Cals in/Cals out and my exercise question

[Cizar39]

Hello, 

Bought a Fitbit last week and have since dropped 6.5 pounds on a pretty strict diet and 30 kilometers walked this week. I started out at 285.5 last Friday and I am 279.0 today. 

It feels good, but one thing I'm wondering is if I've been netting very low calories. 

Here is an example: 

Yesterday I walked for over 60 minutes at a high pace and burned 1,007 calories according to the Fitbit app. Also yesterday, I ate 1,893 calories, which was 836 calories below my plan on Fitbit, which is to lose two pounds a week. 

Did I only net 886 calories yesterday? I would imagine that's too low, but I want to make sure I'm looking at the numbers right. Based on my food plan on the Fitbit app, I can eat roughly 2,000 calories if I do nothing at all during the day to reach my goal. That goes up if I exercise, of course, but not usually by how many calories it says I've burned on any given exercise. 

I'm just a little confused on how the Fitbit app adds (if it does at all) the burned calories from exercise into your daily eating limit on calories. 

Just looking for some guidance here. 

Thanks! 

[Esya]

Hello @Cizar39,

First off the calories burned that FitBit report are an estimation. A good starting point to use, but as we are humans we are all a bit different, so it can only report an estimation. If you use a HR enabled tracker it tends to overestimate your calories burned.

For the amount of calories to eat it is not adviced to eat below your BMR for a long period of time. Your BMR is the amount of calories you burn when doing nothing, staying in bed for the entire day. You can calculate your BMR using this calculator.

The amount you lose depends on the gap in calories between burned and calories eaten. As said the calories burned is an estimation. So you have to log for a period what you ate (be precise, log every bite and sip) and how much you lost to figure out what the exact numbers are for you. A great tool to help you with that is trendweight.com. It is free to use and you can link it to your FitBit account. It shows the trend of your weight and reports based on your weight loss rate how much you are burning more than you are eating.

You made great progress in the first week! Make sure to log everything that enters your stomache.

How the FitBit app adds calories burned into the daily eating limit depends on the setting you have it on. There is a sedentary and personalised setting. With the sedentary setting it will assume you are going to be sedentary for the entire day and then add the calories as you burn them. For the personalised setting it will use your historic data to predict how much you are going to burn that day and then correct throughout the day. With the first setting you have a higher risk of eating below your food plan. With the personalised setting you have a higher risk of eating above your food plan. Just try them out and see what works best for you.

[Cizar39]

Thanks for the reply. 

So my BMR suggests I should eat 2,276 calories a day. The TDEE, to lose weight at a high calorie deficit, given that I exercise 3-5 times a week, is at 2,820. 

So I should be eating to that 2,820 number given my exercise? I walk roughly 5 KM a day. And I lift every second day for the most part, do some circuit training. 

FWIW, I'm using a Charge 2. 

Also, based on the numbers in my original post, was I under eating on my calories by a lot? 

[Esya]

@Cizar39

You can chose to eat your exercise calories back or not. That is up to you and a choice that I cannot make for you. I don't know how much you have to lose, but the further you are from your goal weight the easier it is to lose more. When you find that you are struggling to maintain the plan you are currently on, it does no harm to increase the amount you eat. It will slow down your weight loss, but you want to be able to do this for the long run and to create a new lifestyle.

I do suggest to eat atleast your BMR calories a day though. But here you can also chose to eat the amount of calories your BMR would be at, at your goal weight (you can calculate that using the calculator I linked). Then you burn the rest by exercising. So I would say you were under eating by a little based on your numbers, not by a lot though.

A few healthy ways to easily add calories to your diet are:

-a table spoon of olive oil (or any other fat for that matter) already does 90 kcal

-a handful of nuts

-an avocado

The Charge 2 also tends to overestimate the calories burned, making it look like you burned more than you actually did. If you use the trendweight account you can figure out how much you are actually eating less than burning based on your weight loss (trendweight will tell you that).

Weight loss is not an exact science, so you have to find what works for you. Log what you do and you can experiment a little.

[MagsOnTheBeach]

How do you feel? Hungry, tired, irritable?  Then you may need more healthy food.  If you feel great, then carry on.  The first two weeks of my diet I lost 14lbs.  I am sure most was water weight.  The next week I didn't lose more than a pound, I added more food (another fruit), and I lost 3.  Since then I lost 2lbs a week for a couple months and now I'm at about 1.5-1lb a week.  I do a lot more fitness than when I started but because a lb is a greater percentage of my body weight, it is slower to leave.  If you keep a health (both physical and mental) it will really help you determine if you need more calories.  For example, headaches, body aches, being tired or physically hungry.

[Cizar39]

I feel more energetic than I have in years. I'm hungry usually at night time. I try to limit myself to some fruit or some unsalted corn tortilla chips with a bit of salsa. I had a bowl of cereal last night though, haha. 

I feel sometimes it's more will power than anything when I feel hungry at night. I used to eat all the time before bed and now I'm not. 

But it's been a week, so I'm trying to re-adjust to this new way of living. 

[emili]

your body would tell you if you are low on calories, you would be lethargic, tired, foggy headed and either hungry or a bit sick to your stomach. However, being too low isn't ideal for extended periods of time. that combined with cardio, albeit light cardio, you will lose muscle mass. I think you have lots of good information in all the replies, the only thing I would chime in with is... walking is great- but it doesn't constitute a "very active" lifestyle even if you do it most days. If you combine that with weight lifting, running, swimming, boxing or some other "stressful" activity then you could categorize it as highly active. Congrats on the weight loss you have so far- that's awesome. keep it up!

[Cizar39]

Thanks. 

I've been doing resistance training every second day now, roughly 30-45 minutes with resistance bands. 

[Cmfong]

First of all, I think you have to know your BMI before you start your diets or weight loss plan. And I believe it will more effective to help you lose weight fast when you using low carb diets. 

There is no wrong or right, but I'm one of the person use this methods to lose weight successful.

[Daves_Not_Here]

@Cizar39 congrats on your progress!  The answer to your original question is that Fitbit builds in a calorie deficit to your consumption goal, so if you defined your weight-loss rate goal at 2 pounds per week, Fitbit gives you a 1,000 calorie daily deficit.  So if you are 836 under plan, then you had a total deficit of 1,836.  That equates to between a 3 to 4 pound weekly loss if sustained, which is hard to do.

As to how Fitbit "adds in" exercise calories burned to your consumption goal, I believe it increases the consumption goal so as to maintain a 1000 calorie deficit for the day.  It can be confusing because it doesn't adjust your target all at once - it prorates the increase over the day.

One Red Flag I noticed - you mentioned you are usually hungry at night.  This is normal and most of us struggle with this.  It's obvious you are aware of the importance of avoiding late night snacking based on how you said you limit it to fruit or chips and salsa (both of which may be low in calories but high in carbs which increases cravings) instead of mowing through cereal.  

Late night snacking is tempting because of habit and actual hunger.  And if you exercise and have a calorie deficit, your hunger will be more not less.

My suggestion:  willpower is difficult to sustain long-term.  I suggest it is easier if you can prevent the hunger from occurring than try to resist it with willpower.  Here is what works for me:

• Avoid carbs at dinner - I don't need to be low-carb all day, just at dinner.
• Eat dinner.  If I skip dinner, I'm going to naturally be hungry after when I was supposed to eat dinner. 
• Force myself to drink a glass of water every time I prowl the kitchen.  Late night grazing is preceded by late night prowling.  Water increases satiety.  I now actively avoid the kitchen lest I grow gills.
• Go to bed earlier.  If I'm asleep, I'm not eating.  Increased sleep promotes weight loss for a lot of reasons.

I found it took about a week to break the urge to snack after dinner.