Calories help

[lyds33]

I am 4'11, bmi of 50. I have a charge hr and I'm loving it!
I want to lose around 2 pounds a week. I spend between 2-3 hours in the gym and I have a decent active job on top of that. Would you say the calories burned are accurate? I have been burning an average of 3000 or more a day. I am going to try and eat around 1400 a day but will probably be a little more. My Dr did check me out for thyroid issues but she said I'm normal. (In the middle). Any advice would be appreciated!

[GershonSurge]

It depends on which tracker you use. I have a Zip and a Surge.

I've done extensive tracking to test the consistency of each based on the number of pounds I lost based on calorie deficit. It seems to take about a 2,500-2800 deficit to lose a pound on the Zip and a 4,000 calorie deficit to lose a pound on the Surge. Each person will likely have different results based on the types of exercises they are doing.

Personally, I would never go below my daily sedentary requirement based on my height and weight. If you want to keep it simple, try running a 500 calorie daily deficit based on the Fitbit for a few weeks. If that doesn't work, increase the deficit. 

Setting weekly loss goals can be discouraging as weight loss is erratic. I prefer to set action based goals on maintaining a calorie deficit. Then I can usually be successful. 

Being healthy is not all about weight. A person can reverse many health problems quite quickly with the proper diet. I suggest reading "The Starch Solution" by Dr. McDougall and hanging out in the forum at www.drmcdougall.com. If you prefer watching videos, I suggest watching the 12 videos in this YouTube playlist.

Good luck in your journey.

[A_Lurker]

I'm a little taller than you and have a slightly higher BMI.  I burn between 3000 and 4000 calories most days.  I run around a 1200 calorie deficit and over the past 19 weeks have lost about 2.5 lbs a week.  So for me, I'd say the HR log is pretty accurate.  This means that pretty much every day I'm eating well over 2000 calories unless it's a really inactive day.  This is purely an opinion, and you may be different, but don't be in a hurry to drop your calories too low to begin with.  That can come later in order to break through a plateau if you need.

Work on logging your foods, use a 500-1000 calorie deficit, and see what happens in a couple of weeks.

[philly78]

1400 actually seems a bit too low imo. Yes. You want to be at a deficit but you also want to make sure you eat enough food and try to preserve muscle while losing fat. You also want to pick a number that you will actually stick to and you don't want to lose too quickly.  

Do you spend 2-3/week in the gym? Or is that per day? Everyone has a "diet" approach that works for them and there are many different options out there. I follow a flexible dieting plan, also referred to as IIFYM....if it fit's your macros. I started following this because I'm actually trying to build muscle but I was introduced to this way of eating by a friend who lost over 100lbs. Here is a link to read about it and if it interests you, maybe try it out. Even if you don't, I wish you success on your journey!

https://healthyeater.com/how-to-calculate-your-macros

[lyds33]

During the summer I am in the gym between 2-3 hours....the school year will
probably be just around 1 hour because I'll be working 2 jobs. 😏
I will check out the diet you mentioned! Thank you!

[JohnRi · Accepted solution]

Hello,

I've posted many answers similar to your what you have asked.  For example, look at this one.

https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Weight-Loss/62-Pounds-Weight-Loss-Goal-looking-for-Support-and-Motiv...

Your Charge is probably in the ball park on how many calories you burn in a day.  Is it 100% accurate, no.  Is it close, probably.  Weight loss takes a lot of time to lose.  It's take me 8 1/2 months to lose 64 lbs. 

Here are some basic ideas.  First of all, never eat fewer than 1200 calories a day.  If you fitbit app is telling to eat less than than, you need to increase your exercise.  Second start slow and build up to it.

What I mean is this, start with a 250 deficit, but try to eat a few hundred calories under it.  When you are always 250 under, switch to a 500 calorie deficit.  Again slowly eat less than the the deficit, until you are always 250 under it.  Then swith to a 750 deficit...  and so on, until you get to 1000 calorie deficit.

Log every calorie you eat.  I don't care if it's 5 calorie breath mint.  Log everything.  Measure you food.  If you don't have a food weight scale, get one. 

Work on improving your diet constantly.  I've been at this for going on 9 months. I'm constantly looking at ways to change or improve my diet.  The advantage of constantly changing is you never get bored eating the same "healthy" things over and over.  

Review your food log looking for high calorie foods, and see what you can do to reduce or eliminate them.

I've run a diet around 18-20% protein, 25% fat, and rest carbs.  I eat a ton of veggies.  A lot of chicken, and pork.  But I still have two burgers a week.  They are much smaller than I used to eat though.

Portion control is huge.  I huge you to eat a foot long sub.  Now I eat a 6 inch.  I used to have 2/3 or 1/2 lbs burgers, now I eat 1/4 or 1/3 lbs burgers.

If I order fries it's the small size.  Anything larger, I only eat half of them and throw the rest away.  Chips with my subs, became apple slices.  At my favorite burger joint, I now have the apple slices with my burger.

Use the fitbit food log to make healthy choices when eating out.  You will find that most meals at Chili's, Applebees, etc., are twice the calories you should eat in a meal.  So when eating out try getting a to go box right away, and before you start eating, put half the meal in the box. 

When I started, my bmi was 38.6.  Today it's 29.8.  I still have 34 to lose minimum. 

I did it by changing my diet, and by TONS of exercise.  I started out walking 1/4 of a mile every other day.  It took me 3 months to get to 3 miles.  A month after that I got to six miles.  Then I started walking ever day 4-6 miles.  Then I replace every other day with cycling.  A week ago I added weight training.

Bottomline I exercise 90 to 150 minutes every day.  I started out doing 20 minutes... 

As you lose weight, you body will shrink.  And sometimes the scale is a bad way to tell.  Get a clothing tape measure, and take your measurements weekly and write them down.  Sometimes we lose inches, but the scale doesn't budge!  If you don't have a Aria, it's very handy to have.  And it's great to watch your fat % drop over time.  If you get a Aria, weight yourself once a day, but ignore the numbers.  Look at your app and see your weekly average, and look at the trend of you fat %.  

Visit Trendweight.com and connect it to your fitbit account.  This is great site, the averages out your numbers, eliminating the daily ups and downs on the scale, and giving you a great idea of your weight loss...

Bottom line, eat right, get tons of exercise.  Start slow, and work you way up.  And give it time.  It took you years to gain the weight, it's going to take months or years to lose it.

Good luck and stay active!

[lyds33]

Should I use fit bit app for food logging or mfp?

[A_Lurker]

That's up to you.  I use the Fitbit logging (but mostly on my computer) and others use MFP.  It's more important that you log, not how you do it.  Whichever makes more sense to you.

[philly78]

I use MFP. I've never even tried fit bit for logging food but I love that I can just scan ingredients with MFP.

[lyds33]

The calories are different in each one. Did you input manually the same
number or keep what mfp gave you?

[philly78]

I scan all my own foods into my diary if I can. Many of my foods that are scanable have been matched correctly though (yogurts, cottage cheese, frozen fruits etc) Ibut scanning is just so easy. I did find some variations with fresh fruits and vegetables though. I bought a digital food scale and find that if I go by weight it is more accurate. For example, when I search for banana I will see options of banana 100grams or banana medium. I go with the banana 100grams and check the accuracy. Most nutritional info has been correct. Sometimes I find incorrect entries but I just use a different entry or make my own. Once I've added it to my diary, it is saved and easy to use again. I've found that when searching for meats/fishes/poultry it is helpful to clarify raw or cooked. I eat a lot of oatmeal, brown rice and quinoa as well and the easiest way for me to track that is to enter a recipe for each, clarifying how many servings and then weighing it out cooked. This is one area where I've found others entries to be quite variable and weighing out your portions will be more accurate saying 1 cup.