SHORT WOMEN/ FITBIT ADVICE/ WEIGHT LIFTING/ MISSING PERIOD

[_Sophie_]

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 SHORT WOMEN/ FITBIT ADVICE/ WEIGHT LIFTING/ MISSING PERIOD 

Hello you lovely bunch.

I was wondering if you could give me some advice or share your experiences and opinions with me.

Now, firstly, I know everyone is different and everyone has different BMR's due to their muscle mass.

I have used my fitness pal for years and it has set me as 1460 sedentary, 1600 mark for lightly active, 1800 for moderate and 2000 for very.
I am 24, 5ft (and it ends at that!) 7 stone 7 pounds. I started at 8 stone 9.
I seem to only really be able to lose weight if I go under 1200. This also makes me completely mad and I feel very, very unwell. I also seem to get extremely low blood sugar if I don't eat very regularly or a high intake of fat and protein every day.

What I was wondering was how you guys worked out your TDEE's, how active your lifestyle is and which activity level you qualify this with? If you weight train, how are you logging this and what activity level does this make you? So many questions!!

I have just gotten back into weight lifting and have purchased a Fitbit flex 2. It's currently saying I am burning 2,000 calories when I walk 10,000 steps a day . This hasn't included my weight training which I can't seem to input on the app. When I am very, very sedentary, it says I remain at 1170 which is my BMR. It is making me even more confused. I can't comprehend that my body is able to burn 2,000 calories or over a day unless I go on an hour long run or something. I also feel 1070 is incredibly low for sedentary calories. I am just very confused.

I would just like to add - if your period has been missing/ is irregular and you're not sure why. I highly recommend having a look at Hypothalamic Amenorrhea. It might be what is going on for you.

I lost mine for eight stressful months. I finally put it down to stress but I did not realise how stressed my body really was. It was stressed from all of the emotional strain that I was experiencing as well as the physical stress I was putting on it from the lack of food I was feeding myself. I was sometimes eating as low as 900 calories and constantly felt faint. I was obsessed with being thin and could not comprehend gaining weight. This left me binge eating every single time I got drunk.

I never put two and two together. Once I had done the research and finally understood (and reluctantly accepted) that I would have to gain some weight for my period to come back, it came back within two weeks. This was with two weeks of eating anything and everything. A beautiful and yet scary time. Luckily my hunger and cravings levelled out after a few weeks and I didn't want to eat every single thing I saw in sight! An increase in fat seemed to be the answer as I was eating very little of it. The binging has stopped too now and I don't crave sweet things or 1000 carbs a day. It feels very empowering actually.

Anyway this post is an absolute shambles! I guess I am asking for your opinions on my TDEE and also your guys' experience with everything posted above.
xxx

[Dominique]

Metabolism and TDEE can vary quite a bit from one individual to another, based on a number of factors like genetics, dieting history, medical conditions / medication etc. For BMR, Fitbit relies on a standard equation (Mifflin St Jeor) based on age, gender, height and weight. For TDEE, Fitbit’s algorithm uses things like your movements, their intensity, your heart rate (if supported) etc. It’s telling that if the same person wears two Fitbits at the same time, they won’t necessarily agree on TDEE (I’m guilty of conducting such experiments).

Bottom line: you will need to find (empirically) how close calories burned reported by the particular Fitbit you’re wearing are to your actual TDEE. If you accurately log your intake and weigh yourself, you should be able to get a relatively good idea. Some community members have been doing it (I’m not one of them) and may chime in.