Burning an average of 850 a day

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peppapig24_
peppapig24_ Posts: 34
in Health and Weight Loss
How many calories should I eat?

Burn is from

Body Combat - 500
Gym - 300
Walking (Steps) - 150

I wear POLAR so its accurate?

Replies

  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,389 MFP Moderator
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    Need more information.

    Height, weight, age. Also, do you workout every day?
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
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    I wear POLAR so its accurate?
    Depends if you've set it up for your VO2 max and you're deducting your normal calorie intake from the reading.
  • peppapig24_
    peppapig24_ Posts: 34
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    Height - 5 foot 3.5 inches
    Age: 24
    Sex: Female
    Weight: 141.5lb
    Goal: 130lb

    I work out everyday but one, would say total weekly burn is 5,000.

    POLAR - not set up for VO2 - not sure what that is? I'm not deducting anything at the moment but if you suggest different then willing to try it!

    Eating around 2,000 calories at the moment and have gained 1.6lb in 4 days!
  • peppapig24_
    peppapig24_ Posts: 34
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    Steps - I automatically remove 2,500 worth as my diary is set to say I'm inactive. For 7,000 steps I get 150 calories.
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
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    Firstly the calorie estimates of HRMs usually include your resting metabolism. If I sit at the PC with my Polar on it'll clock up the equivalent of about 2200 kcal per day. So in my opinion you should subtract at least 1 calorie per minute from the reading to account for this, otherwise you're double accounting your RMR.

    The VO2max thing is a correction for your fitness. Not all models have it and heybales has posted methods to set up those that don't by fiddling your age etc to get the right outcome. I'm pretty unfit, my VO2max is 28 ml/min/kg so my maximum oxygen uptake is about 2.25 litres/minute or 11.2 calories per minute. So I can't burn more than 672 calories an hour, of which about 90 would be sitting down, so the maximum exercise can add for me is about 580 calories an hour - although probably best to think of it as 10 calories per minute as I won't last long at 100% of my VO2max. The Polar HRM uses the heart rate as a % of max to estimate %VO2 max and hence calorie burn.
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,389 MFP Moderator
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    If you HRM is accurate, then so is your calorie estimate. i have you around 2000. I know some HRM over exaggerate calories a bit and if that would be the case, i would have you at 1850 calories. Either way, you can't contribute the weight gain to fat gain. The body naturally fluctuates in weight.
  • peppapig24_
    peppapig24_ Posts: 34
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    Thanks to both of you.

    Yarwell - will look for heybales post, is there a quick way to find posts on here? Sorry, quite new to using the forums.
  • peppapig24_
    peppapig24_ Posts: 34
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    Would you both advise to carry on counting steps, or should I just do them but not include the calorie burn for it?
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
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    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/577839-hrm-s-with-vo2max-stat-improve-calorie-estimate?hl=vo2max#posts-8215542

    via the Search tool.

    Steps ? not really a fan, you set an activity level to cover that sort of thing in my opinion.
  • peppapig24_
    peppapig24_ Posts: 34
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    Thanks. I'm actually now thinking about upgrading my polar to FT60 which includes VO2 max reading.

    Do you still have to deduct your resting calories off a total burn, even when your VO2 max is recorded?

    Many Thanks!
  • mcarter99
    mcarter99 Posts: 1,666 Member
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    Instead of obsessing about how many calories your workouts burn, why not just not add them back? Are you doing 2 workouts a day in order to eat more or in order to lose weight and be healthy?
  • peppapig24_
    peppapig24_ Posts: 34
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    My aim is to lose weight, but without adding calories back on I'm only eating 1,200 calories a day, and when burning 850 I don't consider that very healthy? :-S
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,293 Member
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    I would ignore the walking amount as it should be included in your activity level burn. (unless it is done as a workout and you are set as sedentary)

    To answer your question, I don't know the ideal amount, but you should not go below 1200 net as a minimum. So if you burn 850/day, you should not eat less than 2050 (1200+850), maybe more.
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,293 Member
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    My aim is to lose weight, but without adding calories back on I'm only eating 1,200 calories a day, and when burning 850 I don't consider that very healthy? :-S

    Doing this is like eating 350 cals on days you don't workout (1200-850) which is no where near enough.
  • peppapig24_
    peppapig24_ Posts: 34
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    Thanks.

    My activity level is at sedentary - I have a desk job, but I walk on my lunch and generally move around before / after work, clocking up steps on my fitbit which usually equate to 6000-7000 steps. Usually knock off 2,500 and count it as 4,500 steps earning 150 calories.
  • shicken684
    shicken684 Posts: 36
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    I wasn't losing any weight until I started to ignore the net calories on days I went to the gym. My goal was 1500 cal/day and some days I would rack up an extra 600 calories doing an hour on the elliptical so I would eat about 2k total cal. I didn't lose a pound for a month. Now I just eat 1500/day regardless if I exercise. On days I really push myself at the gym, I might add in an extra 250cal worth of protein. Just find what works for your body. Everyone is going to be a little different. Also depends on what you diet is.
  • peppapig24_
    peppapig24_ Posts: 34
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    Shicken, were you wearing a HRM to calculate those 600 cals?

    Thanks
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,389 MFP Moderator
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    I wasn't losing any weight until I started to ignore the net calories on days I went to the gym. My goal was 1500 cal/day and some days I would rack up an extra 600 calories doing an hour on the elliptical so I would eat about 2k total cal. I didn't lose a pound for a month. Now I just eat 1500/day regardless if I exercise. On days I really push myself at the gym, I might add in an extra 250cal worth of protein. Just find what works for your body. Everyone is going to be a little different. Also depends on what you diet is.

    The problem wit this method is you increase the chances of going catabolic; your bodies ability to take the amino acids in your muscles to create energy for your body. So not only do you lose fat, you also lose muscle.

    As a reference point, I am 5'11, 197 lbs, 12% body fat and 29 years old and I eat 2600-2800 to cut fat. When i was eating 1800 calories, I didn't lose weight. And this is while doing P90X
  • AmyFett
    AmyFett Posts: 1,607 Member
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    Maybe be a dumb question, but what is polar?
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,389 MFP Moderator
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    Maybe be a dumb question, but what is polar?

    Brand of heart rate monitor.

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