Okay, so I totaly revised my plan since last week and decided to start using fitday.com today. I kinda was on it before but never realy used it. Anyway I was kinda wondering how accurate it is. I put in every morsel of food that passed my lips today, including the Werthers I had to curb my snacking. I want to be accurate because I am very focused this time. I also put in my exercise and the daily activity average thing, my weight,height, yadda yadda. It says that it uses all that to calculate everything and I've heard great things about the site but...

It says that I ate 1321 calories and burned 3916 calories.

Can that be right? I mean I am trying sooo hard but that just seems too good to be true. I know I ate enough (3 meals 2 snacks) and I'm sure I measured everything right. I walked on my treadmill for 45 min at 4.5 mph.

Anyone else use fitday.com? Whatch ya think?

Tracey,

I like fitday, but their estimate of calories burned is a formula which is standardized rather than individualized. You may not be burning that many calories, and you may have overestimated some of your activities. I suspect your calories in are more reliable than the calories burned.

So it asks for activity level through out your day on average. It says that it uses the Harris-Benedict Equation or you can customize it to use the Mifflin Equation instead. I looked up these equations and basicaly they are scientific\mathmatical thingys that take your age, weight, height and figures out at what rate you burn calories. Then the site tells you aproximately what amount of calories you are burning just doing yer thing workin and livin before factoring in exercise.

So usually I do not sit down except to eat and check out facebook or this place. I am a neat freak and organize stuff alot. So all day I'm scrubbing stuff and sweeping and dishes and meals and lugging laundry up 2 flights of stairs blah blah blah. I have 4 small kids to so that keeps my from resting ever. I don't watch TV or rest untill at least 8 or 9 when the kids go to bed. So because of this iI chose the "standing" lifestyle. And that gave me a base calories burned of 3533.

Hmmmm.

Honestly I am not sure... I was using Fitday also and the calories burned seemed too high. I basically just used it for calorie counting after that.

I don't trust any of those calories burned things. Not on the treadmill, not on fitlinxx or fitday. I only use them to compare one activity to another as to relative intensity.

If that number is including what you burn just existing it seems reasonable but if it's just supposed to be for your treadmill time I'm pretty sure it's really overestimating.

Since you put in the standing setting as you typically state that number does probably does include your calories burned just on daily activities. I always set mine at 'sedentary' or 'lightly active' on The Daily Plate and then put in my exercise separate. It gives me a more realistic number of what I'm burning over daily maintenance that way. I did just get an HRM that shows me calories burned and I will tell you that it always gives me less than I got using the different equations for different exercises. I've not worn it for 24 hours to see how it compares to metabolic rate, so I don't know how that compares.

You might want to change it to a more sedentary setting if you just want to see their estimates of exercise cals.

I think for me I look at both the calories in and burned via intentional exercise as estimates. I use the scale to tell me how things are going. So it's more the relative numbers that matter not strictly the actual data.

Hmmm not sure that will make sense.

Ok so for example if I am overestimating my calories burned but I am consistently overestimating them then it doesn't really matter. If the scale doesn't move the way I think it should I can look at increasing calories burned or decreasing calories ingested. As long as I don't keep switching the way I calculate things it should still work to give myself a picture of what to tweak to continue with weight loss.

This is where it gets hard. There is no real answer because everyone is different and those sites are using averages. I think your calories are accurate using fitday. Measuring is key and you said you do that.

Your activity...hard to say. See if you are already a active person all day then your body is used to that, so it doesn't effect you the same way it would someone who sits at a desk all day and then suddenly has a day like yours. What I do is just set my calorie limit and then monitor my additional daily activity (like your treadmill for 45 min at 4.5 mph). Plus the exercise component is for many reasons. One is to burn calories, but it's also to build strength, flexibility and endurance.

I'd also give it some time and monitor your results.

I think i will keepp using it and keep to my 1500 cal limit and my 3400cals burned mimimum and see if its working out the way it's supposed to. It's a good start I guess.I did forget to add that I slept for 7 hours so that takes like 500 cals burned away to a bit over 3400. That makes more sense as a reflection of my cals burned all day plus my workout. And that seems to be my average the last few days.

Thanks for the help guys. I guess I just have to get used to the site and how it works and wait and see how effective it is come weigh in day.

It is complicated to sort everything out at the beginning! Good luck!