I know its too early in my new plan to be stressing over things. (I'm not stressing here). But I am overanalyzing things.
I've been at this new way of life for 4 weeks now and I'm barely down 4lbs. Granted, I had TOM in there too that set me back to the beginning last week.
Last week I started logging my food and exercise on LiveStrong and I've been very good about measuring and being brutally honest with myself for both the exercise and the eating. I started on Wed last week. Could have gone back to Mon/Tues but didn't figure out how to do that until later and by then I'd forgotten what I'd eaten.
Anyhow - based on my BMI and activity level, to lose weight LS recommends a diet of 1600 cals per day. But I'm assumign that is net calories after consumption and exercise. So, if I exercised for an hour and burned 400 calories, technically that day I could consume 2000 and still be losing at the rate I had hoped? In theory!
I always thought it was I eat 1600 plus exercise in order to lose.
I'm trying a zig-zag approach so that I can combat my weekend struggles. But even at that, according to those calculations I should have lost at least 1lbs since Wed last week, and the scale hasn't budged.
So, the scale has been the same weight since last Monday when I lost the TOM weight. I've been fluctuating between 148 and 149 all week/weekend.
Its too early in the game to say plateau or starvation mode. And you wouldn't think I'd have to cut calories even lower than I already am. My daily average is 1365. My daily average for calories burned via exercise is 600. And none of those days did I go above my "net" number of 1600. With that deficit I *should* have lost 1lb.
I guess I'm just overanalizing and need to just let it go for a couple of weeks to see how it goes. Its just frustrating to work that hard at it and not see anything.
Its a lot harder to lose when you dont have much to lose if you ask me. I also dont try to track calories I burn from working out. I try to workout five times per week for an hour each and I stay at or below 1600 cals per day.
I have been trying to stay between 1300-1760 daily. I don't add more cals when I exercise.....I just try to eat only that much. On sparkpeople.com.....you put in your exercise regimen and then it tells you based on your ht and wt and desired wt loss, how many cals you should eat, when you loose wt or if you up your exercise- it will change your cal needs. I have been at it since april 12 and have lost 21 lbs so far. Congrats though, you have lost 4 lbs in 4 weeks, that is still a healthy wt loss!!!
If I'm correct, didn't the calorie calculator ask you about how active you are? That is meant to include your exercise. So the 1600 calories are what you eat. Period. And you exercise in addition to that. You do not add calories to compensate for your exercise.
Remember, those "calories burned" estimators are notoriously inaccurate. IME they tend to overestimate. I had a spin instructor tell us we were going to burn 1,000 calories in an hour. Whatever!
I use a GPS and HRM - not calorie calculators. My HRM has me do occasional fitness tests as well, so it has age, height, weight and fitness level calculated in there.
The only calculator activity I have tracked was diving - as I can't take my HRM or GPS down 80' under water and have them work very well.
And, the way I always saw it was 1600 period - exercise is a bonus. And given that, my daily average over the past 5 days was 1350.
I'm still learning Livestrong's website and even though I have my activity level set as active, it still has calories consumed, calories burned and calories remaining and if I eat something the calories remaining goes down, but if I enter exercise in, the calories remaining goes back up.
I'm sticking with my original philosophy - calories in. Not calculating calories burned.
I hate to bring this up, some people have lower metabolism than other. Like me! I normally deduct about 300 calories from the recommended calorie budget.
I know it is so unfair! Not only do I have to eat less, I burn less calories doing the same activity as everyone else! But that's reality!
Miaka - you may be correct. But I need to give this some time before I go messing with it. And the next 4 weeks for me are going to be crazy with travelling and stuff, so I'm going to do my best to keep in the calorie range (I'm going to try for a 1200/day average, which means my low days will probably be the same, as I can't survive on much less than 900 and be able to focus on work or be amiable around work, so, I need to control my high days better. ). If I can get thru July maintaining or losing a couple lbs, come August when things calm down I should be able to play around more.
about 10yrs ago I lost 20lbs via low cal/carb/zigzag method,and kept it off for several years (7yrs or so I guess), but its just going to take some time to get back into the swing of where I was back then so I can start losing. ANd since the past 3yrs I've been yoyoing the same 10lbs, I'm sure that has mucked up my metabolism a bit (not to mention age playing a factor too.)
I am also on Livestrong - I am set at Sedentary and get 1878 cals to maintain 127 at 38 years old. I am not sedentary, so add in exercise separately.
Livestrong is structured so that you set your activity level based on your normal activity, not counting any exercise, if you plan to track your exercise stand alone. If you put yourself in as active including your exercise in that classification then you don't need to count it separate. If you didn't count the exercise as part of your 'active' classification then it will add back in those calories when you log them - livestrong does the 'eat back' thing for exercise calories.
I don't count my calories burned in exercise toward my daily total. I have the 1878 limit for maintenance and look at those calories consumed. Any burned calories are just extra. When I was losing it gave me lower numbers to lose on - 1250-1750 depending on my goals at the time. I logged exercise cals separate then as well. I didn't eat below 1200, and would log large exercise numbers depending on what my activity was.
So, I agree - keep it at the 1600 and let exercise be bonus. See what happens from there. Or, do the 1200 you were talking about while you travel. But I would stick with the calories in from food for the calorie number.
I don't know about you, but I really think my HRM gives me inflated numbers anyway so I don't count on it.
Last edited by Shannon in ATL; 06-28-2010 at 05:12 PM.
Chnkymonkey, I swear we are kindred spirits. I found this thread when I came to the calorie counters section for this exact question!
I think I agree with Shannon. If they calorie amount you got includes your higher activity level, then that is the amount, period. If you put in sedentary, or the calculator doesn't include activity level, then yeah, deduct/add the exercise.
But my normal calorie limit is currently 1400. Eating 1700 calories on days I work out scares me. When I eat more, I tend to want to eat even more. So I guess I've been going under on days I work out, which I guess is great for weight loss, but is it good for muscle growth? Oh, and I tend to be more hungry the day after a workout, not the day of. (I'm still doing every other day of running for the C25K.) So how does that fit in? The whole thing drives me a bit nuts, especially since every calculator gives me different numbers.
net calories before or after exercise
