880 Calories per day?

dizzybee84

Just signed up for this app, looks great but am a bit confused as it says my daily target calorie intake should be 880 calories per day, I'm trying to keep under this but now it's saying I'm not eating enough.

To quote it says "For safe weight loss, the National Institutes of Health recommends no less than 1000-1200 calories for women and 1200-1500 calories for men."

So why is it telling me i'm overeating on 900 calories then? Urgh!

SingRunTing

There is a glitch in the system right now causing it to give out low calorie goals. You shouldn't be eating less than 1200 calories a day and MFP usually doesn't give out goals that low. Like I said, its a glitch.

What are your stats? (age, sex, weight, height) We can help you set a legitimate calorie goal.

dizzybee84

Ah I though it might be a glitch! I mean I can eat that little for a couple of days, but long term it's not realistic. I am 30, Female, 12st4lb and 5ft5inches - I would be happy at 10stone 4lb. I have lost over a stone since the new year. I don't exercise much but am actually leaving work now to pick up a 2nd hand treadmill so i'm working on that too! I am going on holiday in July and would like to hit my target weight by then. Thanks for your help!

malibu927

Change your goal to losing a pound a week. When MFP is working right, then minimum you would have received choosing a higher deficit (1.5 or 2 pounds) than you need is 1200 calories, which would show your goal is too aggressive.

SingRunTing

dizzybee84 wrote: »

Ah I though it might be a glitch! I mean I can eat that little for a couple of days, but long term it's not realistic. I am 30, Female, 12st4lb and 5ft5inches - I would be happy at 10stone 4lb. I have lost over a stone since the new year. I don't exercise much but am actually leaving work now to pick up a 2nd hand treadmill so i'm working on that too! I am going on holiday in July and would like to hit my target weight by then. Thanks for your help!

I put your stats into this calculator: scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

Your sedentary TDEE is 1874 calories. That means that if you did zero exercise and ate 1874 calories, you would maintain your weight.

To lose 1lb a week, you need to eat 500 calories less a day, 1374 calories.
To lose 0.5lb a week, you need to eat 250 calories less a day, 1624 calories.

You can either try MFP again and choose 1lb or 0.5lb a week, or you can choose "manual" when you set goals and put in one of the above numbers.

Remember that these numbers are for ZERO exercise. If you do exercise, you should enter that into MFP and eat back at least half of the calories you burned.

Also, these calculators are based on population averages. You might not lose exactly 1lb/week (or whatever). Look at your trend over several months to figure out how much you are losing per week on average to help you set a more specific goal. Week to week doesn't matter as much as the long term trend.

This is just a starting place since MFP is so messed up right now.

dizzybee84

Wow thanks to you both I have found your replys very helpful - thanks for taking the time!

diegops1

As SinRunTing pointed out the calculator above is based on population averages. I am a 68 yr old male, currently 229 lbs and 6'2" tall. If I eat 1700 calories per day I would maintain my current weight, but according to the calculator my maintenance number is about 2300 which would guarantee a weight gain of about 5 lbs per month. I need to eat about 1300 calories per day and do about 400 calories of additional exercise to loose 1.5 lbs per week. So tinker with the MFP calculator to get what fits you. I really like this app because it is excellent for keeping track of what I eat, what exercise I get and what I weigh on a daily basis. It keeps me honest and on track. But I don't let it set my goals.

As you noted it is not possible to get proper nutrition on 880 calories per day on a consistent basis. For what it's worth, my wife is about the same size as you, 56 years old and she needs to eat about 1200 calories per day to get down to 145 (10st5lb) and 1500 to maintain that weight.

ekg0328

Oh my god, the idea of eating less than 900 calories a day hurts my soul.

zamphir66

This glitch has been ongoing for a while, has it not? Seems like something that should be a #1 priority to fix. I mean, how many new users log on and get that low number and think, "whelp, looks like cucumber sandwiches and no fat yogurt for me!"

segacs

zamphir66 wrote: »

This glitch has been ongoing for a while, has it not? Seems like something that should be a #1 priority to fix. I mean, how many new users log on and get that low number and think, "whelp, looks like cucumber sandwiches and no fat yogurt for me!"

Agreed.

@Olivia, any suggestions on this? Any chance you could check with tech support to see if it's a known issue?

Alex

segacs wrote: »

zamphir66 wrote: »

This glitch has been ongoing for a while, has it not? Seems like something that should be a #1 priority to fix. I mean, how many new users log on and get that low number and think, "whelp, looks like cucumber sandwiches and no fat yogurt for me!"

Agreed.

@Olivia, any suggestions on this? Any chance you could check with tech support to see if it's a known issue?

Thanks for pinging me! This is a known issue and our developers will have it fixed in the 5.10 release of the app. In the meantime if anyone who has this issue logs into the website, and updates their goals through settings it will fixe the issue.

KBurkhardt08

SingRunTing wrote: »

dizzybee84 wrote: »

Ah I though it might be a glitch! I mean I can eat that little for a couple of days, but long term it's not realistic. I am 30, Female, 12st4lb and 5ft5inches - I would be happy at 10stone 4lb. I have lost over a stone since the new year. I don't exercise much but am actually leaving work now to pick up a 2nd hand treadmill so i'm working on that too! I am going on holiday in July and would like to hit my target weight by then. Thanks for your help!

I put your stats into this calculator: scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

Your sedentary TDEE is 1874 calories. That means that if you did zero exercise and ate 1874 calories, you would maintain your weight.

To lose 1lb a week, you need to eat 500 calories less a day, 1374 calories.
To lose 0.5lb a week, you need to eat 250 calories less a day, 1624 calories.

You can either try MFP again and choose 1lb or 0.5lb a week, or you can choose "manual" when you set goals and put in one of the above numbers.

Remember that these numbers are for ZERO exercise. If you do exercise, you should enter that into MFP and eat back at least half of the calories you burned.

Also, these calculators are based on population averages. You might not lose exactly 1lb/week (or whatever). Look at your trend over several months to figure out how much you are losing per week on average to help you set a more specific goal. Week to week doesn't matter as much as the long term trend.

This is just a starting place since MFP is so messed up right now.

So this scoobyworkshop thing, It has a couple of options about activity level and I dont know what to put. I have a desk job...but I also work out 5 days a week so I dont know which one to pick. Desk job or 5-6 hours a week of exercise?

gabrielleelliott90

ekg0328 wrote: »

Oh my god, the idea of eating less than 900 calories a day hurts my soul.

The idea of eating 900 calories and less hurts my soul!

segacs

KBurkhardt08 wrote: »

So this scoobyworkshop thing, It has a couple of options about activity level and I dont know what to put. I have a desk job...but I also work out 5 days a week so I dont know which one to pick. Desk job or 5-6 hours a week of exercise?

Scooby is a TDEE calculator, which means ALL your exercise counts, including your 5-6 hours a week of working out. It gives you a flat daily goal, and then you don't log your exercise or eat back any exercise calories.

It's different from MFP, which calculates only your NON-exercise activity, and then you log your exercise and eat back more calories on top of that.

In theory, MFP + Exercise Calories = TDEE. In practice, it may vary a bit 'cause no calculator is perfect. All calculators are just starting points anyway; you can use them for a while and then adjust based on real world results.

There are lots of threads on here about TDEE and its advantages/disadvantages vs. MFP's NEAT method. It really comes down to, some people prefer one method, some prefer the other.

89nunu

KBurkhardt08 wrote: »

SingRunTing wrote: »

dizzybee84 wrote: »

Ah I though it might be a glitch! I mean I can eat that little for a couple of days, but long term it's not realistic. I am 30, Female, 12st4lb and 5ft5inches - I would be happy at 10stone 4lb. I have lost over a stone since the new year. I don't exercise much but am actually leaving work now to pick up a 2nd hand treadmill so i'm working on that too! I am going on holiday in July and would like to hit my target weight by then. Thanks for your help!

I put your stats into this calculator: scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

Your sedentary TDEE is 1874 calories. That means that if you did zero exercise and ate 1874 calories, you would maintain your weight.

To lose 1lb a week, you need to eat 500 calories less a day, 1374 calories.
To lose 0.5lb a week, you need to eat 250 calories less a day, 1624 calories.

You can either try MFP again and choose 1lb or 0.5lb a week, or you can choose "manual" when you set goals and put in one of the above numbers.

Remember that these numbers are for ZERO exercise. If you do exercise, you should enter that into MFP and eat back at least half of the calories you burned.

Also, these calculators are based on population averages. You might not lose exactly 1lb/week (or whatever). Look at your trend over several months to figure out how much you are losing per week on average to help you set a more specific goal. Week to week doesn't matter as much as the long term trend.

This is just a starting place since MFP is so messed up right now.

So this scoobyworkshop thing, It has a couple of options about activity level and I dont know what to put. I have a desk job...but I also work out 5 days a week so I dont know which one to pick. Desk job or 5-6 hours a week of exercise?

depends on the workout you do I guess. I do heavy weightlifting plus HIIT exercises so very intense stuff and I roll well on the 5-6 hours (even though I do more like 7 hours) exercise despite my deskjob. So I would probably go with 3-4 hours or pick a number that is in between the 3-4 h and 5-6 h.

silentKayak

KBurkhardt08 wrote: »

So this scoobyworkshop thing, It has a couple of options about activity level and I dont know what to put. I have a desk job...but I also work out 5 days a week so I dont know which one to pick. Desk job or 5-6 hours a week of exercise?

Try it as "sedentary" to get your non-exercise TDEE - that's what you'd burn if you didn't work out. Then you can calculate your actual TDEE by adding your exercise estimates (e.g. 400 calories per workout x 5 days a week = 2000 cals/week. And then average it: 2000/7 = 286 calories from regular exercise per day, on average).

If you did extra exercise (like a long weekend hike or run), you could still add that on top.

Azexas

dizzybee84 wrote: »

Just signed up for this app, looks great but am a bit confused as it says my daily target calorie intake should be 880 calories per day, I'm trying to keep under this but now it's saying I'm not eating enough.

To quote it says "For safe weight loss, the National Institutes of Health recommends no less than 1000-1200 calories for women and 1200-1500 calories for men."

So why is it telling me i'm overeating on 900 calories then? Urgh!

there is a glitch on the mobile app that when you make your account it can give you a very low calorie intake. You can log into the website and kind of redo it and it should give you a more reasonable intake.