Calories in Vs out

[dawnleigh]

I've been reading up on calories in vs out and have some conflicting information. Some websites will say to eat more calories if you are active (I walk 7 days a week along with doing 20 minutes of cardio a day and am in the obese zone on the BMI scale) while other sites will say don't if you are trying to lose weight (which I most certainly am). Short of seeing a nutritionalist, how can I weed out the misleading articles with incorrect information?

[Dominique]

I think what they mean is you can eat more while having the same deficit if you are more active. Let's say your energy expenditure would be 1700 calories if mostly sedentary and 2300 if moderately active. If you wanted to shoot for a 500 calories deficit, you would be eating 1200 calories if sedentary (that's not a lot, and could very well be below your BMR, something which is generally not advised), but 1800 calories if more active. The other possibility would be to burn 2300 (moderately active) and eat 1200: this would be what the sites telling you to eat more if you are active would be warning you against (don't overdo it by eating too little for your activity level).

[dawnleigh]

Thanks @Dominique. It kind of makes sense (as it's new to me). I previously had 1400 calories set as a daily goal but when I went to www.fitcal.me it's advising me to consume 1944 calories per day (as I am moderately active) to lose weight. To me, that sounds excessive. I'm fine with 1400 but I fear that eating too little is slowing my weight loss as a little research (whether it's accurate or not) tells me that eating more calories based on your activity level helps weight loss.

[A_Lurker]

@dawnleigh- you can do a couple of things.  Go to a site with a BMR calculator and put in your information.  This is the number you should try not to go below.  Then just pick a strategy and try it for a number of weeks.  If you're young enough that you still menstruate I'd say do what you've picked for 5-6 weeks and then adjust.  If you're older then 3-4 weeks is probably fine.  The idea is to see actual results and then adjust.  Maybe pick something in between.

http://www.fat2fittools.com/ - where you can find a BMR caculator.

[Dominique]

Excellent advise from @A_Lurker to test how well your Fitbit estimates your energy expenditure and how well you count your intake, using weight changes over a long enough period of time (there are going to be daily fluctuations, which is why you need to look at changes over several weeks).

Here is what you could do:

1. FInd out your calculated BMR (most calculators are using the Mifflin St Jeor equation, which is also what Fitbit is using)
   
   
2. Find out your average energy expenditure (TDEE = calories burned), as reported by your Fitbit:  the mobile app makes it easy to see it on a weekly basis:
   
   
3.  Set up a suitable (*) deficit, for instance 750 calories 
   
   

4.  Your goal will be to eat TDEE minus the deficit you’ve set
   
   

5. Eat for some time at that level and see if the actual weight loss (hopefully it will be a loss) matches your calculated deficit, knowing that a cumulated deficit of 3500 calories (e.g. daily deficit of 500 calories for one week)  should result in a weight loss of 1 pound (that equation is not perfect, but it should work OK in most cases)

(*) Suitable means (among other things) it shouldn’t result in an average intake that’s too low, for instance below your BMR. Generally speaking, the more you have to lose, the higher your deficit can be, at the beginning. As you get closer to your goal, you should lower your deficit. Remember that eating at a deficit is stressful for your body, and the bigger the deficit and the longer you’re in, the more stress is being created.

A useful tool to monitor your weight changes is TrendWeight. It’s free and you can link your Fitbit account to it: any weigh-ins added in Fitbit (whether manually by you, or automatically by your Fitbit Aria scale, if you have one) will automatically show up in TrendWeight. TrendWeight displays your individual weigh-ins in a better (IMO) way than Fitbit does and it really helps with daily fluctuations. For best results, you should use daily weigh-ins.

Take into account there’s a margin error for both energy expenditure and dietary intake. This is why you want to establish what your real deficit is, as opposed to your calculated deficit.

If you wish to use the Fitbit Food Plan, you may want to have a look at this very helpful series of posts.

[Malme84]

As a general rule;

calories in < calories out = lose weight.

calories in > calories out = gain weight.

calories in = calories out = maintain weight.

It's a bit more complicated than that (e.g. all calories aren't equal), but it holds true as a general rule.