Figuring out your actual average burn rate

UPDATE: 04-27-09 - I have completed an Online Calculator to figure out all of this for you automatically, as well as some new information. It can be found online at http://www.ignte.com/cc
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My girlfriend and I have been dieting for 45 days now and we stopped to take a look at the past 45 days and what we have accomplished so far.

I found out some interesting things and I thought I would share them with you all. Be aware that it is a little math heavy but it gives you some powerful numbers. I can help you out with the math if you want to see the formulas with your information.

She has lost 13 pounds and I have lost 22 pounds.

which means she loses 2.02 pounds per week. Formula: (13 lbs / 45 days x 7 days in a week)

And I lose 3.42 pounds per week. Formula (22 lbs / 45 days x 7 days in a week)

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Each of us have been eating at 1500 calories a day for the entire 6 weeks. So to figure out how many calories we each burn on an average day I do this:

Known Data: 1 lbs = 3,500 calories

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Avg Daily Calories burned for me.

Formula: (1,500 daily calories eaten x 7 days) + (3.42 weekly lbs lost x 3,500 calories in a pound) = 22,470 calories burned in a week.

To get the daily calories burned we divide by 7: 22,470 / 7 days = 3,210 Calories burned in a day!

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Avg Daily Calories burned for my girlfriend.

Formula: (1,500 daily calories eaten x 7 days) + (2.02 weekly lbs lost x 3,500 calories in a pound) = 17,570 calories burned in a week.

To get the daily calories burned we divide by 7: 17,570 / 7 days = 2,510 Calories burned in a day!

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So now I know why I have been losing weight so quickly when I thought I only had a calorie deficit of 800. Calories count is simply way off in regard to how many calories I personally burn in a day. I actually have been maintaining a way to high deficit of 1,710 calories.

If anyone would like me to run through the numbers for them I will. Just post back with the following information:

-Pounds Lost
-Days you have been dieting (the longer you have been dieting the more accurate the numbers will be!)
-Average Daily Calories Eaten

I just wanted to say:

1. Good idea, I think I'll start using this. This is probably way more accurate than just guesstimating.

2. Wow, I wish my boyfriend cared this much and tried to help me! It must be nice to have someone you can share this all with.

Thanks I am glad someone else found it useful.

I found it to be very interesting in my case because calorie count says I burn 2230 calories a day, but I actually am burning much more than that, despite the fact that "sedentary" still fits my lifestyle on most days.

I figure this is the most accurate I can get without buying a heart rate monitor and wearing it all day long.

I am a web programmer by day, so if enough people like this I will put together an online calculator to make it easier.

I really like your thinking on this one so I put through my details.

I have lost 11lb in just under 4 weeks and eat 1500 calories a day so my burn rate works out at 2981ish calories whereas my burnmeter says 2200, again with sedentary. Light activity gives me 1500 and Moderate 2800!! Theres no way I can be classed as highly active!!

Great thinking and thanks for sharing! I'll try again in a few weeks for a more accurate result! Definitely very useful :)

In my experience, very few people are genuinely 100% sedentary.... most qualify as lightly active just getting on with regular lives.  So anyone who sets the CC calculator to sedentary and who isn't bedridden or completely immobile will probably get an incorrect number back.

It's fairly well known that the typical man needs 2500 cals to maintain his weight & an overweight one needs more than that, so 2230 was always a low number.   If you were regularly losing more than 1% of your body-weight each week (and if you're not 300lbs, you have been)  that was also a bit of an alarm-bell for 'not eating enough'.

The other little caveat is that reduction in body-weight is not purely fat-loss. It's common for people to lose a lot of excess fluid in the first week or two, for example.  That has to be taken out of any equations before calculating any averages otherwise the 'total burn' is going to be much too high.

I'm not saying that the CC calculators are infallible but I think, like any tool, they have to be used with a degree of commonsense.... not just blindly followed without question.

And I am not saying that the Calorie Count tools are useless either. You have to start somewhere and this site has given me the tools the knowledge and the community to get where I am today.

As for 'using the tools with a degree of common sense'. Well yes you are right, and I consider myself to have an abundance of common sense. With that said, sedentary matched my lifestyle perfectly, and on days that I excersized above that description I would enter it seperately in activities.

In order to get CC to show a burn rate equal to what I have actually been burning at, I must set it to "very active" which is not at all a description of my daily life.

As far as wether or not the numbers on the scale are showing fat loss vs muscle loss vs water loss you are right. That is the reason for doing this at 45 days instead of just a week later, to smooth out some of those water numbers and get a more accurate result.

Another consideration is for people who have lost ALOT of weight loss, like 30+ pounds. Is is more useful for them to enter in just their past 6 weeks of weight loss and calorie intake to get a more recent number at their newer weight. (since you burn more calories the heavier you are, we dont want your old higher burn rate numbers tainting the math for your new ones).

Good stuff!  I did something similar to verify my average daily burn, which like yours, was much higher than predicted by just setting my activity level (but pretty close to what was estimated by setting my activity to sedentary and adding everything I did.

For others that may be interested, this formula may be a little easier:

(total pounds lost x 3500) / total days = actual average daily defecit

In Mkeys example, this would be:

(22*3500)/45= 77,000/45 = 1711 calorie average daily defecit.

To calculate, your average burn, just add your average daily defecit and your average daily calorie intake.

As noted by GI-Jane, this assumes all of the weight loss is fat or muscle and not water weight.  However, if you have been doing the calorie count thing for a while, it should be pretty close to accurate.

Another fun thing that I did after I got my daily burn number and figured out my deficit, is figure out how many pounds I wanted to lose and on which day I would reach my goal if I continued at my current deficit.

And then played around with different deficit numbers to see how it effected my goal date. As of right now I would hit my goal in 3.8 weeks at my current rate, although I will probably change that because my deficit is too large.

Excellent formula! Well done and very useful

Since I've only been working on my weight since last monday (April 20th) it's probalby too early for me to use this...

A little calculator would definitely be appreachiated for in a couple of 2-4 weeks time!

My data is otherwise the following:

Activity level: sedentary
1.3 KG (2.9 lbs)
7 days
1733 calories on average (my aim is lower though)

Yes it is too early to get any numbers of value for you, especially since its your first week and you will have lost alot of water weight. However I did the math to satisfy your curiousity. 3183/day. Try it again in a few weeks to get some real numbers though.

I will put together an online calculator for people soon.

Why didn't I think of this!? I have been trying to loose weight since I had my last child, 2 years ago..... I lost 50 pounds the first year. Had a rough start trying to figure out the whole diet thing, and good nutrition, and building up discipline as well.... This last year I haven't lost an ounce. I actually bounce back and forth consistently between about 128 and 131. Ultimately I want to weigh 115. Maybe 120, we'll see when I get there. And I've been thinking a lot lately "If I only knew how many calories I REALLY burned in a day I might be a little more successful with these last few pounds" I never put a lot of faith in calorie counts burn meter. You can google a calories burned calculator and try 50 different ways and get a WAY different answer every time. I've gotten answers anywhere from 1,500 a day to 4'000 a day. CC says between 1800 and 1900.... Same thing with like the machines at the gym. One elliptical will say I burn 200 calorie in 30 minutes, another will say 350! It all drives me nuts. It was so much easier to loose weight when I was overweight... was a larger person therefor I burned more calories! Now that I am a more petite version it seems wether I eat 1000 calories or 3000 calories and no matter how many trips I take to the gym my weight still just hovers in this 3 pound range I've been stuck in. Starting today I am going to do this. I can't wait to know what I truly burn in a day!

Original Post by rwnorth:

Good stuff!  I did something similar to verify my average daily burn, which like yours, was much higher than predicted by just setting my activity level (but pretty close to what was estimated by setting my activity to sedentary and adding everything I did.

For others that may be interested, this formula may be a little easier:

(total pounds lost x 3500) / total days = actual average daily defecit

In Mkeys example, this would be:

(22*3500)/45= 77,000/45 = 1711 calorie average daily defecit.

To calculate, your average burn, just add your average daily defecit and your average daily calorie intake.

As noted by GI-Jane, this assumes all of the weight loss is fat or muscle and not water weight.  However, if you have been doing the calorie count thing for a while, it should be pretty close to accurate.

 

 This formula is lot easier...but thanks to everyone helping out.  I didn't think my deficit was as high is it is  (on average)...goog to know!

Thanks! Much apreachiated

Thanks for posting this, it inspired me to figure out where I stand.

I've lost 33 lbs over the last 21 weeks (yeah!) which averages to 1.57 lbs/week.  After going through the math, it turns out the CC has it right on for me.  I'm consuming ~1300 day and my burn meter is with 50 calories of the CC recommendation! 

Okay guys.  If I've lost 12.5 pounds in 97 days, does that mean my average burn is 451 cals? 

And if my average burn is 451 cals, does that mean it'll take another 8 months to get down another 35 pounds?

If so, CC is pretty darn accurate! 

I am very math challenged by the way.  Someone take pity on me please!

Original Post by newdays18:

Okay guys.  If I've lost 12.5 pounds in 97 days, does that mean my average burn is 451 cals? 

And if my average burn is 451 cals, does that mean it'll take another 8 months to get down another 35 pounds?

If so, CC is pretty darn accurate! 

I am very math challenged by the way.  Someone take pity on me please!

 

 If you provide you average daily calories eaten, I will do the numbers for you.

Newsday - Your average deficit is 451 calories, i.e., the difference between the average number of calories you eat and the total amount you burn.  To calculate your average daily burn, add the 450 to the average number of calories you eat.  For example, if you average eating 2000 calories per day, your average total burn is 2450.

Over 97 days, my average cals have been 1754.  Does it matter that Jan-Feb my average was 1570, then Feb to March and March to April it crept up into the 1800 and 1900s?

Original Post by newdays18:

Over 97 days, my average cals have been 1754.  Does it matter that Jan-Feb my average was 1570, then Feb to March and March to April it crept up into the 1800 and 1900s?

 yes that will make a difference, I would do the math using only your most recent calorie intake numbers, and only using the amount of weight you have lost since you started eating that amount.

So if you started eating 1800 calories 1 month ago, use 1800 in your math and only enter in the amount of weight you have lost in the past month.

By the way, I am putting the final touches on a online calculator to do all of this math and more automatically so you may want to just wait, I will post it later tonight.

I started counting using a diary and have never used the cc tools.  A written diary was easier for me to log than computer entries.

I took calorie estimates from both the cc site and from a Novo Nordisk booklet that I was given by a nutritionist. Over time I developed a shorthand, counting everything in marks for 70 calories, whether food or exercise, and tallying the marks on a daily and weekly basis. I used mkeys methodology to compare my weight loss per month with my counts and the Harris Benedict BMR estimate for my age/sex/weight.  My weight loss followed pretty closely what was expected.  I didn't see gross discrepancies in either my food or exercise counts, and have not had to adjust the numbers I use.

Having done this for two years both losing and maintaining, I can see that I slightly undercount (underestimate food or overestimate exercise), and I have to keep a slight deficit on my counts (100-150 cals/day) to maintain.  The undercount wasn't that obvious during the weight loss period of 1000 calorie per day deficits. But it would have been very frustrating for me to try to lose weight on small deficits, and then find out on the scale that they really weren't deficits at all.

I'm still counting.  Counting is the only accurate indicator I have to tell me when to stop eating.  At this point I can pre-estimate a meal in my head, knowing how many calories I have left for the day.  

I'm getting pretty good at pizza, and have worked it back into my diet in small measured amounts.  But restaurant meals are still tough, because I will woefully undercount anything I really want to eat....

I have finished building the online calculator to figure all of this out for people automatically.

Please feel free to check it out, use it, and bookmark it. 

I made it just for the community here.

http://www.ignte.com/cc