@Case13 wrote:
Today, I have about 15 pounds to lose at a 500 cal deficit. Does that seem reasonable?
I understand what you're saying about metabolism being metabolism and calorie burn being calorie burn. Although, pretty much any health resource for a gym routine will explain that varying calories from day to day and switching up exercise is the only way to get off a plateau and continue to lose weight. That's where my info comes. Besides, the higher your heart rate, the more the fat burn. A little 3mph jaunt around town barely even raises my resting heart rate.
I'm not sure what my actual calorie intake should be. Based on a variety of apps and websites, I have been suggested everything from 900 to 1600 per day. FitBit is suggesting (with no exercise) around 1200 which pretty much means I snack on a few things during the day and eat only one actual meal (dinner).
I don't know how to tell if I should eat more or less to make this happen for me. I don't know if I should be switching up routine at all. It's very concerning to me because my body is entirely different. Even in times I have had a fluctuation before, it hasn't compounded into a continual weight gain. And even at the weight I am currently at, I have never looked so... out of shape. But, I'm in shape! That's why it doesn't make sense. I eat well. I eat right (mostly). I walk A LOT and exercise in addition to that.
All in all, I don't want to spend months with doctors trying to figure it out so I'd like any insight that people have into what I may be doing wrong or what may be happening. I've had enough medical run arounds that I've had to deal with over the years and especially in the last year. I don't want to make one more thing out of it.
The irony is that none of my medicine have a weight gain side effect, but one of them raises heart rate and should keep my metabolism buzzing for a near 12 hours even when I'm just sitting at my desk. I should be at least maintaining weight with this in my life. And yet... no.
500 deficit is reasonable until you get to 10 lbs, then 250 is more reasonable.
But - your are taking med's - which means whatever your body is dealing with is already a stress. Lack of sleep, intense frequent exercise, and life in general, food sensitivities, ect can all add stresses.
Go too high and your body will adapt, usually down, and you no longer burn what you could.
So it could be 500 isn't reasonable with what your body deals with already.
Trainers are following bro-science if they follow those ideas, which means no studies have shown it - they are going on word of mouth and claims of others with nothing to back up their methods.
Switching up exercise is the silliest claim made big by the muscle confusion idea of P90X.
All that means is that when you start something new, you are usually inefficient at the movement, therefore you burn more calories trying to do it. Once you become efficient, you burn slightly less.
That really applies to stuff that are body weight and limited by pace or movement - like say Zumba or their program.But if you increase the weight, or make the pace faster, or the incline faster, then you just increased the calorie burn. There is no need to keep switching up routines thinking there is some inherent benefit to it, just increase the intensity of what you are doing and really get some benefit from it, and burn more.
If switching up routine causes weight loss from a plateau, it just means your are now burning more than you were - and eating less would have accomplished the same thing, or getting more intense with what you do.
The reason the calorie cycling is silly is because it takes 72 hrs for the body to really realize a change in intake such it has to deal with it. This is born out from fasting studies where metabolism actually went up in first 24-48 hrs, then starting coming back down.
So changing daily isn't doing anything except making planning more difficult.
If it floats your boat, go for it.
Your calorie intake should be 250-500 less than the TDEE that Fitbit estimates, and that is with manual corrections to exercise it is underestimating.
And no your body is not entirely different, sad to say you are not a special snow flake. The laws of thermodynamics apply to you too.
As well as what you can do to your body eating too little. Have you done that in the past, recent past, eating even less?
Because it could be you came to Fitbit with a messed up metabolism already.
And it's not that it won't work, but your estimates so far could be very off.
It's like the person that claims they gain weight eating 1200 calories.
But they fail to mention they fall off the wagon every weekend and eat in surplus 3500 calories total.
Their goal may be 1200, but they fail to always meet it, and every surplus is a fat gain.
Also, elevated HR doesn't mean big calorie burn from metabolism at all. HR has a correlation with calorie burn during steady-state aerobic exercise, where it beats faster to supply the required oxygen to burn the needed fuel.
And even that is not a direct link, because meds, dehydrated, caffeine, tired, ect can elevate the HR higher than the effort really needs it to be.
So higher at rest is exactly because of the meds, not because of increased metabolism. No correlation.
First, do you manually correct Fitbit exercise for stuff it is bad at calorie counts on, all non-step based exercise, like rowing, biking, lifting, ect?
Second, what is the corrected Fitbit TDEE then?
We know you have 500 cal deficit, which should be good.
You weigh all foods, or at least did so for 2 weeks to see how bad other methods are? That includes weighing packages.
Third, how long have you been doing a diet, except for those breaks you mentioned eating at who knows what level, and were you eating even less during that time, or tad more but exercising a bunch more?
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