Poll for those maintaining at goal

GoRillaGo

If you ate the MFP recommended calories/nutrients (and didn't set your own custom goals), did you actually lose at the rate it said you would? I'm just starting out, and have mine set to lose 2 lbs/week and am just curious how accurate it is in reality. Thanks!

yesimpson

MFP's calorie estimations are a shade too low for me. If I ate what they suggest for me to maintain, even with eating back all exercise calories and being on an appropriate activity setting, I would probably lose about a pound a month, even though my BMI is 19ish. I'm 5 foot 6 and 24 if that's of any use.

When I was losing weight I found I lost too fast using the preset limits and added an extra 50 calories a day. Trial and error really.

Zelinna

I also found MFP suggestions to be a bit too low for me, even at maintenance. It really is about testing out different calorie amounts and seeing how you do.

You also have to remember that weight loss isn't linear. Some weeks you will lose the set amount, some weeks you will lose more, and some less.

On average I lost a pound a week, but if you were to look at my weight loss chart would look more like a set of stairs.

cwolfman13

GoRillaGo wrote: »

If you ate the MFP recommended calories/nutrients (and didn't set your own custom goals), did you actually lose at the rate it said you would? I'm just starting out, and have mine set to lose 2 lbs/week and am just curious how accurate it is in reality. Thanks!

I lost faster than I wanted to...this had nothing to do with MFP and everything to do with the fact that I did what pretty much everyone does and put my activity level to sedentary (because I have a desk job) completely disregarding the fact that I also have a 4 y.o. and a 2 y.o. and outside of actually being at work, I'm on my feet a lot. Once I bumped my activity level to light active and found the proper balance of eating back exercise calories I lost at the expected rate.

That said, accuracy is going to depend a lot on consistency...and whether you're being accurate in your intake estimates as well as your burn estimates. If you aren't consistently hitting your targets and you aren't accurate in your calories in/out estimations, it's not going to be very accurate. It's really just math, and if the math is off, everything is off. I would also add that it's not a linear thing...it's not exactly 1 Lb per week or 2 Lbs per week or whatever...some weeks are bigger losses and others are smaller losses and some weeks are no losses whatsoever...but if you track things as a general trend and are being consistent and accurate then it should average out to be roughly what your goal rate of loss is.

I would further add that 2 Lbs per week is pretty aggressive and many people have difficulty sustaining such a massive deficit. 2 Lbs per week doesn't sound like a lot, but it's 1,000 calories per day cut from what you would theoretically need to maintain the status quo...that's a lot...and like I said, many individuals have a great deal of difficulty sticking to such an aggressive goal. Because of this, they actually end up sabotaging themselves with binges and cheat days, etc...when if they would have simply established a more reasonable goal, they would have had better dietary adherence and would have been ahead of the game.

Just as an example, I have a friend of mine and we both started a couple years ago at the same time...I'm 40 Lbs down and have been maintaining that loss for going on 20+ months now. In the same time he has dropped about 10 Lbs, put 5 back on...dropped a couple more and put them back on and so on and so forth. I elected to lose about 1 Lb per week and he did (and still insists on trying to lose 2 Lbs per week) and found my more modest deficit of 500 calories per day (basically a couple of snacks) to be pretty easy to maintain whereas he has had a great deal of difficult sticking to a 1000 calorie deficit without going off the rails. End result is that I've lost my weight and been maintaining for awhile...he's still trying to figure out why he can't lose weight...tortoise and the hare.

GoRillaGo

cwolfman13 wrote: »

I would further add that 2 Lbs per week is pretty aggressive and many people have difficulty sustaining such a massive deficit. 2 Lbs per week doesn't sound like a lot, but it's 1,000 calories per day cut from what you would theoretically need to maintain the status quo...that's a lot...and like I said, many individuals have a great deal of difficulty sticking to such an aggressive goal. Because of this, they actually end up sabotaging themselves with binges and cheat days, etc...when if they would have simply established a more reasonable goal, they would have had better dietary adherence and would have been ahead of the game.

Just as an example, I have a friend of mine and we both started a couple years ago at the same time...I'm 40 Lbs down and have been maintaining that loss for going on 20+ months now. In the same time he has dropped about 10 Lbs, put 5 back on...dropped a couple more and put them back on and so on and so forth. I elected to lose about 1 Lb per week and he did (and still insists on trying to lose 2 Lbs per week) and found my more modest deficit of 500 calories per day (basically a couple of snacks) to be pretty easy to maintain whereas he has had a great deal of difficult sticking to a 1000 calorie deficit without going off the rails. End result is that I've lost my weight and been maintaining for awhile...he's still trying to figure out why he can't lose weight...tortoise and the hare.

This is actually really great advice. I'm no newb to weight loss endeavours, but I do have a history of starting out strong and then eventually giving up because it's challenging to maintain that pace for the long haul. I also have a lot of weight to lose (BMI is 50), so it's going to be a long haul. I set mine to sedentary because I really am, and have been easing back into being more active. Last week I went for three walks, the first for 1 KM, and the other two were just over 2 KM each. It's going to be a process, and take a lot of patience for sure. Another thing to consider is I haven't done calorie counting seriously in many many years, so just trying to get a realistic idea of what to expect so I don't become discouraged.

Francl27

Well it will depend on a lot of things, but when I was following MFP's goal, I was losing much faster than I was supposed to (but yeah, I had no idea how to account for exercise calories so didn't always eat them back, which you are supposed to do).

nxd10

I lost exactly a pound a week set at a pound a week for the first 6 months - that was the top of my goal range (32 pound loss). But I didn't lose evenly - I'd lose 4 pounds one week and then be stable the next 3.

After I was within a few pounds, it took me another 6 months to lose that last 5 pounds.

However, I'm tall and had just edged over the top of the 'healthy' BMI. If you are very overweight you'll lose faster. If you're very thin it takes forever.

Azurite27

I found I lost faster than it said once I got my thyroid properly medicated and started serious weight training and I'm still playing with my calories at maintenance. However, from reading the forums I also don't trust exercise calories so don't log back all a machine or MFP says so that may play into it as well. I do a lot of trial and error to see how much I can eat based on average weigh-ins.

GoRillaGo

I'm planning to just weigh once a month so I'll get more of an average loss. Went back into my settings and changed it to lose 1 lb/week now.

atiral

I lost way more than predicted. I started at the end of last january set to lose 2lb per week, but couldn't keep that up for more than a few days so switched it to 1lb per week. Then in June i changed it to .5 lb per week then in the fall to less than that. I lost 90 lbs last year and am new to maintaining and trying to figure out my calories still. I'm really hoping it means I will have a high maintenance calories number.

hearthwood

I lost it slower than what was stated. BUT I lost it. I am at maintenance now, and still check in my daily calories. I lost that weight and it took a long time, and I sure don't want to find it again.

annette_15

I lost a little slower, and need less to maintain than what MFP says. Everyones different

sijomial

I would lose slower - my numbers were about 300 cals too generous. Custom set my goal after 4 weeks and have been custom setting it ever since depending on my goal at the time.

47Jacqueline

My dietician had me raise my goal to 1450 (actually, she wanted me at 1500). I changed my activity level, at maintenance, to very active and often have a hard time hitting my daily calorie goal.

scrittrice

MFP and FitBit numbers combined were almost eerily accurate for me most of the way through. (I write and edit recipes for a living, so I have a lot of practice with weighing and measuring food.) Then over the summer I lost much faster than I expected, which was weird, because I was only a few pounds from my goal. I think I was undercounting calories for my bike rides, and I was riding very frequently. Still playing around with the numbers and trying to figure out my sweet spot.

fougamou

Yes, the MFP/ Fitbit combo was very accurate for me.

One thing to add though, if you selected 2 lbs a week and are at 1200 cal, that may not be actually what you need to eat to lose 2 lbs a week. MFP will not go below 1200 cals a day.

StaciMarie1974

This will depend on how accurate you are with setting your activity level, and how accurate you are at determining workout calories. If you don't use some sort of activity tracker and/or heart rate monitor, you'll need to adjust your calories up or down based on results.

I used an activity tracker, assumed it to be 5-10% off, and this worked well for me. As in, I officially wanted a 500/day calorie deficit but my #s showed I was 600-700/day deficit. The 'buffer' in my opinion helped to offset the fact that no activity tracker can be 100% accurate.

GoRillaGo wrote: »

If you ate the MFP recommended calories/nutrients (and didn't set your own custom goals), did you actually lose at the rate it said you would? I'm just starting out, and have mine set to lose 2 lbs/week and am just curious how accurate it is in reality. Thanks!

gothchiq

Hah, no. I lose much slower than they say. I'm at 1200 cals so can't go any lower. I log accurately and work out as much as my body will stand to. I lose like a pound every 3 weeks, sometimes every 4 weeks. At my age though I have learned to expect this.

RaspberryTickleChicken

GoRillaGo wrote: »

If you ate the MFP recommended calories/nutrients (and didn't set your own custom goals), did you actually lose at the rate it said you would? I'm just starting out, and have mine set to lose 2 lbs/week and am just curious how accurate it is in reality. Thanks!

For me I did lose based on the automatic MFP recommendation.

However, the rate of loss varied.

In the first 9 or so months I lost at a faster rate than what MFP stated.

Then the following 2-3 months I was at a slower rate than what MFP stated.

The rest of the time I was fairly on par - after tweaking the eating & exercise.

But honestly I was in this for the long haul and didn't really fret on the quantity of the progress as long as I was moving in the right direction.

But do PLEASE keep in mind two things:

1. Progress is Progress regardless
2. EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT - there is no blanket formula or answer for everybody. I think you will find out that a HUGE component to the weight loss or getting healthy journey is that you have to educate yourself as much as possible and then continuously to customize it to what works for you and your lifestyle.

Best of luck to you!

LivingtheLeanDream

I had to end up going by TDEE method and then I lost 1/2lb a week, I hadn't much to lose though. With reading other replies above its made me realise that my settings to sedentary when I'm actually very active was likely to be the problem. Takes us all a while sussing our cals but slow and steady definitely wins the race.

I've been maintaining for over a year.