First, wearable technology at it’s best has a 10% margin of error on AVERAGE for a population which means that for any given person it could be up or down by 20%, from reality… and that’s for the BEST of them. I can’t remember which ones have tested out the best, but they’re all essentially really good at making people over-confident in the amount of calories that they’re burning daily and lead to far more headaches than accurate diet recommendations, unfortunately. The only way to get accurate calorie burn information is through direct gas exchange or in multi-million-dollar calorimetry rooms. There’s just too much variability in human HR, heat production and energetic efficiency (movement economy, ie. how much energy is burned to accomplish roughly the same movement), that no amount of fancy prediction models can hone it in farther than the current technology does… at least not yet, and I’d wager at least not for the next 10-15 years.
Second, all of the above is great advice. @dr_kalina I’d advise you to start a conversation with Emily.
The RP ecosystem may be valuable to you. Either the RP App paired with the RP Endurance Macro Calculator (EMC) or just working directly with me. I’m not available until at least March. Check back with me mid-March if you’re interested. FYI: RP’s stuff is all designed around athletes seeking weight loss and muscle retention during maintained physical activity levels and takes a very similar templatized and adjustable approach to what Emily is mentioning.
@EmilyS sounds like someone you might want to hire though, and if she’s available now, it sounds like she knows what she’s doing.
Finally, I ran the numbers. I ignored before Oct-12 because you weren’t tracking your intake until that point.
I plotted my findings on a super basic graph with a trendline:
Red line = 1% body weight lost per week. Sort of a “maximum ideal” rate of loss.
Black line = your actual weight trendline
At the fastest, we’d like your data to parallel the red line, but many folks actually find that they are more successful just shy of it because it makes the weight loss period more attainable during the craziness of real life, and makes the maintenance period afterwards, much more sustainable.
What that equation means is that you’re losing 0.088 pounds per day, on average from Oct 12th-30th. That’s 0.62 pounds per week. Or an actual deficit of 300kcal daily. You should completely ignore your Garmin kcal data.
SO, problems to fix:
- Garmin data is garbage. Get rid of it. The only data that’s even close reliable for calorie estimation is power meter data. Everything else is a wild guess. Best approach to figuring out real deficit: trendline analysis.
- Weigh-in interpretation issues. Gotta use a trendline. You’re doing single point analysis. Dangerous!
Common Weigh-in Interpretation Errors and How to Fix - Probably should eat more protein because your average looks well below 100g per day which is on the very low side if you’re at all interested in muscle retention.
Boatload more info in both the RP books listed here Recommended Books / Reading Thread (Disclosure statement: I make money on the sale of RP Endurance-related products, but not the app or anything else.)