDEE. Which will frankly still be below what got you here in the first place. If you make a cut of say 500, and you do indeed lose 1 lb, then the estimated TDEE is dead on. Probably impossible, but still, you get the idea.
If you lose 1/2 lb for several weeks, then true TDEE is lower.
If over 1 lb, true TDEE is higher.
But at least with a full burning metabolism, you can find out and lower as needed, slowly. You already wasted 5 months, think about if you had done it this way first.

Other direction, end up eating too low. Weight loss is slower than expected. Now, is that because you need to lower it even more? Or because metabolism is slower than needed and hence weight loss slower than needed?
Do you cut more, and risk it slowing down again, possibly stalling out?
Or do you have trouble raising the level and the body reacting as it should.

It is much easier to ease down into the correct goal, than flounder below it and wonder if you are really raising or lowering correctly.

You can listen to your body - but the problem there is that exact method is what got many here in the first place, listening to body.
Also, if your metabolism slows, it gets used to less food, you can actually stop feeling hungry.
So it's great you are still hungry, beyond twinges right before next meal anyway, which may indeed happen.

One of the effects of the metabolism going up when folks finally allow it to burn fully, is feeling hungry again.

So just think about best direction to go as you read that other thread.