Do I REALLY burn as many calories as my burn meter says?

I'm just curious - does anyone around here question their burn meter like I do? Because according to my calorie intake/burn, I should be losing weight, however, I believe I'm slowing gaining (3 pounds over the past 2 weeks).

I eat around 1200-1400 cal everyday. Many people tell me I shouldn't worry about it and just focus on maintaining and staying healthy. I'm 14 years old, 92 pounds, and 5'2.5". I'm shamed to say I don't do enough cardio exercise, but daily weightlifting and yoga exercises.

Of course, another factor may be that I'm underestimating my calorie intake - even so, according to my burn meter I should be able to eat 1500 cal no problem. I'm Chinese, so my frame is slightly small in western terms but average among asians.

Can anyone offer advice? I really appreciate your time if you read this and leave me a message.  My friends think I'm ridiculous whenever I try to have a serious conversation about diet and health - they're all multi-sport athletes. I just don't have the time or motivation to be like them, which I'm okay with. It's just frustrating when I'm so obsessed with food...

Hmm. I think the reason you aren't losing any more is the fact that you are already super thin and have nothing left to lose. You could also stand to increase your intake, 1200-1400 is not enough for a growing girl. You'd be suprised how much you burn doing nothing.

it's not so much the burn meter but your BMI you should be looking at. according to the BMI index you're definitely on the underweight side. try eating a normal diet and you should attain a healthy weight. excercise  should help you gain muscle which weighs more than fat and you might gain a little but it will be healthy for you.

either your metabolism is slow, or because of your genetics you just don't require that much food. although, seeing as you're 14, you should be able to eat more than 1200. so my guess would be slow metabolism. in which case you just need to gradually up your calories and your body will adjust.

I think the burn meter is inaccurate when you add exercise to it because it doesn't subtract the number of calories you'd be burning at rest from the number of calories you burn during exercise.  If you burn 60 calories for an hour at rest, but you exercise for that hour and burn 400, I think it thinks you've burned 460 when you've really burned 400.b

I must disagree with milfred. The burn meter reduces the number of minutes at basal metabolic rate when adding minutes for exercise. Beyond this, the burn meter is way off base. When I use my polar heart beat monitor, the burn rates are much lower than the burn meter measured for my body and weight. One must remember, the more fit one is and the more accustomed one is to the routine, the more efficient one becomes and the fewer calories burned.

This of course begs the question posed by kagura, who is super thin and is likely burning significantly less than others.

I agree that you're already too thin for your height.  My daughter-in-law is 93 pounds, and 4'10".  I calculated her BMI, and they said she was severely UNDERWEIGHT.

I am 5'7"; for years weight in between 106 and 110#, and my doctors kept putting me on malts, and other 'fattening' foods.

I now weight 142 which is about 10 pounds more than I want to weight (yet the BMI says I'm at a healthy weight).

The reason you've gained a few pounds is because YOU ARE PROBABLY NOW EATING THE RIGHT FOODS, and your body will 'add' to what you should ideally weigh, and then if you hold to your maintenance calories per day of around 1300 to 1500 calories, you'll stablize.  Diane

Your body is probably in starvation mode. As a young teenager, there is no need for you to count calories. I'm not saying that you should sit on your butt all day- there's nothing wrong with being active. But you definitely need to eat at LEAST the average 2000 calorie diet.

I'm 5'3 and about 100-102 lbs and I'm skinny as a rake... I'm not bragging, just being realistic with myself (and it took me a while to learn to maintain my weight.) I am also asian (Korean) and in our country, being thin is common, and even among Koreans I am considered to be very skinny. So at 5'2 1/2 and only 92 lbs. I can't even imagine how tiny you really are. 

For all you know you might grow another few inches so you're body needs more energy! (Even if you stay the same height too!)

Wow, this forum thread is still up? XD Thank you for replying!

Haha, whoops, this is very outdated now. Now, my stat is 5'2.5", 99 pounds. -_-; I think what really "helped" with the rapid gain is my (literal) weakness of almonds and nuts. And my mom is deliberately punishing me by buying 5 pounds of them at a time, saying "I have to learn to control myself and it's my own fault if I get fat" which is very true... but I wish she could maybe buy some this week, then none the next, then buy them again, etc. Right now I can't help but eat roughly 400g of almonds per week.

But you know what's really strange? After entering my stats and logging exercise, my total calorie burn for the day usually comes to 1700kcal. I usually eat 1800+ these days, so I think that's why I'm gaining. It DOESN'T help when everyone's like "EAT MORE"...

Not to sound really ignorant, but I DON'T see why everyone thinks teenagers can just eat and eat and not worry about anything. It's not true.

Maybe the reason your putting on weight is something to do with a little thing called GROWING

Thanks for the support, everyone!

Well, I do hope that I am "growing". Although, I just measured myself and I'm half a cm shorter than how tall I was a month ago... Even if my last measurement was inaccurate, I'm not convinced that I got taller... T_T I wish I'd grow in the right places, like UPWARDS and not in the middle. ;) Oh wait... the chest and butt would be nice thought.

ol right there with you on the chest lol how come it goes to the yuckyy places not the hot ones

Original Post by kagura:

Not to sound really ignorant, but I DON'T see why everyone thinks teenagers can just eat and eat and not worry about anything. It's not true.

 No they can't eat and eat and not worry, or there wouldn't be overweight teens, but most do have much higher calorie needs because of growing and faster metabolisms.

I think at 14 it is good you are trying to adapt to a healthier diet, better chance the good habits will stick with you as an adult. However you don't need to count calories, you'll learn to roughly keep track of what you've eaten and you can be way more lenient at 14.  

I was hoping someone would say that.