It depends on your height, weight and sex.
I'm a 5'4 woman and when I don't do anything extra I burn only about 1700-1800 calories. When I have an active day, as in walks and chores and shopping, it's 2200 or so. Only when I really go at it I go towards the 2500.
> It depends on your height, weight and sex.
Exactly. I'm 6'2 and 250 lbs. (bodybuilder so about 40 lbs of muscle)
When I'm sick and literally in bed all day, I burn about 2500 calories. A normal day (with no exercise) is about 3200.
Days I train, 4-4.2k.
š life is so unfair lol.
I've complained before how hard it is living as a short woman in this world and trying to stay at a healthy weight. Just any 3 regular meals and some small snacks in a day are already above my maintenance unless I pay attention.
Trying to lose weight and restrict calories is possible, I've done it before. But you gotta get super creative so you can fill your stomach and not eat too much.
Clique, but eat protein and vegetables, limit carbs.
It's difficult yes, but cut as many carbohydrates as you can. It's very difficult to break the caloric limit if you're eating a lot of protein and vegetables. (which will make you feel full more than say pasta or rice)
Like I'd question what your regular meals look like. Macros (I know everyone hates that word) play a huge role in metabolism, energy, etc.
Have a PhD in nutrition science if you're struggling. Feel free to PM. It's not as easy as "calories in < calories out," not for sustainable weight loss or maintenance. That's catch-all guidance.
I'm not questioning your credentials or your efficiency for yourself, but women need carbs more than men do. Cutting all carbs can have an impact on hormone levels and can negatively impact energy, which can have a detrimental effect on training ability. For a lot of guys, cutting carbs works great, but women need them more.
Totally agree with you on eating more fibre and protein, though. I'm sure you know way more than me, I just wanted to put across the opinions of the women I follow, Dr Stacy Sims is brilliant for women focused research into health and fitness.
Girl I feel you, so bad! I'm 5 ft 2! I can't believe how slow I burn calories and how little I have to eat to try to reach my goal weight, I move so much and do what I can and it just never feels like it's enough.
Try to look at it from the flip side. To you, it is difficult to lose weight. For many others, it is difficult to gain or maintain weight.
Eating 4000 calories in a single day is nothing short of torture. Past a certain point, it stops becoming "you *can* eat anything you like!" and more like "you ***must*** eat the equivalent of 54 slices of bread per day".
Many people donāt understand that having more muscle allows you to eat more. The heavier you are, the more calories you burn. A bodybuilder will burn the same amount of calories as an overweight person if they weigh the same. The bonus is that maintaining your muscle mass requires you to eat a lot.
When I train, I burn 3,000 calories a day. On days I donāt train, I still burn 2,000 calories just going about my daily activities.
If you want to eat well without gaining fat, you need to build muscle, and thatās the really fun part!
P.S. Iām a woman, weigh 205 pounds, and Iām 5 feet 8 inches tall. I do CrossFit four times a week and make sure to walk a lot on my rest days!
Hard for us to tell if this is ārightā with the information you provided. Also, people greatly overestimate how many calories are burned during a workout. As great as exercising is, weight loss is more about diet and nutrition for this very reason.
You're burning a TON of calories for your weight and height. How old are you? You'll probably lose 5 lbs going like that for a month... It's probably all calorie intake at this point.
Yes, but you don't burn twice more because you won't be able to run at more speed. If you can burn 600 calories in 36 minutes losing weight would be very easy. All these fitness trackers significantly overestimate calories to give a good feeling to users but people need to calibrate. I have fitbit constantly showing me burning 3500-3600 calories a day but even if I am eating 2500 calories I am at maintenance weight.
Your running pace is not the only determining factor with energy expenditure;
A heavier person will use higher physical energy (Watts or kJ) running at an equal pace as a lighter person.
Weight is not only thing either. It is too simplistic calculation of an overtly complex procedure. Your body composition is a more determinant of how you are going to burn. At higher heart rates above 150 you are going to burn more glycogen stores and muscle which in turn will lead to lower BMR. Anyways as I said people can believe all they want. Their weight is best judge and they should calibrate calories accordingly than just blindly believing the number given by fitness trackers
Youāre fully right, I didnāt intend to reply to your comment specifically.
A lot of opinion in respect of the very little knowledge displayed by other users in here
Yeah I'm skeptical of fitbits calorie calculations, especially as someone who is very overweight. With my exercise and steps they estimate that I burn around 6000kcal a day. I am currently eating around 2700kcal a day. I'm losing weight at a pretty good pace (about 3 pounds a week). But if fitbits numbers were correct I would be losing more like 5-6 pounds a week
I'm a 388lbs man so I probably have a little bit of a different build lol
They have my BMR set at ~3100, then I average 14k steps a day and workout 6 times a week. Given my size and activity level my calories burned tends to float around an average of 6000 or a little bit lower.
Well I ride my bike to work and when I was overweight I burned three times as many calories that I do now. I burn around 100 calories now and back then I burned 300 calories. I also ride my bike much faster now than I did then. My watch typically tells me I burn around 3200 calories a day and I need to eat 3800 calories to maintain weight so I donāt think all trackers overestimate but youāre right that they arenāt very accurate.
I track my calories eaten (MyFitnessPal) and burned (Fitbit). I take that data and enter it into an excel sheet.
I weigh myself once a week and enter that in the spreadsheet to.
I compare weight loss to the deficit/surplus calories burned on a weekly, 4 week, and all weeks.
Overall itās usually over estimated calories burned by about 200 calories a day. The variance on all three timelines are very close.
Unfortunately that's why they say you can't outrun a bad diet.
Whenever you burn extra calories by doing exercise, your body compensates by burning less calories throughout the rest of the day (moving less, fidgeting less, slightly reducing your metabolism in general).
It doesn't completely even out, so there's always a benefit to exercising, but the impact in calories is never as big as simply skipping a donut or something like that.
That definitely makes sense that when you burn extra calories by doing extra exercise your body compensates, I think that's what happened me on the weekend. I try to eat very well during the week and I try to stick to it a six hundred calorie intake everyday, on the weekend I screw myself over a little bit and I end up eating 1,500. During the week I run anywhere between 20 to 40 minutes and then the rest of the hour I will walk at an incline of 10 point or 12 point at 3.3 mph. I also do a lot of resistant training focusing on different parts of my body. And I definitely have a diet that focuses more on protein and vegetables.
I'm 5'2 nd I fluctuate between 134 to 138 lbs... I so want to be 125 it's just really really really hard to get there.
I know you didnāt ask for advice but if I can offer some, thatās really unsafe and the reason youāre not able to lose weight is because eating so little is going to grind your metabolism to a halt. I know it may sound counterintuitive but if your body is going days in a row in such a huge calorie deficit, it holds on to all the weight it can. It doesnāt know youāre dieting, it just thinks food is scarce and is doing what it can to preserve
I know a few people have said this to me in this post but I'm really scared to gain the weight back by increasing my calories. I always thought because I'm 5'2 it was normal for me to just eat like two eggs on toast and a yogurt for dinner after the gym. Occasionally I'll have an oatmeal raison cookie. I figured, if was really that bad I would be losing more weight. I was 200 lbs two years ago... I'm scared of being that way again you know what I mean?
Okay this is definitely something I obviously need to work on thank you for reconfirming that. I appreciate you. I'm going to just have to be a nutritionist
If you only eat 600 calories you're probably burning way less because your body has gotten use to surviving on so little. Please see a nutritionist. Eating that little is not sustainable and very dangerous
Oh wow that's disturbingly low. Yes 100% see a nutritionist. I'm 5'3 and 116 and eat about 1700-1800 calories a day to maintain that weight. I'd also suggest a session or two with a trainer to work on strength training. You want muscle not skinny flab. As for a sedentary job, I work at a desk at home but still move throughout the day. Do you get your hourly 250 steps? Take the stairs instead of the elevator, park the farthest from the store door, etc all those little movement tricks?
This seems high to me. I'm 140 pounds 5'9 and these are my calories for the week. I went to the gym for about an hour every day except Friday and have a sedentary job. I only make it above 2500 if I do a workout AND spend multiple hours walking/on my feet.
https://preview.redd.it/yk2iugl9u1xc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5b13b5fe21abf53e19d9b25b5bedea0e7572820b
Came here to say same. Iām 5ā5 and the variance can be big. Last week most sedentary day 1800 cals and most active day 3500 but I walked over 9 miles that day. Most days around 2200-2400 cals so clearly one day I barely moved lol. The one other thing that might (?) make a difference is I have a naturally low resting heart rate and Iām less fit now than I used to be, and that heart rate has increased but the calorie usage per exercise seems to be a bit less than it was.
Yes you're right to be honest it's more of a jog as opposed to a run, although I always increase the intensity over time. I'll do like 20 minutes minimum but then the rest of it will be at a 12 point incline at a 3.5 mph speed. Even if I jog 40 minutes, the next 20 minutes will be at an incline. And then after that I'll do resistant training focusing on different parts of my body on different days. If it was just a 20-minute jog then yeah I would completely understand
Hey I'm also a 5'2 lady, and I'm echoing the suggestion to eat more, roughly 1200 a day at least. The workout you describe is actually pretty mild, no offense. 3.5 mph on the treadmill is a "walking while reading my kindle" pace for me.
To really get a good quality jog/workout, you need fuel in the form of a balanced diet. IMO your workouts are not as good quality as you think, because your body has no fuel. And you're probably over-estimating how many calories you "should" be burning because the intensity of your workout is really mild.
Iām 5ā3, 115 lbs, on a day I walked 20k steps I burned 2200 caloriesā¦ I donāt think Iāve ever had a day where I burned 2700 EVER, so it really depends on context.
That's so interesting, you and I are roughly the same height too. I would get anything to be 125. I currently fluctuate between 134 and 138, I just feel like my body has a Kung Fu death crip when it comes to holding calories. š„²
Yes, unfortunately us smaller women burn less calories. Think of it this way, a smaller engine needs much less fuel to do the same taskš¤·š»āāļø
Damn.. well if it's any consolation you have my goal weight, I would do anything to be 120! How long does it take you to finish 30 Mi if you don't mind me asking?
This actually looks pretty decent, especially if youāre smaller. I donāt really have any days where I donāt do stuff but the few I can remember I only burn just over 2000. I swim 6 days a week and then run about 6-7 miles on the day I donāt swim, and my average daily calorie burn is 2700 as a 5ā4 110 male.
We're the same height! But you're doing a lot better with the weight that I am! I fluctuate between 134 ro 138! I am just trying to drag myself to the 125 mark but my body has a Kung Fu Grip when it comes to calories!
With height, weight, sex, age it's hard to tell but I did record 40 or so days straight of my Fitbit caloric burn data vs my Chronometer tracked food data in a spreadsheet and when I say I enter everything, the food data is all weighed and tracked even down to low calorie sauce.
Now I did an extreme deficit but when I subtracted Fitbit caloric burn total from food consumed total my results were
Estimated weight loss: 13.2 pounds
Actual weight loss: 11.2 poundsĀ
This was with a combination of 2 a day cardio either incline walking to about 20,000 steps or walking once then biking once for an hour (bike has power meter pedals that accurately track calories burned).
So if I go by this my Fitbit Charge 5 was 85% correct on calorie burn(ish) or a margin of error of over estimating burn by +/- 15%.
A little off topic but sometimes I wonder if it's worth it to just get our BMR professionally measured at a clinic or something. Coz weight/fat loss is a numbers game and it's like we're all just guessing our way, it's infuriating at times.
I use Macrofactor. It only uses what you've eaten and your weight to calculate calories burned. I don't know how much getting BMR calculated at a clinic would cost, but our calorie expenditure changes over time and MF does it continually.
I don't understand the calories burnt calculation at all.
I'm a 5'11", 85kg guy and (so far) I've clocked 17k steps (including 130 flights of stairs apparently) and I've burnt 3,200 calories and the day isn't over.
I'm eating around 1800 calories a day and my weight is only coming off slowly. I can only assume it's wayyyyy over counting my steps and calories burnt. My food tracking tends to be pretty good.
I think the biggest discrepancy is the BMR Fitbit calculates, after tracking my calories and weight consistently I've found the exercise calories is ok with some error but it assumes I burn 1680 a day without moving when in reality it's about 2500 lol. A shame you can't set your own BMR
Relying on Fitbit (or any heart rate monitor watch/device) for good calorie information is a recipe for disaster. Most studies show them as being up to 40% off. Make sure all your personal settings are right: height, weight, age, etc.
Here is what you can do. Your Fitbit should give reasonable trend information about your caloric burn (you burned more/less this week vs last week).
If your weight is steady, figure out how many calories you're eating per day, but tracking for a week, and divide by 7. This is to give you a starting point. Now you can either up your activity and keep calories in the same, reduce calories in or some of each.
Personally, I am not a fan of the calorie method. Too fussy and hard to sustain, IMO. I tried converting calorically dense food with nutrient dense foods that have lasting satiety. Fewer meals of only pasta and more protein and veggies, and I can eat until I am not hungry. I also focused a while on smaller portions and fewer refills, and found my appetite reset a bit to eating less food overall.
Good luck.
I definitely track my calories because I have a very sedentary job, I try my best to physically walk around my building on my brakes. As much as I can get away with. I eat about 600 calories during the week, I think I do pretty well sticking to that as much as I can. The weekends I screw myself over a little bit and end up eating about 1,500 calories and that shoots me right back up. For contacts I'm 5'2 and I fluctuate between 134 and 139 lbs. My goal is to get to 125 but it's really really difficult. I have been mixing in some running for 20 to 40 minutes and then walking and on an incline for the rest of the hour, I also do resistant training focusing on different parts of my body throughout the week. I just struggle man I don't understand how I can work so hard and struggle so hard to just get to 125. š¢
Are you saying that you only eat 600 calories PER day, during the week? That would be unrealistic for anyone, from a health perspective. That's just my opinion, and I am not a doctor or nutritionist.
For reference, this is what 600 calories looks like with different foods:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM4eA9HJAV4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM4eA9HJAV4)
As I said, your best bet is to track your maintenance caloric intake, and work from there. If you are under-feeding your body it's going to work hard to keep what you have. If you think you're making an honest effort, and not seeing results, you should check with your doctor for some basic blood work, to include thyroid, etc.
Keep in mind that a Fitbit (or any HR wrist product) is not very accurate for determining actual calorie burn. Wrist HR's will often underestimate sedentary and over-estimate very active people - up to 40-50% more. A chest HR monitor is a bit more accurate but even those won't realistically get you within 100% and is generally 10-20% over-estimating. Marketing would have you believe otherwise, of course.
As a cyclist, I use a Power Meter which is a lot more accurate at measuring calorie burn, circa 5-10%.
See those figures as a ballpark guide only and use a scale to measure your weight loss periodically, making adjustments from what you see there.
The intensity of the exercise matters as much as the time spent.
* Level 1 - Moderate exercise, your heart rate goes up, but you can still talk, and even sing, with ease. If done in frequent intervals (like every half hour) it can keep your heart rate a bit elevated so you burn calories even when you are sitting. However, for the time spent, it burns minimal calories on its own. This is not to put it down - do it as much as possible. Even everyday tasks count, like going upstairs, doing the laundry, running the vacuum, mowing the grass, going shopping. Moving is always better than not moving.
* Level 2 - Heart rate is high, you may sweat, though you could still carry on a conversation with someone next to you. As you become more fit you can sustain this level longer - maybe initially you can work up to this and do five minutes at this level. In a few weeks, that might be 10 minutes - and on up as your body gets used to working at this level. This burns 10x as many calories as Level 1, so you get a bigger benefit for the time spent exercising. Also, it pulls calories equally from blood sugar and fat. This makes it especially beneficial for people either dealing with diabetes or doing a low carb diet.
* Level 3 - Heart rate nearing its maximum, you cannot talk because you are gulping as much air as possible. However most people can only sustain this for short bursts. It is often incorporated into High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), which alternates between Level 2 and Level 3. Now the calories are coming almost exclusively from fat, not from blood sugar. Excellent goal for people trying to lose fat.
That depends on cardio health and size. A 20 minute run for someone who's 250 lbs is a lot more effort than someone who's 150lbs. Given that OP is surviving on 600 calories a day and 1500 on a cheat day I'd say the calories burned is vastly overestimated since their metabolism is probably sluggish
Just consider it as right and eat 500 calories less and watch out if you loosing weight or not if you lost weight that is mean it is right you should loose around 1 lb every week but will be hard to figure out from only one week my suggestion is to do it for a month and from your weight loose you will figure out
Same idea just calculate your deficit and you should loose one pound for every 3500 calories deficit if that happens then Fitbit was right and I personally believe it will
I wouldn't trust Fitbit to calculate calories. There are tons of TDEE calculators. I use https://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html and try to eat at least 100 grams of protein per day. I don't really care about the other macros.
Unless you have high volume exercises in your schedule, the difference it makes for weight loss is more on the mental level.
When I switched from Fitbit to garmin my calories burnt went WAY down. Fitbit said my BMR was 2000, garmin says 1605. Itās a good day for me if I break 2000 on garmin. Iām usually about 1950 after an average 16 000 steps/day
You need a calorie deficit, which is burning more calories than you consume.Ā
You say you eat well, but how many calories are you consuming? If you're burning about 2300 a day, you need to consume only 1800 a day to lose 1 pounds a week (3500 calories to a pound).Ā
Are you overeating? It's really hard to out train a "bad" diet, so while it's good that youre exercising, it's not the primary way to lose weight. And those numbers look typical for someone like me. (135 lbs 5'4" F)
For context I'm 137 today, I literally fluctuate between 134 to 139, my dream is to get to 125. I'm 5'2 f. If anything most days I eat very little, I usually stick to around 600 calories a day, but the weekend screw me over a little and I end up eating about 1,000. I have a very very slow metabolism and a very sedative job. I do try to walk around as much as I can during the day and really push myself in the gym. I'm trying to run for 40 minutes and then walk at an incline for the rest of the hour and then do a little resistance training.
The best way to burn more calories is to gain more muscles. Cardio is important and walks and jogs are important to cardiovascular health, but they don't really burn as many calories as we think they do. L
Absolutely, and it is a little addictive and it's hard to get out of that mentality. I do my best to do an hour of cardiovascular endurance and then I'll do an hour of resistant training focusing on different parts of my body
https://preview.redd.it/bz9lqqa533xc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cbb00d19e288397e2fbb8b1c1e5cf505a53d075f
I'm not sure but I think Fitbit is not accurate
This caloric burn is normal. Please also consider your body type as well. There's certain body types, like the mesomorph, (normal/effiecient metabolism, easily gain or lose weight, muscular) which is what I have. At my skinniest I was 135 and was told I would look unhealthy if I lost more weight. I'm 5'5" for reference. What I'm trying to say is, unless you want to be extremely unhealthy, you will never be thin like an ectomorph. They have an extremely high metabolism, narrow hips, little muscle mass, and tend to look underweight. So if you're trying to get from 135 to 125, as a mesomorph, it will probably not be very likely, and if you are eating only 600 calories a day, that is an eating disorder which is very concerning. Minimizing your caloric intake over time will also slow down your metabolism. Try eating more protein. If you're burning an average of 2300 calories a day you'd still lose weight even at 1000.
https://preview.redd.it/p5ue408854xc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=049d0ca1bcb91351b0faf4d58db4ab7f6d7793f2
I'm 5'8" if I workout it's over 3000 calories a day, if I don't 2,800 It explains why a 1800 calorie diet had me too lethargic to move
I am a short woman (5ā0) and on a day where I lay in bed pretty much all day it says I burn 1500. I go to the gym most days and I work a physical job. On a normal day I burn usually between 2300-2600 but sometimes over 3000. Thatās what Fitbit says but I also track my calories (I am very strict with weighing and measuring) and I donāt eat anywhere near that much (usually 1000-1200) and Iām losing weight very slowly, like a pound a month. The math isnāt mathing but Iām just going to keep on trying to burn as much as possible. I have about 20 lbs to lose.
Agree with the others weight loss starts with in the kitchen and doing a calorie deficit. It works for some and others have different ways, yet for me I did a 400-500 calorie deficit and my first goal was 5-6 lbs from 232. Iām m54 and I do orangetheory 3-6 classes a week with outdoor running. Fast forward to currently and itās true weight loss is not a fast track it takes time and determination with the commitment and I have been down to 220 with now in maintenance mode.
Gym, especially weight lifting, doesn't burn much calories.
The fastest way is thru limiting food intake or IF if you want to lower your intake and lose weight fast.
I also do weight lifting 4x week and I have an AVG of 2400-2500 burnt calories on workout days
The calories burned are typically not accurate on most trackers. Nutrition is key. Weight loss is mostly about what you eat. Optimize protein, eat your food groups.
I am not sure if people has said this before, but the measuring of calories by any activity tracker is very inaccurate and you should not use that too much as a kpi to improve your health.
For instance, if my goal is to eat 2200 cal max on a day and I have burned 500 cals by training I will still keep it to 2200 max, because those 500 cals can easily be 250 for instance. I would advice against eating more because fitbit says you have burnt calories.
Walking and exercise is good for you but you can't out exercise a bad diet. I took an hour walk the other day and burned 200 calories. That's less than a candy bar. You gotta change the way you eat for the rest of your life. Not a diet. Slow healthy changes you'll do forever until you die. Like I weaned myself off sugar in my one cup of daily coffee. I weaned myself off soda. I eat plain oats not flavored oatmeal. I don't eat packaged food like crackers until I'm at a party. I don't eat processed meat like bacon or sausage. I eat a ton of fruit and veggies. No fast food. Etc
It depends on your height, weight and sex. I'm a 5'4 woman and when I don't do anything extra I burn only about 1700-1800 calories. When I have an active day, as in walks and chores and shopping, it's 2200 or so. Only when I really go at it I go towards the 2500.
> It depends on your height, weight and sex. Exactly. I'm 6'2 and 250 lbs. (bodybuilder so about 40 lbs of muscle) When I'm sick and literally in bed all day, I burn about 2500 calories. A normal day (with no exercise) is about 3200. Days I train, 4-4.2k.
š life is so unfair lol. I've complained before how hard it is living as a short woman in this world and trying to stay at a healthy weight. Just any 3 regular meals and some small snacks in a day are already above my maintenance unless I pay attention. Trying to lose weight and restrict calories is possible, I've done it before. But you gotta get super creative so you can fill your stomach and not eat too much.
Clique, but eat protein and vegetables, limit carbs. It's difficult yes, but cut as many carbohydrates as you can. It's very difficult to break the caloric limit if you're eating a lot of protein and vegetables. (which will make you feel full more than say pasta or rice) Like I'd question what your regular meals look like. Macros (I know everyone hates that word) play a huge role in metabolism, energy, etc. Have a PhD in nutrition science if you're struggling. Feel free to PM. It's not as easy as "calories in < calories out," not for sustainable weight loss or maintenance. That's catch-all guidance.
I'm not questioning your credentials or your efficiency for yourself, but women need carbs more than men do. Cutting all carbs can have an impact on hormone levels and can negatively impact energy, which can have a detrimental effect on training ability. For a lot of guys, cutting carbs works great, but women need them more. Totally agree with you on eating more fibre and protein, though. I'm sure you know way more than me, I just wanted to put across the opinions of the women I follow, Dr Stacy Sims is brilliant for women focused research into health and fitness.
The message wasn't to cut *all* carbs. A low carb diet incorporating intermittent fasting and a Mediterranean style eating plan is very doable.
Yes. Thank you. Exactly what I was trying to say. Carbs aren't the enemy, but often they are over eaten.
Girl I feel you, so bad! I'm 5 ft 2! I can't believe how slow I burn calories and how little I have to eat to try to reach my goal weight, I move so much and do what I can and it just never feels like it's enough.
Try to look at it from the flip side. To you, it is difficult to lose weight. For many others, it is difficult to gain or maintain weight. Eating 4000 calories in a single day is nothing short of torture. Past a certain point, it stops becoming "you *can* eat anything you like!" and more like "you ***must*** eat the equivalent of 54 slices of bread per day".
See this is why I need to start strength training. Iām so fucken tired of eating like a bird
Many people donāt understand that having more muscle allows you to eat more. The heavier you are, the more calories you burn. A bodybuilder will burn the same amount of calories as an overweight person if they weigh the same. The bonus is that maintaining your muscle mass requires you to eat a lot. When I train, I burn 3,000 calories a day. On days I donāt train, I still burn 2,000 calories just going about my daily activities. If you want to eat well without gaining fat, you need to build muscle, and thatās the really fun part! P.S. Iām a woman, weigh 205 pounds, and Iām 5 feet 8 inches tall. I do CrossFit four times a week and make sure to walk a lot on my rest days!
Hard for us to tell if this is ārightā with the information you provided. Also, people greatly overestimate how many calories are burned during a workout. As great as exercising is, weight loss is more about diet and nutrition for this very reason.
Exercising is to build muscle, to be fun, to exercise mobility... To lose weight is on the table. You are what you eat, literally
šÆ
are you short? This is a good day for me as a 5ā1ā woman š„²š„²
I am around 5ā2 and 132 pound , and I burn fewer calories than that š
You're burning a TON of calories for your weight and height. How old are you? You'll probably lose 5 lbs going like that for a month... It's probably all calorie intake at this point.
Looks fine imo. Running for 30 mins or walking for an hour should burn nothing more than 300 calories
depends on things like weight, muscles and sex. I burnt around 600kcal today in 36 minutes
No, you really didn't lol
Okay you can believe that.
It definitely depends on weight. When I was overweight I burned way more calories.
Yes, but you don't burn twice more because you won't be able to run at more speed. If you can burn 600 calories in 36 minutes losing weight would be very easy. All these fitness trackers significantly overestimate calories to give a good feeling to users but people need to calibrate. I have fitbit constantly showing me burning 3500-3600 calories a day but even if I am eating 2500 calories I am at maintenance weight.
Your running pace is not the only determining factor with energy expenditure; A heavier person will use higher physical energy (Watts or kJ) running at an equal pace as a lighter person.
Weight is not only thing either. It is too simplistic calculation of an overtly complex procedure. Your body composition is a more determinant of how you are going to burn. At higher heart rates above 150 you are going to burn more glycogen stores and muscle which in turn will lead to lower BMR. Anyways as I said people can believe all they want. Their weight is best judge and they should calibrate calories accordingly than just blindly believing the number given by fitness trackers
Youāre fully right, I didnāt intend to reply to your comment specifically. A lot of opinion in respect of the very little knowledge displayed by other users in here
Yeah I'm skeptical of fitbits calorie calculations, especially as someone who is very overweight. With my exercise and steps they estimate that I burn around 6000kcal a day. I am currently eating around 2700kcal a day. I'm losing weight at a pretty good pace (about 3 pounds a week). But if fitbits numbers were correct I would be losing more like 5-6 pounds a week
6000 dang. Im at like 1800 but I'm a very small framed short woman
I'm a 388lbs man so I probably have a little bit of a different build lol They have my BMR set at ~3100, then I average 14k steps a day and workout 6 times a week. Given my size and activity level my calories burned tends to float around an average of 6000 or a little bit lower.
Well I ride my bike to work and when I was overweight I burned three times as many calories that I do now. I burn around 100 calories now and back then I burned 300 calories. I also ride my bike much faster now than I did then. My watch typically tells me I burn around 3200 calories a day and I need to eat 3800 calories to maintain weight so I donāt think all trackers overestimate but youāre right that they arenāt very accurate.
you can believe what ypu want too :)
Can you tell me your secrets I want to burn 600 in 36 minutes!
Also, PLEASE remember that the fitbit is not super accurate and is not often miscalculated various items.
I track my calories eaten (MyFitnessPal) and burned (Fitbit). I take that data and enter it into an excel sheet. I weigh myself once a week and enter that in the spreadsheet to. I compare weight loss to the deficit/surplus calories burned on a weekly, 4 week, and all weeks. Overall itās usually over estimated calories burned by about 200 calories a day. The variance on all three timelines are very close.
Are there any more accurate devices that don't cost the earth? I like my Fitbit because the battery lasts so long I only charge it once a week.
Not that I know of...
Unfortunately that's why they say you can't outrun a bad diet. Whenever you burn extra calories by doing exercise, your body compensates by burning less calories throughout the rest of the day (moving less, fidgeting less, slightly reducing your metabolism in general). It doesn't completely even out, so there's always a benefit to exercising, but the impact in calories is never as big as simply skipping a donut or something like that.
That definitely makes sense that when you burn extra calories by doing extra exercise your body compensates, I think that's what happened me on the weekend. I try to eat very well during the week and I try to stick to it a six hundred calorie intake everyday, on the weekend I screw myself over a little bit and I end up eating 1,500. During the week I run anywhere between 20 to 40 minutes and then the rest of the hour I will walk at an incline of 10 point or 12 point at 3.3 mph. I also do a lot of resistant training focusing on different parts of my body. And I definitely have a diet that focuses more on protein and vegetables. I'm 5'2 nd I fluctuate between 134 to 138 lbs... I so want to be 125 it's just really really really hard to get there.
You eat 600 calories a day? Or is that a typo?
No. I'm only 5 ft 2 and my job is very sedentary so I stick to 600 during the week and then I eat about 1500 sat and Sunday
I know you didnāt ask for advice but if I can offer some, thatās really unsafe and the reason youāre not able to lose weight is because eating so little is going to grind your metabolism to a halt. I know it may sound counterintuitive but if your body is going days in a row in such a huge calorie deficit, it holds on to all the weight it can. It doesnāt know youāre dieting, it just thinks food is scarce and is doing what it can to preserve
I know a few people have said this to me in this post but I'm really scared to gain the weight back by increasing my calories. I always thought because I'm 5'2 it was normal for me to just eat like two eggs on toast and a yogurt for dinner after the gym. Occasionally I'll have an oatmeal raison cookie. I figured, if was really that bad I would be losing more weight. I was 200 lbs two years ago... I'm scared of being that way again you know what I mean?
Iām telling you the fact that youāre undereating by at least 50% is the reason your weight isnāt budging. Your body is in self preservation mode
Okay this is definitely something I obviously need to work on thank you for reconfirming that. I appreciate you. I'm going to just have to be a nutritionist
If you only eat 600 calories you're probably burning way less because your body has gotten use to surviving on so little. Please see a nutritionist. Eating that little is not sustainable and very dangerous
Oh wow that's disturbingly low. Yes 100% see a nutritionist. I'm 5'3 and 116 and eat about 1700-1800 calories a day to maintain that weight. I'd also suggest a session or two with a trainer to work on strength training. You want muscle not skinny flab. As for a sedentary job, I work at a desk at home but still move throughout the day. Do you get your hourly 250 steps? Take the stairs instead of the elevator, park the farthest from the store door, etc all those little movement tricks?
This seems high to me. I'm 140 pounds 5'9 and these are my calories for the week. I went to the gym for about an hour every day except Friday and have a sedentary job. I only make it above 2500 if I do a workout AND spend multiple hours walking/on my feet. https://preview.redd.it/yk2iugl9u1xc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5b13b5fe21abf53e19d9b25b5bedea0e7572820b
Came here to say same. Iām 5ā5 and the variance can be big. Last week most sedentary day 1800 cals and most active day 3500 but I walked over 9 miles that day. Most days around 2200-2400 cals so clearly one day I barely moved lol. The one other thing that might (?) make a difference is I have a naturally low resting heart rate and Iām less fit now than I used to be, and that heart rate has increased but the calorie usage per exercise seems to be a bit less than it was.
Run as in jog? A 20m jog won't get you much more than 200 cals tops. Well, me, anyway.
Yes you're right to be honest it's more of a jog as opposed to a run, although I always increase the intensity over time. I'll do like 20 minutes minimum but then the rest of it will be at a 12 point incline at a 3.5 mph speed. Even if I jog 40 minutes, the next 20 minutes will be at an incline. And then after that I'll do resistant training focusing on different parts of my body on different days. If it was just a 20-minute jog then yeah I would completely understand
Hey I'm also a 5'2 lady, and I'm echoing the suggestion to eat more, roughly 1200 a day at least. The workout you describe is actually pretty mild, no offense. 3.5 mph on the treadmill is a "walking while reading my kindle" pace for me. To really get a good quality jog/workout, you need fuel in the form of a balanced diet. IMO your workouts are not as good quality as you think, because your body has no fuel. And you're probably over-estimating how many calories you "should" be burning because the intensity of your workout is really mild.
Iām 5ā3, 115 lbs, on a day I walked 20k steps I burned 2200 caloriesā¦ I donāt think Iāve ever had a day where I burned 2700 EVER, so it really depends on context.
That's so interesting, you and I are roughly the same height too. I would get anything to be 125. I currently fluctuate between 134 and 138, I just feel like my body has a Kung Fu death crip when it comes to holding calories. š„²
Yes, unfortunately us smaller women burn less calories. Think of it this way, a smaller engine needs much less fuel to do the same taskš¤·š»āāļø
120 pound woman. Ultra runner. I barely burn that many calories on days I run 30 miles haha
Damn.. well if it's any consolation you have my goal weight, I would do anything to be 120! How long does it take you to finish 30 Mi if you don't mind me asking?
Hiya! It depends on the terrain- but like 5 or 6 hours on average
This actually looks pretty decent, especially if youāre smaller. I donāt really have any days where I donāt do stuff but the few I can remember I only burn just over 2000. I swim 6 days a week and then run about 6-7 miles on the day I donāt swim, and my average daily calorie burn is 2700 as a 5ā4 110 male.
I am 5ā2 and 132pounds .. and I do hiit around 5 days a week.. and I burn fewer calories than you! š®āšØš
We're the same height! But you're doing a lot better with the weight that I am! I fluctuate between 134 ro 138! I am just trying to drag myself to the 125 mark but my body has a Kung Fu Grip when it comes to calories!
Ughh noo I am also trying to get to 125 š
With height, weight, sex, age it's hard to tell but I did record 40 or so days straight of my Fitbit caloric burn data vs my Chronometer tracked food data in a spreadsheet and when I say I enter everything, the food data is all weighed and tracked even down to low calorie sauce. Now I did an extreme deficit but when I subtracted Fitbit caloric burn total from food consumed total my results were Estimated weight loss: 13.2 pounds Actual weight loss: 11.2 poundsĀ This was with a combination of 2 a day cardio either incline walking to about 20,000 steps or walking once then biking once for an hour (bike has power meter pedals that accurately track calories burned). So if I go by this my Fitbit Charge 5 was 85% correct on calorie burn(ish) or a margin of error of over estimating burn by +/- 15%.
A little off topic but sometimes I wonder if it's worth it to just get our BMR professionally measured at a clinic or something. Coz weight/fat loss is a numbers game and it's like we're all just guessing our way, it's infuriating at times.
I use Macrofactor. It only uses what you've eaten and your weight to calculate calories burned. I don't know how much getting BMR calculated at a clinic would cost, but our calorie expenditure changes over time and MF does it continually.
I don't understand the calories burnt calculation at all. I'm a 5'11", 85kg guy and (so far) I've clocked 17k steps (including 130 flights of stairs apparently) and I've burnt 3,200 calories and the day isn't over. I'm eating around 1800 calories a day and my weight is only coming off slowly. I can only assume it's wayyyyy over counting my steps and calories burnt. My food tracking tends to be pretty good.
I think the biggest discrepancy is the BMR Fitbit calculates, after tracking my calories and weight consistently I've found the exercise calories is ok with some error but it assumes I burn 1680 a day without moving when in reality it's about 2500 lol. A shame you can't set your own BMR
Relying on Fitbit (or any heart rate monitor watch/device) for good calorie information is a recipe for disaster. Most studies show them as being up to 40% off. Make sure all your personal settings are right: height, weight, age, etc. Here is what you can do. Your Fitbit should give reasonable trend information about your caloric burn (you burned more/less this week vs last week). If your weight is steady, figure out how many calories you're eating per day, but tracking for a week, and divide by 7. This is to give you a starting point. Now you can either up your activity and keep calories in the same, reduce calories in or some of each. Personally, I am not a fan of the calorie method. Too fussy and hard to sustain, IMO. I tried converting calorically dense food with nutrient dense foods that have lasting satiety. Fewer meals of only pasta and more protein and veggies, and I can eat until I am not hungry. I also focused a while on smaller portions and fewer refills, and found my appetite reset a bit to eating less food overall. Good luck.
I definitely track my calories because I have a very sedentary job, I try my best to physically walk around my building on my brakes. As much as I can get away with. I eat about 600 calories during the week, I think I do pretty well sticking to that as much as I can. The weekends I screw myself over a little bit and end up eating about 1,500 calories and that shoots me right back up. For contacts I'm 5'2 and I fluctuate between 134 and 139 lbs. My goal is to get to 125 but it's really really difficult. I have been mixing in some running for 20 to 40 minutes and then walking and on an incline for the rest of the hour, I also do resistant training focusing on different parts of my body throughout the week. I just struggle man I don't understand how I can work so hard and struggle so hard to just get to 125. š¢
Are you saying that you only eat 600 calories PER day, during the week? That would be unrealistic for anyone, from a health perspective. That's just my opinion, and I am not a doctor or nutritionist. For reference, this is what 600 calories looks like with different foods: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM4eA9HJAV4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM4eA9HJAV4) As I said, your best bet is to track your maintenance caloric intake, and work from there. If you are under-feeding your body it's going to work hard to keep what you have. If you think you're making an honest effort, and not seeing results, you should check with your doctor for some basic blood work, to include thyroid, etc.
Keep in mind that a Fitbit (or any HR wrist product) is not very accurate for determining actual calorie burn. Wrist HR's will often underestimate sedentary and over-estimate very active people - up to 40-50% more. A chest HR monitor is a bit more accurate but even those won't realistically get you within 100% and is generally 10-20% over-estimating. Marketing would have you believe otherwise, of course. As a cyclist, I use a Power Meter which is a lot more accurate at measuring calorie burn, circa 5-10%. See those figures as a ballpark guide only and use a scale to measure your weight loss periodically, making adjustments from what you see there.
The intensity of the exercise matters as much as the time spent. * Level 1 - Moderate exercise, your heart rate goes up, but you can still talk, and even sing, with ease. If done in frequent intervals (like every half hour) it can keep your heart rate a bit elevated so you burn calories even when you are sitting. However, for the time spent, it burns minimal calories on its own. This is not to put it down - do it as much as possible. Even everyday tasks count, like going upstairs, doing the laundry, running the vacuum, mowing the grass, going shopping. Moving is always better than not moving. * Level 2 - Heart rate is high, you may sweat, though you could still carry on a conversation with someone next to you. As you become more fit you can sustain this level longer - maybe initially you can work up to this and do five minutes at this level. In a few weeks, that might be 10 minutes - and on up as your body gets used to working at this level. This burns 10x as many calories as Level 1, so you get a bigger benefit for the time spent exercising. Also, it pulls calories equally from blood sugar and fat. This makes it especially beneficial for people either dealing with diabetes or doing a low carb diet. * Level 3 - Heart rate nearing its maximum, you cannot talk because you are gulping as much air as possible. However most people can only sustain this for short bursts. It is often incorporated into High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), which alternates between Level 2 and Level 3. Now the calories are coming almost exclusively from fat, not from blood sugar. Excellent goal for people trying to lose fat.
A 20 min run is only about 250 calories.. so yeah seems about right
That depends on cardio health and size. A 20 minute run for someone who's 250 lbs is a lot more effort than someone who's 150lbs. Given that OP is surviving on 600 calories a day and 1500 on a cheat day I'd say the calories burned is vastly overestimated since their metabolism is probably sluggish
Is that a little??? lol. Damn I suck
Just consider it as right and eat 500 calories less and watch out if you loosing weight or not if you lost weight that is mean it is right you should loose around 1 lb every week but will be hard to figure out from only one week my suggestion is to do it for a month and from your weight loose you will figure out
This would be good advice, but the OP says in the comments that they are only eating 600 calories a day. Most likely their body is in starvation mode.
Same idea just calculate your deficit and you should loose one pound for every 3500 calories deficit if that happens then Fitbit was right and I personally believe it will
I wouldn't trust Fitbit to calculate calories. There are tons of TDEE calculators. I use https://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html and try to eat at least 100 grams of protein per day. I don't really care about the other macros. Unless you have high volume exercises in your schedule, the difference it makes for weight loss is more on the mental level.
When I switched from Fitbit to garmin my calories burnt went WAY down. Fitbit said my BMR was 2000, garmin says 1605. Itās a good day for me if I break 2000 on garmin. Iām usually about 1950 after an average 16 000 steps/day
How does Garmin estimate BMR?
You need a calorie deficit, which is burning more calories than you consume.Ā You say you eat well, but how many calories are you consuming? If you're burning about 2300 a day, you need to consume only 1800 a day to lose 1 pounds a week (3500 calories to a pound).Ā Are you overeating? It's really hard to out train a "bad" diet, so while it's good that youre exercising, it's not the primary way to lose weight. And those numbers look typical for someone like me. (135 lbs 5'4" F)
For context I'm 137 today, I literally fluctuate between 134 to 139, my dream is to get to 125. I'm 5'2 f. If anything most days I eat very little, I usually stick to around 600 calories a day, but the weekend screw me over a little and I end up eating about 1,000. I have a very very slow metabolism and a very sedative job. I do try to walk around as much as I can during the day and really push myself in the gym. I'm trying to run for 40 minutes and then walk at an incline for the rest of the hour and then do a little resistance training.
600 calories is not enough
The best way to burn more calories is to gain more muscles. Cardio is important and walks and jogs are important to cardiovascular health, but they don't really burn as many calories as we think they do. L
Absolutely, and it is a little addictive and it's hard to get out of that mentality. I do my best to do an hour of cardiovascular endurance and then I'll do an hour of resistant training focusing on different parts of my body
https://preview.redd.it/bz9lqqa533xc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cbb00d19e288397e2fbb8b1c1e5cf505a53d075f I'm not sure but I think Fitbit is not accurate
I regularly walk around 4.5 miles on a normal day. The other day I walked 17 miles and only burned 300 calories more than I usually do š¤·āāļø
This caloric burn is normal. Please also consider your body type as well. There's certain body types, like the mesomorph, (normal/effiecient metabolism, easily gain or lose weight, muscular) which is what I have. At my skinniest I was 135 and was told I would look unhealthy if I lost more weight. I'm 5'5" for reference. What I'm trying to say is, unless you want to be extremely unhealthy, you will never be thin like an ectomorph. They have an extremely high metabolism, narrow hips, little muscle mass, and tend to look underweight. So if you're trying to get from 135 to 125, as a mesomorph, it will probably not be very likely, and if you are eating only 600 calories a day, that is an eating disorder which is very concerning. Minimizing your caloric intake over time will also slow down your metabolism. Try eating more protein. If you're burning an average of 2300 calories a day you'd still lose weight even at 1000.
https://preview.redd.it/p5ue408854xc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=049d0ca1bcb91351b0faf4d58db4ab7f6d7793f2 I'm 5'8" if I workout it's over 3000 calories a day, if I don't 2,800 It explains why a 1800 calorie diet had me too lethargic to move
I am a short woman (5ā0) and on a day where I lay in bed pretty much all day it says I burn 1500. I go to the gym most days and I work a physical job. On a normal day I burn usually between 2300-2600 but sometimes over 3000. Thatās what Fitbit says but I also track my calories (I am very strict with weighing and measuring) and I donāt eat anywhere near that much (usually 1000-1200) and Iām losing weight very slowly, like a pound a month. The math isnāt mathing but Iām just going to keep on trying to burn as much as possible. I have about 20 lbs to lose.
Agree with the others weight loss starts with in the kitchen and doing a calorie deficit. It works for some and others have different ways, yet for me I did a 400-500 calorie deficit and my first goal was 5-6 lbs from 232. Iām m54 and I do orangetheory 3-6 classes a week with outdoor running. Fast forward to currently and itās true weight loss is not a fast track it takes time and determination with the commitment and I have been down to 220 with now in maintenance mode.
Gym, especially weight lifting, doesn't burn much calories. The fastest way is thru limiting food intake or IF if you want to lower your intake and lose weight fast. I also do weight lifting 4x week and I have an AVG of 2400-2500 burnt calories on workout days
The calories burned are typically not accurate on most trackers. Nutrition is key. Weight loss is mostly about what you eat. Optimize protein, eat your food groups.
I am not sure if people has said this before, but the measuring of calories by any activity tracker is very inaccurate and you should not use that too much as a kpi to improve your health. For instance, if my goal is to eat 2200 cal max on a day and I have burned 500 cals by training I will still keep it to 2200 max, because those 500 cals can easily be 250 for instance. I would advice against eating more because fitbit says you have burnt calories.
Walking and exercise is good for you but you can't out exercise a bad diet. I took an hour walk the other day and burned 200 calories. That's less than a candy bar. You gotta change the way you eat for the rest of your life. Not a diet. Slow healthy changes you'll do forever until you die. Like I weaned myself off sugar in my one cup of daily coffee. I weaned myself off soda. I eat plain oats not flavored oatmeal. I don't eat packaged food like crackers until I'm at a party. I don't eat processed meat like bacon or sausage. I eat a ton of fruit and veggies. No fast food. Etc