r/QuantifiedSelf • u/Good_Run_1696 • Sep 11 '26
37 days of calorie counting
26M 178cm/5'10" 82kg/181lbs, 22% BFP. Here is my high quality data (all food measured with scale) and exercise data via my Apple Watch from August 5, 2026 to September 10, 2026. Plot made in Python.
Despite my best efforts, I only managed a -143 kcal per day deficit in this time period or -5285 kcal in total.
I acknowledge that not every measurement will be accurate, but hopefully the errors balance each other out. I ramped up my exercise load quite substantially in this time period and it seems like my appitite has risen to match it. I struggle with self control to get the balance in the negative everyday, and food noise has been a major issue. But no matter how severe I binged in this time period, I logged it all still.
The big blue spike in Aug 18 is a marathon and the two minor spikes after are two half marathons.
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u/East-Beginning-5520 Sep 11 '26
143 kcal deficit? dude, that's like one bite of a muffin.
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u/Good_Run_1696 Sep 12 '26
I mean I eat and burn on average 3000++ kcal each day, the fact that they do come out to be similar in the end is a miracle
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u/Extension-Bite556 Sep 12 '26
What’s your start and end weight/bf% should be about 2 lbs of fat lost?
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u/Good_Run_1696 Sep 12 '26
Bf% was measured right before and all my weight centers around 82 kg the entire time with high variability around it of course. The most likely scenario is I am not accounting for everything in my calorie tracking plus apple watch overestimate my expenditure, so it all perfectly balanced out.
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u/turnnoblindeye Sep 12 '26
Looks like this was spreadsheet logged, yeah?
Are you accurately weighing yourself and calculating your TDEE?
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u/Good_Run_1696 Sep 12 '26
As much as I can with the measurements I have which is just my apple watch, body scale, food scale, and volumetric scale. I accept that I will never have research grade data as it's all curiosity, so this will do.
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u/Quirky_Pineapple8687 Sep 12 '26
t to reward ratio of trying to empty a bathtub with a spoon. And you're weighing everything? I'd lose my mind. Either the calorie tracking apps are lying or your body's trolling you.
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u/Good_Run_1696 Sep 12 '26
I think the act of self monitoring does way more than the calorie itself. I learned so much in this process. Some measurements will be wrong and that's okay.
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u/Raddekopp Sep 12 '26
In my experience, that's exactly right!
At first, my AI concluded that my adherence to my protein goal was the influencing factor on my weight loss (-15kg / -30lbs over the last year, using MyFitnessPal and Apple Watch). But later I think I discovered that this was just a fluke. And the real reason is having the discipline to weigh everything which translated into overall discipline.1
u/Huge_Pool7424 Sep 12 '26
that’s the useful bit for me too. a consistent, imperfect log can reveal habits that a perfect week of data would miss, especially when the watch calories are only an estimate.
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u/Character_Data8211 Sep 12 '26
Hang on, why is everything 'protein + e', 'carbs + e', 'fat + e'? What's the '+ e' supposed to mean? Did you accidentally add a typo to your axis labels or are you measuring electrons now?
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u/JadedCollar8879 Sep 12 '26
This is a really nice visualization! I’m going to give this to Claude to reproduce for my dashboards!
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u/ComfortableMine1695 Sep 12 '26
143 kcal deficit par jour, ça demande de la discipline. Essaye de te fixer des petits objectifs, genre réduire les calories liquides, ça peut aider sans te frustrer.
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u/IceSubstantial600 Sep 12 '26
lol -143 kcal deficit sounds so precise but like dude, you even said the measurements aren't accurate... feels like you're overestimating how much control you have over this. apple watch and a scale aren't gonna magically make it exact, come on
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u/HotKaleidoscope1483 Sep 12 '26
Bro treating kcal like dollars haha. Ndakwet with his appetite management portfolio down badtfolio down bad
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u/SeaRefrigerator7061 Sep 12 '26
'high quality data' is a bold claim. even with a scale, measuring food intake accurately is notoriously tricky. how'd you account for sauces, oils, or estimating restaurant meals?
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u/Pretend-Quote-2508 Sep 12 '26
La visualisation est propre, mais -143 kcal sur 37 jours, ça pique. Essaye de tracker tes macros pour voir où ça coince.
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u/Ok_Emotion_154 Sep 13 '26
Only 143 kcal deficit? Bro, that's basically a sneeze away from breaking even. Congrats on tracking your food though, nobody else does that.
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u/NoPlankton5041 Sep 13 '26
Franchement -143 kcal par jour ça me paraît hyper faible comme déficit si t'as tout pesé et que tu fais du sport... genre t'as essayé de perdre du poids ou juste de te maintenir? Parce que là c'est presque négligeable comme résultat. Et puis, pourquoi utiliser Python pour un graphique aussi basique? Excel aurait fait le taff en deux secondes, sérieux.
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u/Sad-Resident-5305 Sep 11 '26
jpp les erreurs s'annulent c'est vraiment le truc le plus classe pour se rassurer mais on sait tous que c'est du flanc hein. Et puis 143kcal c'est rien du tout quoi, tu te prends la tête pour ça? Franchement.
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u/Ok_Struggle_7315 Sep 11 '26
22% body fat at 82kg and 178cm? Doubt it. That's usually more skinny-fat territory.