Negative Adjustments - Just demotivating?

[miratps]

Hi all,

I am someone who has developed exercise bulimia pretty much and in a bid to get better I am trying to limit my exercise to hopefully also decrease my appetitie (it's a vicious cycle at the moment). I currently get up at 3am each day and do a ton of exercise but obviously want to stop as it's not sustainable and made my life miserable, nor do I want to do so much exercise on a regular basis at any time of the day - just a nice moderate amount. I also don't want to have to walk an extra 45 mins home when I could do it the simple route in 5 mins.

But my question is about negative adjustments on MFP. As I try and wake up later (currently at 30 mins later than I was....) I see I am 'down' calories already cos of the adjustment. It has made me paranoid that if I don't workout I will see that number increase and therefore not be able to 'eat a normal amount' without crazy exercise.

So, what is the point of the negative adjustment? It's currently just serving me as a demotivator and encouraging me to keep my habit up or am I looking at it wrong?

[Gtkozik]

What is your goal? What are you trying to accomplish?

[emili]

I don't think I fully understand your question, but let me answer it a different way if I can..

Depending on your goal - lose weight, stay the same, gain weight- you have to eat below, to or above your TDEE. TDEE is the total amount of energy (calories) you burn. This includes calories your body needs to survive and calories you burn through movement. Let's pretend your BMR (calories your body needs to survive) is 1500. In addition, through walking, running, lifting, boxing, laughing, dancing,etc you burn another 600 calories. Your total TDEE for the day is 2100 calories. If you eat 1900 you will lose weight. If you eat 2100 you will stay the same. If you eat 2300 you will gain. Keeping in mind that everything has a range of error- how well you track your food, how accurate your calories out are being measured and how accurate calorie values are for the food you eat.

Your fitbit looks at your calorie expenditure everytime it updates your calorie burn and projects what you still have in your bank based on what you are doing. So if you are less active, it is saying you should eat less then what you had been.

I hope this helps you even a little...

[Gtkozik]

I see what you are saying in a way. You exercise too much not to gain weight? And  you keep tracking your calories all the time? I would suggest intermittent fasting. Eating one to two larger meals  afternoon. Not huge meals but enough to sustain you. I lost lots of weight last year doing that and just went on more of a fruit and veggie diet.

Are u from Pennsylvania? I am too.