At what point does it give a higher number?

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TimothyFish
TimothyFish Posts: 4,925 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
According to MFP, my calories burned from normal activity (basically, just sitting around all day) is 2,760. My weight loss goal is 2lbs per week, but instead of setting my calorie goal to 1,760, it sets it at 1,600 and predicts that I will lose 2.3 lbs per week. I've heard of people having a higher than 1,600 goal, but I'm curious, at what point does MFP give a higher number than 1,600?

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  • Fruitylicious03
    Fruitylicious03 Posts: 301
    edited November 2014
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    When you set your weight loss goal lower. Or increase your activity setting.
  • Mexicanbigfoot
    Mexicanbigfoot Posts: 520 Member
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    My daily goal is set to 1860 right now. I think I have my goals set to lose 1.5/week
  • Fruitylicious03
    Fruitylicious03 Posts: 301
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    I'm jealous. I'm a funsized woman who can only have 1470 to lose 0.5lb a week. :neutral_face: hmf. :worried:
  • PwrLftr82
    PwrLftr82 Posts: 945 Member
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    You can also manually set your goals.
  • WalkingAlong
    WalkingAlong Posts: 4,926 Member
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    I've never heard of it setting it more than 1000 under your burn estimate. It sounds like a glitch to me. If you asked for 2 lbs/week, why would it put you at 2.3?
  • Fruitylicious03
    Fruitylicious03 Posts: 301
    edited November 2014
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    WalkingAlong wrote: »
    I've never heard of it setting it more than 1000 under your burn estimate. It sounds like a glitch to me. If you asked for 2 lbs/week, why would it put you at 2.3?

    This has happened to me as well. When I set mine to 0.5lb a week it only gave me 1300. My maintenance is 1670. So I fixed it manually myself and set it to 1470. Not quite enough, but I do go for a walk so figured it evens out.
  • indianwin2001
    indianwin2001 Posts: 296 Member
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    WalkingAlong wrote: »
    I've never heard of it setting it more than 1000 under your burn estimate. It sounds like a glitch to me. If you asked for 2 lbs/week, why would it put you at 2.3?

    I agree--something is not right with the equation
  • TimothyFish
    TimothyFish Posts: 4,925 Member
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    WalkingAlong wrote: »
    I've never heard of it setting it more than 1000 under your burn estimate. It sounds like a glitch to me. If you asked for 2 lbs/week, why would it put you at 2.3?

    It could be, but the tool works too well otherwise for me to think that the programmers over at MFP are as incompetent as all these "glitches" I keep hearing about in goal calculations seem to indicate. I wonder if it has something to do with the weight loss goal. If I were 208lbs, a loss of 2lbs per week would put the calorie goal at about 1,470, so maybe the 1,600 averages out over the period of time?
  • WalkingAlong
    WalkingAlong Posts: 4,926 Member
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    I know for a fact there is a glitch in the IOS app for men, or there was last week. If you close your diary at intakes between 1200-1500 (I think that was the condition), it puts up a message saying you're not eating over 1200 and that that's dangerous.

    I think they're making changes and are not aware of some of the problems yet. But I have no idea, really. But I don't think men ever got warnings when eating below 1500 before. The pc app did get a new 'starvation mode' message recently, too, and it mentions the range of 1200-1500 and NIH now. And I think no 'starvation mode'.
  • ana3067
    ana3067 Posts: 5,624 Member
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    Just change your goal manually, it will only give you a higher number once you change the goal or increase the activity. You also might want to double check the estimated maintenance calories from an external website, and 1000 calories to lose 2lbs is not going to work for everyone. I like this tool, it's a cool one to use to estimate how much you should start eating to see weekly and monthly losses that you want. Then if you don't reach the goal you can lower/raise calories as needed.
    health-calc.com/diet/weight-loss-calculator
  • WalkingAlong
    WalkingAlong Posts: 4,926 Member
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    I don't know if they even have a programmer or just hire a contractor by the hour a couple times a year. It's very odd to me that after all these years they've never made some obvious enhancements like being able to search on only non-user-made food entries, or being able to delete foods from your Recent tab. But I do appreciate the new recipe tool and forum software. And the price. ;)
  • SLLRunner
    SLLRunner Posts: 12,943 Member
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    TimothyFish wrote: »
    According to MFP, my calories burned from normal activity (basically, just sitting around all day) is 2,760. My weight loss goal is 2lbs per week, but instead of setting my calorie goal to 1,760, it sets it at 1,600 and predicts that I will lose 2.3 lbs per week. I've heard of people having a higher than 1,600 goal, but I'm curious, at what point does MFP give a higher number than 1,600?

    Timothy, according to your ticker you only have 50 some odd pounds to lose. My suggestion is to raise that calorie goal up to lose 1.5 pounds a week, then as you lose weight, slowly decrease your deficit until you are set to lose .5 pounds per week for the last 20 or so.


  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    TimothyFish wrote: »
    According to MFP, my calories burned from normal activity (basically, just sitting around all day) is 2,760. My weight loss goal is 2lbs per week, but instead of setting my calorie goal to 1,760, it sets it at 1,600 and predicts that I will lose 2.3 lbs per week. I've heard of people having a higher than 1,600 goal, but I'm curious, at what point does MFP give a higher number than 1,600?

    Like WalkingAlong said, that sounds like a glitch. The program isn't that complicated, if you ask for 2 lbs/week it just deducts 1000 from your pre exercise maintenance to give you your goal. It only adjusts due to a loss after asking you if you want to (after 10 lbs, I think). And I don't think it will give you a guided goal of more than 2 lbs unless you do the kilogram option and ask for 1 kg.

    It definitely does give guided goal numbers higher than 1,600 all the time. (Not for me, though. I'm 5'3.)
  • TimothyFish
    TimothyFish Posts: 4,925 Member
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    WalkingAlong wrote: »
    I know for a fact there is a glitch in the IOS app for men, or there was last week. If you close your diary at intakes between 1200-1500 (I think that was the condition), it puts up a message saying you're not eating over 1200 and that that's dangerous.

    I think they're making changes and are not aware of some of the problems yet. But I have no idea, really. But I don't think men ever got warnings when eating below 1500 before. The pc app did get a new 'starvation mode' message recently, too, and it mentions the range of 1200-1500 and NIH now. And I think no 'starvation mode'.

    That sounds more like a typo than a glitch. The NIH recommends that men eat at least 1500 calories, while it recommends a minimum of 1200 for women. It would seem someone put the check for 1500 in correctly, but didn't modify the message from that of women.

  • TimothyFish
    TimothyFish Posts: 4,925 Member
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    WalkingAlong wrote: »
    I don't know if they even have a programmer or just hire a contractor by the hour a couple times a year. It's very odd to me that after all these years they've never made some obvious enhancements like being able to search on only non-user-made food entries, or being able to delete foods from your Recent tab. But I do appreciate the new recipe tool and forum software. And the price. ;)

    It would appear that they have a few. They have two openings listed for Software Engineers, right now.
  • WalkingAlong
    WalkingAlong Posts: 4,926 Member
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    Wow, I'm surprised they have that many employees (photo in the 'jobs' page)!

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