I read that the accuracy of calorie counts from fitness trackers can be off by as much as 25%. I am also not sure if the generic BMR is always right. So I am pretty conservative with my estimates and don’t “eat the bonus”. I add some food for the activities so I am not starving, but a little less than what I am allowed according to the watch.
I think if you try some different things with base food and training food you can piece together how close the watch is.
I don’t know the loseit app. Sorry. I use cronometer and use my apple watch to log my daily movement calories with other apps tracking exercise calories.
As for losing weight, over 2 weeks, what’s been your progress? Have you been losing weight or are you stable? If it’s stable, cut your calories by like 10% because its a sign that you are eating too much and/or not burning as many calories as needed. If you’ve been losing, maybe wait 2 more weeks before cutting more calories as it could be you holding onto water weight
Note that as you diet over time, your BMR tends to slow down. Thats why you may need to adjust your calories down if you aren’t seeing the progress you expect even if you’ve held your calories constant in the burning zone.
Here’s a good article on stalling. I used their base recommendations to set my diet right now to great success. It might be able to help you adjust yours
Ha ha this is great - the bubble people are my vibe
Thanks for sharing - i have been steady weight wise, but seeing huge calorie deficits each week (though I don’t think these are accurate since I am getting bonus calories from Strava activities)
I disconnected by calorie counter from Strava this week and will gauge how it goes. I am trying to find a steady -500 deficit everyday but maintaining decent training load.
I don’t include calories burned for anything other than TR rides as they can be reasonably accurate due to power/Kj calculations.
My weight has been holding pretty consistent despite feeling like I am eating healthy, so this week I am going to track my calories to get a better picture. I have a whoop band which gives daily calories burned that seem about right (a slight underestimate if anything), so if I can stay a couple of hundred kcal below that each day hopefully I will see some progress.
I am curious, where do you guys try to make your calorie deficit? Do you spread it evenly across the week, or more of a deficit on your non-riding or riding days? Any particular reasons as to why one way is better?
In my case almost all deficit made is on normal training days because of one reason - my weight is already just above 52kg (last week average) and my BMR is very, very low. So just to stay at +/- 0 on non-training days I skip breakfast and make very little deficit on those days somehow, eating only in the afternoon and evening.
And what is more - on training days I spend those ~2 hours training and when I train I don’t think about food 
And after that is time for a dinner and the day ends -> success
I don’t think it is possible to distribute it evenly when one day I have no training, other 700kcal training and 3000kcal on Saturday for instance so I watch it daily.
There is also a psychological effect for me. If I would distribute it evenly I would start my week with a “debt” to make up for following days. For piece of mind I prefer to avoid any debts 
Just got my weight back under what it was on my TR profile. I set it at 94kg when I was 94kg last year. I never amended as it went up but the post from @killroy123 reminded me to check.
93kg this morning
Gone from:
250w @ 99kg = 2.52w/kg
to
271w @93kg = 2.91w/kg
in 8 weeks.
I try to keep it pretty simple & base my eating around the same foods every day that way I know what I’m taking in for calories. However, on harder TR days over 1000kj, I’ll take in 250-500 extra calories, usually consisting of Cheerios & milk 
. When I’m riding outside above endurance pace, I usually take in ~200 calories/50g carbs/hour of Tailwind. With all that I end up with 500 calorie/day deficit on my rest day & roughly 750-1000+ on riding days depending on how long I’m pedaling for. I track all this in MFP, btw.
I find that I can keep to a deficit on both training and non-training days but it is much easier when I train. In an average hour long TR ride I can burn 500-600+ calories pretty easily which makes for a nice buffer.
My deficits are never hugely drastic, ranging from 200 to 500ish but that adds up over the week quite nicely. I will also have a splurge meal or some extra snacks once every week or two to keep my sanity.
Thats some solid progress. Congrats to that!
I have my ramp test this afternoon after 6 weeks of SSB LV so will see how that turns out. 
What’s worked for me is always focus on hitting the 1000 calorie daily deficit with diet as much as possible. Relying on exercise to make up the difference is a high risk proposition as you’ll likely overwork yourself and/or if you get injured things derail quickly.
Looking back at my logs, I can do a rough 750 calorie deficit through diet alone. A bit more gets to be harder and thats where activity usually makes up the gap for me. For rest weeks, it is harder for me to hit 1000 consistently because I just don’t have enough other activity calories.
This is different for non rest weeks. As I do POL training, most of my cycling is Z1 (in a 3 zone model) for about 1-2 hours at a time. Thats roughly 500-1000 calories. If over 2 hours, this gives me roughly 300-500 extra calories to play with (because I make sure to fuel the 2 hour rides at 500). Combine this with an hour walk, and thats enough calories to make your diet a bit higher in calories.
But I’m doing a very aggressive diet target. If I were to focus on only a 500 daily deficit, I think that I wouldn’t need to be so disciplined. That said, I want to get away from 25%+ BF as quick as possible for my health and so when I hit my weight loss target, I can shift into targeting performance without obsessing about my current fat levels.
Out of interest, what is your calculated BMR? Also current weight
I think it depends on where you are and what you want to achieve. I started up myfitnesspal to track calories and it also creates a mindful stimulation as I have to enter my food so makes me think what i’m eating and why. Then I tried a week or so at the reductions suggested - commonly it is a 500 cal deficit per day to lose 1lb per week as 1lb of fat has around 3500 cals in it. It’s still taking some tweaking to get the balance right and there’s also other weight issues such as water and so on which isn’t fat. I try to get a similar deficit each day including training and none training days - we have a dog who is always up for long walks so that will help as does walking more generally and taking in the fresh air. You’d have to try and see what you can get on with and adjust a few times to find what works for you - this isn’t a race or a competition and maybe it’s just helping regulate better food choices and portion size (which has always been my issue). I’m looking for long term sustainability as i get nearer my target and dropping weight at a nice easy pace.
Cheers. I really want to get to 3.5w/kg before I go to climb Mont Ventoux 3 times in a day. I have 9 weeks which means I need to drop the same 6kg again and gain 33w on my FTP or drop 10kg and gain 19w.
It is a tough ask but I’m on it.
I use the Mifflin St Jeor equation so right now at 84.1 kg with 26% BF its 1760. TDEE is usually assumed to be 300 which is slightly below what a “sedentary individual” is estimated at when you use a calculator.
I then roughly estimate 400-500 calories being activity calories coming from walking around, and doing things. This coupled with my low-balled TDEE means I’m assuming that I get 200ish extra burned calories from activities outside the norm. On rest weeks, it is hard to meet this target. On non-rest weeks, my 1 hour cycling gets me to hit it comfortably. Over 1 hour, I’m fueling and focusing on performance so I just enjoy having an extra 500 calories which are more carby/food I want to eat but cant when I’m restricting
My diet is pretty restricted looking at it but I’ve got everything dialed in so its just automatic at this point. My one luxury is my lattes which I can have roughly 5 of them whenever I want which keeps me sane. By 7pm, I usually have had only 800-1000 calories. This leaves me with usually 2 final meals in the day which are lower calorie but they work well. Slow digesting protein powder is a godsend as are salads with balsamic vinegar spray.
But I’ve been on a diet for 7 weeks now. I’ve had to do a lot of intial playing around to see what works and what doesn’t. I’m losing roughly .85kg to .95kg on average a week on my current strategy so I’m pleased. I could be more aggressive but things have been working and I haven’t had to do anything extreme so I’m just going to keep on as is.
I think the biggest thing is to do an initial setup of an “ideal diet”, be patient and look at trends before you change anything (I usually reserve 2 weeks before any minor changes, 4 for major ones), and adjust to what works for you and what doesn’t (both psychologically and physically).
Edit: Also, for all of you, a great BMR and TDEE calculator is found here: https://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/
Thanks for the replies - lots to think about! According to my whoop data below this month I’ve average 2,459 kcal TDEE. My rest days are consistently around 1,700 kcal (including an hour dog walking) so will be pretty difficult to make much of a deficit there. So I think I will try and stick to consuming 2,000 kcal a day (maybe increase up to 2,500 kcal for days I burn over 3,000) for the next fortnight and see if I can get the scales to start moving in the right direction!
My biggest concern is not having enough energy to complete workouts (doing short power build at the moment) so hopefully I can find a good balance with some trial and error.
Interesting calculator! When I put in my stats and select an activity level that closely matches my rest day it gives a TDEE really close to what my whoop measures using my heart rate so that gives me some more faith that it’s an accurate measurement to go by
Err on the side of the data you have on hand from your own monitors. The BMR equations are best guesses based on average data. The best thing about activity monitors is that it can give you averages over time of your calories and then you can set from there. More individualized which is good.
Good luck on your goals.
joining in late to the game
