r/CICO • u/totallywingingit • 4d ago
Switched to Cronometer..help a confused person!
Let me start this by saying, using Chat gpt helped me start my fitness journey by meal planning, but I am now aware of the discrepancies it can have with calorie goals and whatnot. After reading a post here yesterday I made the switch to Cronometer. Chat had me eating 1600-1700 calories a day as a breastfeeding, 5’8” female, starting weight 194 lbs. I bike 15-20 miles a week, moderate intensity.
Cronometer wants me to eat about 1900 calories to lose 1.25 lbs a week, I think? The layout is a little confusing for me. But does this seem right? I’m leaning towards yes but I’m also scared to lose progress. Since I started tracking calories I’ve lost about 30 lbs, 45 total.
Also, does Cronometer typically have you eat back your calories when you exercise? I noticed after it uploaded my bike ride the “remaining” was different.
Help a newbie out please! Perhaps I’m overthinking all of this. The screenshots above are from right after dinner. I logged all of today’s food as I ate.
Also yes, my doctor is aware I’m trying to lose weight, she is ok with it and proud of my progress as long as I stay above 1500 kcal a day.
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u/No-Big1920 4d ago
Chronometer uses your TDEE and your inputs and your weight goals plus the amount of weight to lose per week to determine a daily calorie count. Your remaining is the amount of calories you have left before you start eating into your deficit. For example. I'm in a 1k calorie deficit per day. I am alloted 2000 calories in total. Before I log anything, my remaining is 1000 calories, since that's how many I have before I eat into my deficit of 1k calories. This will increase when you log exercise. For my purposes, I put BMR multiplier to a flat 100 calories to purposely undercount. So, with that custom BMR multiplier, I have 2100 calories which is my maintenance, but 1100 calories to actually eat in order to maintain my weekly weight loss goal. If I exercise and burn 500 calories, Cronometer will increase my remaining to 1600, and total to 2600. If you tap on the arrows, you'll see what you're entire deficit is.
Tl;Dr: Remaining is how many calories you have left to eat and still maintain your deficit. If you eat and your remaining is 0, and you keep it that way, you'll still be in your recommended deficit. Right now, you're in a bout a 900 cal deficit, so you have 400 cals (approximately) left to eat.
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u/totallywingingit 4d ago
Ok that’s helpful, thank you for taking the time to explain! Makes more sense now.
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u/Redditor2684 3d ago
I have been using Cronometer for years. I’ve never factored in exercise. I pick a calorie target and monitor my moving weekly average weight with Happy Scale app. I adjust calories as needed depending on what my weight does.
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u/CronoSupportSquad 1d ago
Hi there! I'm on the Customer Support Team at Cronometer. Your fellow users have already done my job for me ;) but if you have any further questions or concerns don't hesitate to reach out to support@cronometer.com. We're always happy to help!
Sara, Crono Support Squad
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u/ZestyRedHead 4d ago
I think Cronometer does give you more of a calorie budget when exercise is imported. You can disable this by disabling Cronometer’s ability to read exercise data from health.