MFP, BMR, Fitbit and Eating Back Calories

ekaplan1020
ekaplan1020 Posts: 16
in Health and Weight Loss
Hello,

Sorry about this long winded post. I have been yo-yo dieting my whole life and I am wanting to make sure I am losing weight effectively and correctly so I can learn to eat like a normal human being :)

I was recently pointed to "helloitsdan's" article on BMR and TDEE which led me to the Fat2Fit Radio site (both are great). I immediately researched the info and calculated that at 32yo, 6'0, 210 pounds my BMR is 1784 according to the Katch-McArdle. My TDEE chart looks like the following:

Sedentary (little or no exercise, desk job)= 2238
Lightly Active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk)=2564
Moderately Active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk)=2891
Very Active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk)=3217
Extremely Active (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2X day training, i.e marathon, contest etc.)=3544

A few questions I had...

1. What activity level should I be using? The activity chart seems rather vague. I am an attorney so my activity level at my job varies (as does the stress). Some days I will be at my computer for most of the day and others I will be in and out of court. Also, because of my hours, I try to work out when I can, but again it varies depending on the week. Regardless, I try to do a P90X strength routine, a 2-3 mile jog, or the elliptical at least 4 times a week not only for weight loss, but to also help with stress. Is this something that I should just estimate weekly?

2. Because of my BMR and the info from Fat2Fit, I changed my MFP goal to 1 pound a week rather than the previous 2 pound. It set my calorie goal at 1900 (rather than the previous of 1450). Even this seems low based on my BMR and TDEE above, but at least it is now above the BMR. The question I have is accounting for exercise. There have been days where I workout and burn 400 calories. I have read up on eating back calories and there are proponents and opponents.

For an example, yesterday I was at around 2000 calories toward the end of the day. In the evening, I went for a 30 minute jog and according to MFP burned around 400 calories. On top of that my FitBit adjusted my calories for the day by about 150 (FYI - I had logged the start time of my run in MFP). After my jog, my net calories under MFP showed 1400 calories. Not wanting to be below my BMR, I followed up my jog with a protein shake totaling about 300 calories which put me at about 1750 NET calories, even though my food intake was 2300 calories. Am I doing this correctly? Was that protein shake necessary? Should I have had an additional 500 or so calories to get closer to my TDEE??

3. So far I am really liking my FitBit. The question I have is how accurate are the calories burned according to FitBit and how does this factor in to my BMR and TDEE. For instance, over the past few days my FitBit has my calories burned at:

Wed - 2853 cal
Thurs - 2393 cal
Fri - 2598 cal
Sat - 2821 cal
Sun - 3007 cal

Should I be logging my exercise on MFP or just going by the FitBit calorie adjustment? I would really like to use these together correctly as I enjoy having a gauge with me throughout the day.

Thank you for any help or discussion on these questions.

Ethan

Replies

  • DanaDark
    DanaDark Posts: 2,187 Member
    Hi there!

    Well, I have no experience with the FitBit so I cannot be much help in figuring out it's accuracy.

    However, since you have a BMR of 1784 and a TDEE at sedimentary of 2238, I usually suggest that you eat somewhere in between those numbers.

    Rounding, to make my life easy, 1800 and 2200... so eat about 2000 a day, that is 200 deficit a day from diet alone. If you want 1 pound fat loss a week, you need a 500 a day deficit, so, you should exercise off another 300 calories. If you exercise more than that, there will be more weight loss. So, if your goal is 1 pound a week, then you'll need to eat back any calories you burn off that make your deficit greater than 500. If your goal is 1+ pounds a week, then you don't need to.
  • rileysowner
    rileysowner Posts: 8,336 Member
    From what I have read FitBits are pretty good for walking/running but not for weights or biking. I would suggest sticking with the fit bit for now since it will automatically adjust your calories here, and then seek to eat so have very close to 0 calories left to eat for the day. That number will change based on your activity, but will keep you in a reasonable deficit to keep losing. If I had a Fitbit that is what I would do, although I have not pulled the trigger on purchasing one yet.
  • DoingItNow2012
    DoingItNow2012 Posts: 424 Member
    The numbers between the website and the fitbit don't seem too far off. I would go with the fit bit as it shows the variability of your tdee depending on whether you exercise or not. If you want to lose a pound a week, just maintain a 500 calorie deficit from whatever your fitbit says. If you want to do 2 pounds, do a 1000 calorie deficit. If your primary concern is going under your bmr, well then never eat below 1800 and you should be good, even if you didn't exercise that day. It looks like overall you are moderately active. If you never did any exercise then you would be sedentary, but you do exercise.

    I find that, if I get 10000 steps in for the day, even with no exercise, then my numbers fit into moderately active. (I have a bodymedia). Surprisingly, MFP isn't too far off with their numbers when I get my activity level accurate. I try to amke sure I do 10000 steps per day. If I exercise on top of that, then I enter the exercise on MFP
  • eightpock
    eightpock Posts: 61
    I've asked the same question before. I was always told to pay attention to the "Net" calories. My Fitbit adjusts my gross calorie intake for the activity I do during the day, and I just go by my "net" intake.

    Typically, I have a goal of 1,750 Calories. I've eaten Lunch and a snack and with my fitbit adjustment i have a net intake of 34 Calories, so I figure as long as I stay under 1,750 Net calories I am good, which according to MFP is a daily deficit of 750. One thing i have found difficult, is it I do exercise (60 minutes Walk/Jog in the park), I get home and find I still have 1000 calories to intake at the end of the day!

    I try and eat back the calories...Hopefully this logic is sound.
  • ladyraven68
    ladyraven68 Posts: 2,003 Member
    Hello,

    Sorry about this long winded post. I have been yo-yo dieting my whole life and I am wanting to make sure I am losing weight effectively and correctly so I can learn to eat like a normal human being :)

    I was recently pointed to "helloitsdan's" article on BMR and TDEE which led me to the Fat2Fit Radio site (both are great). I immediately researched the info and calculated that at 32yo, 6'0, 210 pounds my BMR is 1784 according to the Katch-McArdle. My TDEE chart looks like the following:

    Sedentary (little or no exercise, desk job)= 2238
    Lightly Active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk)=2564
    Moderately Active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk)=2891
    Very Active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk)=3217
    Extremely Active (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2X day training, i.e marathon, contest etc.)=3544

    A few questions I had...

    1. What activity level should I be using? The activity chart seems rather vague. I am an attorney so my activity level at my job varies (as does the stress). Some days I will be at my computer for most of the day and others I will be in and out of court. Also, because of my hours, I try to work out when I can, but again it varies depending on the week. Regardless, I try to do a P90X strength routine, a 2-3 mile jog, or the elliptical at least 4 times a week not only for weight loss, but to also help with stress. Is this something that I should just estimate weekly?

    2. Because of my BMR and the info from Fat2Fit, I changed my MFP goal to 1 pound a week rather than the previous 2 pound. It set my calorie goal at 1900 (rather than the previous of 1450). Even this seems low based on my BMR and TDEE above, but at least it is now above the BMR. The question I have is accounting for exercise. There have been days where I workout and burn 400 calories. I have read up on eating back calories and there are proponents and opponents.

    For an example, yesterday I was at around 2000 calories toward the end of the day. In the evening, I went for a 30 minute jog and according to MFP burned around 400 calories. On top of that my FitBit adjusted my calories for the day by about 150 (FYI - I had logged the start time of my run in MFP). After my jog, my net calories under MFP showed 1400 calories. Not wanting to be below my BMR, I followed up my jog with a protein shake totaling about 300 calories which put me at about 1750 NET calories, even though my food intake was 2300 calories. Am I doing this correctly? Was that protein shake necessary? Should I have had an additional 500 or so calories to get closer to my TDEE??

    3. So far I am really liking my FitBit. The question I have is how accurate are the calories burned according to FitBit and how does this factor in to my BMR and TDEE. For instance, over the past few days my FitBit has my calories burned at:

    Wed - 2853 cal
    Thurs - 2393 cal
    Fri - 2598 cal
    Sat - 2821 cal
    Sun - 3007 cal

    Should I be logging my exercise on MFP or just going by the FitBit calorie adjustment? I would really like to use these together correctly as I enjoy having a gauge with me throughout the day.

    Thank you for any help or discussion on these questions.

    Ethan

    There is no need for you to rely on Fat2Fit's estimates.

    Your fitbit can give you an average TDEE over a period of time - if you take the average for the past 2 weeks, just deduct your defict from there and eat the same amount each day.

    No need to eat the exercise calories as they are already included.

    If your average is 2800, you could eat around 1800-2000 to lose 1.5 to 2lb per week.

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