bigger guy here, calories question

[gward84]

Hi all,

Just a quick question being a newbie to fit bit (bought charge HR on thursday) in a bid to shift a bit of weight. All good at the moment, slight crack on the screen but have bought some screen protectors to prevent further damage in the future.

Anyway, my question is, i'm a big fella 6ft5 20st2lbs starting weight, set my target at losing 2lbs a week. My fitbit is tracking me at burning 3660 cals per day and therefore losing 2lbs a week i'm guessing I should be eating 2660 cals a day as it takes off 1000 a day.  If I have a fairly active day (not too much) say hitting around 7000 steps its putting me on over 4000 cals a day. I'm hoping to get more active and start running again which i'm guessing the fitbit would then say im burning 4500-5000 cals a day. 

Hope you are still following, so if I burn 5000 a day, does it mean I should be eating up to 4000 cals a day and still lose my 2lbs a week. Seems a very high number. Never really tracked cals before but I can't see 'dieting' and eating 4000 cals a day as being the same?

Any advice would be grateful

[gward84]

Hi all,

Just a quick question being a newbie to fit bit (bought charge HR on thursday) in a bid to shift a bit of weight. All good at the moment, slight crack on the screen but have bought some screen protectors to prevent further damage in the future.

Anyway, my question is, i'm a big fella 6ft5 20st2lbs starting weight, set my target at losing 2lbs a week. My fitbit is tracking me at burning 3660 cals per day and therefore losing 2lbs a week i'm guessing I should be eating 2660 cals a day as it takes off 1000 a day.  If I have a fairly active day (not too much) say hitting around 7000 steps its putting me on over 4000 cals a day. I'm hoping to get more active and start running again which i'm guessing the fitbit would then say im burning 4500-5000 cals a day. 

Hope you are still following, so if I burn 5000 a day, does it mean I should be eating up to 4000 cals a day and still lose my 2lbs a week. Seems a very high number. Never really tracked cals before but I can't see 'dieting' and eating 4000 cals a day as being the same?

Any advice would be grateful

[FitBeforeFifty · Accepted solution]

The math is correct, so that is the way it theorhetically works. This assumes, of course, that the fitbit's estimation of your total calorie burn is correct.

I've been wearing the charge HR for about 1 month now and overall I'd say it's TDEE estimate is very generous.

Can you repost your stats here ? Your weight is a little garbled in your original message. If you repost your height, weight and age, we can give you some estimates/examples of what it would take to burn 4k - 5k per day based on your size.

[A_Lurker · Accepted solution]

Okay, answering from a bigger gal's experience.  There are days I hit 4000+ calories burned, but I also have a problem with the hitting 3000 calories eaten.  I tend to take the calories burned with a bit of a grain of salt.  On a 4000+ calorie day it wouldn't be unusual though for me to eat 2500.  Since the end of February I've run a weekly average defecit of between -1200 to -1800 and maintained a weight loss of ~2.5 lbs/week.  So for me it's probably off by a couple of hundred calories a day for me.

I'd say eat slightly less that it tells you, but then adjust based on your experience.  In an odd way, I'll hold onto weight on weeks I undereat, but then drop it when I eat a little more. For me though, it's a long journey, so I'll know more as I go.

[JohnRi · Accepted solution]

You and I had similar stats when I started 8 months ago.  I'm 4 inch shorter than you, and I was one pound heavier when I started. 

Back in those days I burned 2600-3500 calories most days, with the occasional 4000 days.

As I dropped weight my calories burned dropped over time.  Now I burn around 2200-3000 calories most days.  I occasionally get over 3000, but not very often.  I walk 4-6 miles, or ride my bike 14-20+ miles.  I can't burn more than 700-1000 calories when I exercise today.  Back then when I started I burned 1000 walking 20-30 minutes.  Now I exercise 90-120 minutes. 

So at the moment your fitbit is going to tell you to eat a lot of calories because of your weight.  It will drop.

Back then I usually ate around a 1500 calorie deficit.  But as time has gone my deficit has dropped.  Now I eat around 850-900 calorie deficit. 

This is what I did, I setup the 1000 calorie deficit, and on exercise days I used to eat a bit more.  So on days when you burn 4000 calories, eat around 2500.  If you are Hungry the next morning, I mean you eat breakfast, and around 10 am, you are really hungry, then trying eating 2700 calories.  I find on heavy exercise days, if I eat enough calories the day before, I will have breakfast, and I won't be hungry until lunch time.  If I didn't eat enought calories the day before, I'll be hungry after breakfast. 

I tweat the numbers so that I'm never hungry, but eating under my deficit.

Back in February, I started to eat 1800 calories a day, regardless of exercise, and that seemed to work for me.

The only real danger of eating too few calories is loose skin.  I've got a couple issues from losing 60 lbs in 8 months.  But I'm still 36 lbs from my goal.  So I'm not certain how bad it's going to be until I get there.

[gward84]

Thanks everyone for your help in your replies, you are all inspirational to me who wants to shift a bit of weight and thanks for the advice on how the fit bit works in terms of burning calories. For days when i my fitbit says 4000 cals burned, i'm going to aim for 2500 a day and see what happens and in theory the weight on the scales should go down. When it does i might start having a 1000 deficit and see what happens from there. 

[A_Lurker]

@gward84 - your original post here came up when I was replying to something else.  How are things going?