Hi, I feel lost and very confused with everything I am reading. Please can someone help me out?

I am Female, 60 years, 5'5" tall, current weight 124.2kg

On Scooby my TDEE is 2177 and BMR 1814

Daily Calories 1850 -15%
1741 - 20%
1632 - 25%


Due to multiple injuries to back, neck and shoulders and having had knee replacement to both knees, I cannot do the gym yet.

My doctor has said I can do some hydro and modified pilates to strengthen my body, and eventually full pilates and the gym.

I need to lose a minimum of 80kg or 177lb.

Please can you direct me how I go about it. - I am not loosing weight at the moment so have started to increase my calories, but am not sure what next. I eat and haven eaten clean for 30 years due to food and chemical allergies.

What should my calorie count be? I think because of my extreme weight that initially I would prefer one of the higher percentages lost in the daily calories what do you think?

I have been told by many friend that I eat small, but I was never hungry, except on the odd occassion when I might binge - at a party or something similar.

I am feeling desperate as to what damage I may have done to my body, and now having some information behind me, I want to do it properly. Is there percentages suggested for protein, carbs, cals, fat or fibre etc. I struggle with carbs and unfortunatly green salad and veges due to IBS.

You are welcome to look at my food diary if you have any queries.

Thankyou for any help and advice that you can give me. I am very new to all of this and very inexperienced. : )

It sounds like you may need a metabolism reset. You may not be hungry, but that is usually a sign of VLCD'ing and if you have been eating very small amounts of food for a while or yo-yo dieting/binging, you should really think about the metabolism reset. You want to get your metabolism in proper working order.

If you aren't a candidate for a reset, then go with the 15% deficit. This maintains a healthy rate of loss. In regards to macros (proteins etc) you want to set them up as 40C/30P/30F.

Make sure you read through this sticky http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/521728-upping-cals-what-to-expect-why-you-need-patience and watch the videos in here http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/579855--new-vids-for-em2wl-faqs

I hope some of that gets you started. Ask us questions if you aren't sure about something!!

Thanks for your help -

I made an alteration to Scooby with my activity level - I was in the 'inactive lifestyle' which looking into it was way too low. - I think that these are more correct figures now - My BMR is now 1816 and my TDEE is 2497.

I have read through the sticky's and am now getting more of an understanding of EM2WL,............. Do I eat between BMR 1816, and TDEE less 15% 2123?

...and...............Do I stay on this(2123 cals) until I start losing weight and then drop down to 1816 (maintenance ), or do I get to my goal weight and then cut to 1816 which is my maintenance cals.

Also what is the difference between Metabolism Reset and EM2WL?

.....and what is VLDCing?

Thanks for your help - there is so much to learn, and I'm sure with your guidance everything will start to make sense soon. I do need to understand it properly first tho',

Carolyn

update - i set my cals to 2300 on friday....can someone please provide confirmation of my info below????
thanks,
denise

i use a bodymedia fit armband.....
over the last 28 days i have had an average daily burn on 2962 calories...so that would be my TDEE correct??

then to get my TDEE minus 15% #, i would multiply 2962 by .85 which equals 2518 so that is what i'm supposed to eat each day if i keep up my current movement and have an average daily burn of 2962....is this correct????

the scooby website gave me similar numbers
BMR 1487
TDEE 2826
daily cal goal 2402 (based on 15% and 7hrs workout calculations)

so if i keep averaging a close to 3000 calorie burn each day i should really be eating 2500ish cals each day???? i dont mind gaining at first to get this *kitten* figured out especially if i expect it....i've lost 75+ lbs since jan 2008 and i would like to lose another 30ish to end up between 140-150 for the rest of my life....any suggestions would be wonderful...


PS i log my food in MFP diary and then just enter that as my daily estimate on my BMF activity manager...i know my MFP stats on my homepage are all off because i dont adjust for my true burn per my BMF....i dont care about what that says...at this point i just want my BMF activity manager to be accurate based on burn and cals eaten as entered....i have been playing with the 170s since May 2011...it's time to get into the 160s and then i'll at least feel like im making some "scale" related progress even though i KNOW that the scale is not the best measure of progress and i am working on the other things too...back to lifting 2 times a week, going to mix up my workouts and try to get some more anaerobic workouts including some hiit and increasing my overall protein intake....i know what to do i just need help finalizing the number to work with....a few people have suggested i do the metabolism reset before starting the emwl concept?? thoughts on that too please lol...
thanks again...denise

thanks for the help....

update - i set my cals to 2300 on friday....can someone please provide confirmation of my info below????
thanks,
denise

i use a bodymedia fit armband.....
over the last 28 days i have had an average daily burn on 2962 calories...so that would be my TDEE correct??

then to get my TDEE minus 15% #, i would multiply 2962 by .85 which equals 2518 so that is what i'm supposed to eat each day if i keep up my current movement and have an average daily burn of 2962....is this correct????

the scooby website gave me similar numbers
BMR 1487
TDEE 2826
daily cal goal 2402 (based on 15% and 7hrs workout calculations)

so if i keep averaging a close to 3000 calorie burn each day i should really be eating 2500ish cals each day???? i dont mind gaining at first to get this *kitten* figured out especially if i expect it....i've lost 75+ lbs since jan 2008 and i would like to lose another 30ish to end up between 140-150 for the rest of my life....any suggestions would be wonderful...


PS i log my food in MFP diary and then just enter that as my daily estimate on my BMF activity manager...i know my MFP stats on my homepage are all off because i dont adjust for my true burn per my BMF....i dont care about what that says...at this point i just want my BMF activity manager to be accurate based on burn and cals eaten as entered....i have been playing with the 170s since May 2011...it's time to get into the 160s and then i'll at least feel like im making some "scale" related progress even though i KNOW that the scale is not the best measure of progress and i am working on the other things too...back to lifting 2 times a week, going to mix up my workouts and try to get some more anaerobic workouts including some hiit and increasing my overall protein intake....i know what to do i just need help finalizing the number to work with....a few people have suggested i do the metabolism reset before starting the emwl concept?? thoughts on that too please lol...
thanks again...denise

thanks for the help....

I would set your cals at 2400 - 2500 if it was me. I also compare scooby/BMF readings and found them about 100 difference. 2300 is going to put you at too high of a deficit (we try to stick to the 15% here)

Otherwise, looks good! Quick question, are you getting in at least one rest day? I see you workout for 7 hrs a week...If you are able to incorporate a rest day for your body to recover I highly recommend it. :happy:

What is the rationale behind using the TDEE cut adjusted to average activity level as your calorie goal and not logging exercise less than 500 cal, rather than using appropriately-calculated BMR as the goal and logging all exercise?

BMR + exercise alone is not enough. Look at it this way, if you got out of bed, ate your bmr calories (which in itself burns calories), brushed your teeth and went back to bed, you'd already have netted BELOW BMR. (= Bad). Same thing if you get out of bed, eat your BMR + exercise calories, worked out, showered, and went back to bed, you'd be netting under BMR (because you didn't leave anything for the shower.) You would have needed to eat back some of your shower burned calories too (not all necessarily, but enough to keep you above BMR).

What you want to do, is take the cut out of the daily calories above BMR. So, in essence you could then eat back only PART of your exercise calories....but this still leaves us with a couple of problems.

1. Are you sure you left enough room between BMR and calories eaten so that your daily activities don't burn so much that you then drop below BMR? (these are those things you do every day such as wash dishes, brush your teeth, make supper, play with kids, etc). You'd need to make sure you ate back enough of those calories burned too (approx 75%)...hard to determine those so much day to day though unless you have a Body Media Fit or other device. When all is said and done, you still want to make sure you are only at a 15% deficit total in order to keep the metabolism up higher, reduce plateaus, and promote a maintainable weight loss.
2. There is no consistency in what your body is fed day to day. This might not be as big of an issue for someone new to the diet world, but for people who have yo-yo dieted, binged, VLCD'd or other such things, the first thing the body needs to do is to learn to trust in a regular food supply. This helps restore metabolism, and break plateau's.

Basically it comes down to this...you CAN do it from BMR up (if you are new to dieting - still not recommended for others because of the consistency issue)...but you have a whole lot more calculations and numbers to watch that way if you want to do it properly.

I hope that helps explain it a bit...at least as far as I've been able to understand it!!

I'm a bit confused i went to to scooby's calculator i want to lose fat and gain muscle my BMR is 2284, and My TDEE is 3541, but its says to gain muscle and lose fat i should eat 3541, is that correct, i mean i expected a cut or is it all to sumplement my strength training and cardio?

I'm confused about this too.. I want to cut fat and gain muscle, but the calorie number it gives you is the same as your TDEE and so I don't see how that works?

This is helpful but... what about setting your MFP goal as your sedentary calorie value (I got mine from fat2fitradio) and then eating back your exercise calories? Does that work?