Tracking calories and weight on your smart phone

[FlaGator]

Interesting about the exercise calories. Your the second person to post about that. I wonder if the base number of calories it is calculating for you is higher than it should be. I burn about 1,000 calories a day exercising (according to my Apple Watch). I do not count all of them, but if I didn't eat back at least some of them I would drop too much weight, and always be hungry. But my base is only around 2,000 calories, so it's fairly low for me.

Is this 1,000 calories from exercising, your normal activity, or something beyond your base metabolic rate that isn't specifically "exercise"? A base rate of 2,000 cal/day makes sense to me, anything beyond that implies intense effort, from my experience.

I have a power meter on my bike which measures actual effort. For me to burn 1,000 calories would take a 30 mile ride at 16+ miles per hour.

These numbers don't foot with my experience using accurate measuring devices. What am I missing?

 

[Ready]

Is this 1,000 calories from exercising, your normal activity, or something beyond your base metabolic rate that isn't specifically "exercise"? A base rate of 2,000 cal/day makes sense to me, anything beyond that implies intense effort, from my experience.

I have a power meter on my bike which measures actual effort. For me to burn 1,000 calories would take a 30 mile ride at 16+ miles per hour.

These numbers don't foot with my experience using accurate measuring devices. What am I missing?

On a day where I don't exercise, my watch registers about 250 active calories. These are just from doing normal household chores. So I disregard these calories, since I believe they are already accounted for in my 2,000 calorie break even numbers.

To hit the 1,000 calorie mark on my watch, I have to:

Swim 45 minutes freestyle (400 calories)
Walk 90 minutes briskly (3.5mph), 375 calories

I believe it's OK for me to add the 775 calories back into my diet if I'm just trying to maintain my weight, and historically this seems to work for me. But just to be safe, I try to generally have around 300 calories left over at the end of the day, which means I'm really only adding back in about half the exercise calories on a regular basis.

For the past week I've been keeping my calories between 1800-2000 while doing the swim/walk workout every day, and I've lost three pounds, so it seems to be working out about as expected.

 

[brett]

Never counted calories or used any app. Simply changed my eating habits. Lost weight, kept it of. Now, if my weight goes up 5-7lbs I immediately cut back until I return to my desired weight. I found it easier to switch to a healthier, balanced diet than it was to figure out calories on everything and/or go on a guilt trip is if I had a glass or wine or a beer.

 

[Ready]

I just found this study conducted by Stanford University which measures the accuracy of activity trackers for both heart rate and energy expenditure. In summary, they found the trackers to be quite accurate in measuring heart rate, but found them to be significantly off on measuring calorie burn.

Of note to me was that the Apple Watch was the most accurate within the group. They found the Apple Watch to be about 20% off the mark for calories, which they deemed as significantly inaccurate. But I was actually quite pleased to find that it's within 20%. Since I always try to leave a few hundred calories to spare at the end of the day, I was probably hitting very close to actual numbers in calculating my total calorie burn after exercise.

http://www.mdpi.com/2075-4426/7/2/3/pdf

 

[haha]

How successful are people who advocate this approach to fat loss and control in applying this system to their own lives? I think that the minute control necessary to accurately record exercise expenditure, and also calorie intake is somewhere between nearly impossible and absolutely impossible. But I don't know, this is just my imagining.

If this is your method, how are you doing? Are you(se) (plural) lean?

Ha

 

[Ready]

How successful are people who advocate this approach to fat loss and control in applying this system to their own lives? I think that the minute control necessary to accurately record exercise expenditure, and also calorie intake is somewhere between nearly impossible and absolutely impossible. But I don't know, this is just my imagining.

If this is your method, how are you doing? Are you(se) (plural) lean?

Ha

I tracked every calorie for two years and maintained my goal weight the entire time. There is no doubt it's a lot of work to enter every food item. You become very aware of your snacking when you have to enter every calorie you eat. I have a very analytical mind, and I'm a bit of a techie, so this works fine for me. I have no doubt that it would be a major pain for many people and if not used rigorously it would simply not work.

But for me, knowing exactly how many calories I have left to eat for the day takes all the stress out of eating properly and not gaining weight. I stopped using it for about four months and gained five pounds. Just in the last week alone since I restarted, I've lost four pounds. One pound to go.

Over the years I've tried low fat, low carb, Atkins induction, and probably a few other fad diets. None of them worked for me, and they were far more restrictive than simply counting my calories.

 

[Bestwifeever]

How successful are people who advocate this approach to fat loss and control in applying this system to their own lives? I think that the minute control necessary to accurately record exercise expenditure, and also calorie intake is somewhere between nearly impossible and absolutely impossible. But I don't know, this is just my imagining.

If this is your method, how are you doing? Are you(se) (plural) lean?

Ha

DH tracks every bite and his exercise after having open heart surgery two years ago (not because of his weight). He was never overweight but he is now quite lean. He uses a fitbit that interprets the activity somehow and then myfitnesspal and its barcode reader for food--that app works with the fitbit app. He can be somewhat shall we say ocd, and he loves doing it. He never drinks alcohol so that makes it easier, not having to measure glasses of wine, beer, etc.

 

[AllDone]

How successful are people who advocate this approach to fat loss and control in applying this system to their own lives? I think that the minute control necessary to accurately record exercise expenditure, and also calorie intake is somewhere between nearly impossible and absolutely impossible. But I don't know, this is just my imagining.

If this is your method, how are you doing? Are you(se) (plural) lean?

Ha

I used tracking three years ago to lose almost 30 lbs and have been keeping it off ever since. It is very freeing. I don't have to put calorie dense but tasty food off-limits, I just have to work it into the budget. The app and my ever present iPad makes it very simple. Since my exercise is limited, I don't bother to account for it, nor do I bother to account for non-starchy vegetables and a daily piece or two of whole fruit.

I use the Weight Watchers app which is set up with a daily minimum and an additional pool of weekly calories to use as I wish. While theoretically this means that I could eat an all candy diet and still maintain my weight, in practice I know to be aware of which foods provide the best satiety per calorie. I'd be really hungry all day, if I ate nothing but sugary and fatty junk. Instead I pay attention to which foods are the most filling for me. Actual recording takes me no more than a couple of minutes per day.

I'm getting a new knee in two weeks and I'm hoping that I'll be more active after that, and if so I'll need to adjust calorie limits at some point.

Edit: I started at a BMI of 25 and now maintain a BMI of 21, but am quite small-boned for my height.

 

[Closet_Gamer]

How successful are people who advocate this approach to fat loss and control in applying this system to their own lives? I think that the minute control necessary to accurately record exercise expenditure, and also calorie intake is somewhere between nearly impossible and absolutely impossible. But I don't know, this is just my imagining.

If this is your method, how are you doing? Are you(se) (plural) lean?

Ha

As I noted before, I was (am) very successful leveraging the app. I was only successful when I stopped deducting for calories burn.

Being religious about recording what you eat is really just a vehicle for monitoring whether you've kept up the underlying lifestyle change necessary to keep weight off. The app/bar code scanner just makes it easy to do. I explicitly don't worry about measuring calories to the last calorie. Artificial accuracy. My goal is to keep me on track and honest.

I also find the graph is helpful because it's very easy to say "oh it's just a pound" but then the graph politely reminds that you've "just a pounding" for 6 months.

Of course, the trick to any good religion is knowing when to sin. Everyone once in a while you just drink the wine, eat the steak, get the chocolate cake for desert, and worry about it later

 

[Fedup]

I have two kids who were trying to lose weight last year. The kid who didn't use the app was able to lose lots of weight. Almost 40 lbs and she was small or not obese to start out. All she did was eat smaller portion. She also helped her roommate in eating better, that girl also lots 50 lbs, but she was 250 lbs to start out with.

The kid who did use the app, myfitnesspal, only managed to lose 5 lbs. But perhaps her work is demanding and it was stressful and she couldn't make more progress.

 

[Ready]

I'm still struggling with the concept of ignoring the exercise calories. If the number of calories to maintain your weight is accurate, and you do some intense exercise that burns 500 calories but don't increase your diet by 500 calories to compensate, you should lose one pound a week. That works fine when you're trying to lose, but once you get to your goal weight, if you exercise consistently but don't compensate by eating more, I don't see how that would work.

I think the people who are ignoring these calories are either not exercising consistently, or not burning that many calories exercising, or are always trying to lose weight but never getting to the maintenance stage.

I exercise for three hours a day. If I didn't add back some calories to compensate, I'd be starving.

 

[AllDone]

I have two kids who were trying to lose weight last year. The kid who didn't use the app was able to lose lots of weight. Almost 40 lbs and she was small or not obese to start out. All she did was eat smaller portion. She also helped her roommate in eating better, that girl also lots 50 lbs, but she was 250 lbs to start out with.

The kid who did use the app, myfitnesspal, only managed to lose 5 lbs. But perhaps her work is demanding and it was stressful and she couldn't make more progress.

Losing weight is hard. It's like stopping smoking. You have to be in the right place mentally and not everybody succeeds the first few times. There are lots of different ways to stop smoking and there are lots of different ways to lose weight. Sometimes it's a matter of finding what works for you and sometimes the last thing you try works because you're ready to succeed.

 

[AllDone]

I'm still struggling with the concept of ignoring the exercise calories. If the number of calories to maintain your weight is accurate, and you do some intense exercise that burns 500 calories but don't increase your diet by 500 calories to compensate, you should lose one pound a week. That works fine when you're trying to lose, but once you get to your goal weight, if you exercise consistently but don't compensate by eating more, I don't see how that would work.

I think the people who are ignoring these calories are either not exercising consistently, or not burning that many calories exercising, or are always trying to lose weight but never getting to the maintenance stage.

I exercise for three hours a day. If I didn't add back some calories to compensate, I'd be starving.

I exercise about the same amount almost every day, roughly an hour, some days a bit more, somedays a bit less. I increased my calorie goals until I was no longer losing weight. I don't need to know how many calories that represents.

 

[Ready]

I exercise about the same amount almost every day, roughly an hour, some days a bit more, somedays a bit less. I increased my calorie goals until I was no longer losing weight. I don't need to know how many calories that represents.

So you have effectively added calories to your diet to reflect the extra calories you are burning with your hour of exercise. That makes more sense to me. It's just a different way of calculating the same thing. But presumably if you had to stop exercising for a period of time, you would need to reduce your calorie consumption accordingly.

 

[Fedup]

Losing weight is hard. It's like stopping smoking. You have to be in the right place mentally and not everybody succeeds the first few times. There are lots of different ways to stop smoking and there are lots of different ways to lose weight. Sometimes it's a matter of finding what works for you and sometimes the last thing you try works because you're ready to succeed.

You are right. The kid who lost 40 lbs tried the summer before her freshman year with limited success, which I told her not to diet because it doesn't always work, lose weight by dieting. She was miserable, not eating food, but only managed to lose very little. Then she found a way that worked for her.

 

[haha]

Thanks everyone, and congratulations on your successes. This method clearly works for the right people. I think I would struggle with it, paying that very close attention would be hard for me I think.

 

[sengsational]

Let's say that you had perfect information about the published caloric values of the food you purchase. And also perfect measurement of how much of that food you eat. That still leaves the gaping hole of how much energy your particular body, with your particular set of gut bacteria extracted from that food. The way that the caloric values are determined is that they "burn" the food by adding a precise amount of energy. They subtract the added energy from the total energy that comes out. That's just a rough estimate of how much energy your body gets.

On the other side of the equation, the resting metabolic rate of a person is far from a constant! If you have plenty of calories around, you're going to expend a lot more energy just sitting around than if there are few calories around.

So measuring stuff is fine. It's great for people it works for. But if the math doesn't work out, it's no surprise to me.

 

[Bestwifeever]

For me, tracking food is helpful all by itself--It keeps me honest. I don't really care about the energy expenditure part of the equation, as I just adjust the calories-in part of the equation when I want to lose weight.

 

[kaudrey]

I used MyFitnessPal for a while a few years ago, and it helped mostly because I wouldn't eat something because I didn't want to have to write it down. This year, after gaining some weight last year, I just decided to eat better and exercise more, set a goal, and be held accountable to two friends who also wanted to lose weight. We weigh in once a week. I have lost 15 pounds, which was my goal, and is a lot for a woman who is 5'2'' (more than 10% of my body weight).


Now I just keep those habits up with a little more freedom to maintain.

 

[AllDone]

Let's say that you had perfect information about the published caloric values of the food you purchase. And also perfect measurement of how much of that food you eat. That still leaves the gaping hole of how much energy your particular body, with your particular set of gut bacteria extracted from that food. The way that the caloric values are determined is that they "burn" the food by adding a precise amount of energy. They subtract the added energy from the total energy that comes out. That's just a rough estimate of how much energy your body gets.

On the other side of the equation, the resting metabolic rate of a person is far from a constant! If you have plenty of calories around, you're going to expend a lot more energy just sitting around than if there are few calories around.

So measuring stuff is fine. It's great for people it works for. But if the math doesn't work out, it's no surprise to me.

But it doesn't have to be exact. Your day to day weight reflects the contents of your digestive tract, your water, salt balance, glycogen stores, etc., so you can't even measure your fat loss accurately. OTOH, all you need to do is establish a rough deficit and, over time, you will lose weight. By the Law of Large Numbers, eventually the day to day imprecisions in measurement, etc. will cancel each other out and eventually, the weight loss will be large enough to show up as a trend against the background noise. People bend themselves into pretzels trying to justify "CICO doesn't work," but for all practical purposes, it works just fine.

I know that it's trendy right now to say that a calorie is not a calorie because of the thermic efficiency of different macronutrients -- "the human body is not a calorimeter" -- but the thermic effect, is actually so tiny that it has no practical effect in use. Furthermore, food calorie values are not estimated in bomb calorimeters by anyone outside of seventh grade. The relative caloric values of carb/fat/protein/alcohol are actually pretty accurate. That's easy to test in a lab, even if it's impossible to determine "the Best Diet for Everyone (tm)".

The National Weight Control Registry shows thwt people can lose weight and maintain the loss through many different approaches, but that some form of calorie counting is the most commonly reported by the successful losers (!!!) who have registered.

 

[Goonie]

I use the LoseIt! app to track everything that I shove in my mouth and all of my exercise. I've been using it for 4 or 5 years, and have lost 70# by tracking calories in, calories out. I also use MapMyFitness and RunKeeper, and have them sync with LoseIt!. And whether I enter my walking, running, or biking manually into LoseIt!, or have MMF or RK sync it into LoseIt!, the calorie counts are all just about the same.


LIFE IS GREAT!!!

 

[W2R]

I use the LoseIt! app to track everything that I shove in my mouth and all of my exercise. I've been using it for 4 or 5 years, and have lost 70# by tracking calories in, calories out. I also use MapMyFitness and RunKeeper, and have them sync with LoseIt!. And whether I enter my walking, running, or biking manually into LoseIt!, or have MMF or RK sync it into LoseIt!, the calorie counts are all just about the same.


LIFE IS GREAT!!!

Goonie, CONGRATULATIONS on losing 70 pounds!! That's wonderful.

 

[Goonie]

Goonie, CONGRATULATIONS on losing 70 pounds!! That's wonderful.

Thank You!!!


LIFE IS AWESOME!!!

 

[misanman]

I have used loseit for several years with good success but have found that eating in line with calories burned has pretty much become habit so using the app is not as important.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

I used LoseIt on my phone a few years ago. Too bad I quit using it, as I FoundIt again.