MFP was wrong about my caloric recommendation
Replies
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mwebster11 wrote: »8 to 10 pounds is too much to lose in a month,you'll go into starvation mode and you'll gain it back.1-2 lbs is a safe way to lose weight,and you'll keep it off.
LOL ... please make it stop already!0 -
"MFP was wrong about my caloric recommendation" sounds like blame to me...0
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CaliforniaRower wrote: »Wow! You guys sure do get vicious around here! I wasn't "blaming" the computer system known as MFP for anything. Blaming an inanimate object? Really? I was making the point that I didn't chart anything more than what seemed normal, e.g., "a 6" banana." No, I didn't get out a ruler. It might have been 5.5 or 7. (There are men on this planet who are glad I'm not gifted at estimating length in inches.) And further, I DID carefully log only my "real" exercise - quite precisely, in fact. But other online sources seem to indicate my preferred exercise causes far less caloric expenditure than MFP credited me for.
The POINT of my original post was not to unleash this insane retribution but to say, "Hey, that didn't work for me, so I made some fixes and now it's working. Maybe this would work for you, too?"
Geesh! Breathe a little, folks!
I'm not sure how mean this thread got. Not going to read the whole thing.
But the title is mfp was wrong, so it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that people thought the op blamed mfp.
Also like you just said you don't use the product as intended so your adjustments to fix the problem were more likely an adjustment to correct your user errors.
For example 6" banana, is that a thick banana or a thin banana? Plus you didn't measure it with a ruler. That's why like every 2nd post that I saw suggested you weigh your food to be accurate.
Just sounds like you purposefully added as many variables as you could and then when things didn't work out you blamed the software.
Weigh your food and log it as grams, don't eat back 100% of your exercise because your likely overestimating.0 -
The jig is up! Cheese it!0
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CaliforniaRower wrote: »(There are men on this planet who are glad I'm not gifted at estimating length in inches.)
LOL ... gosh, I wonder what she's referring to?
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Just looking at your banana example. If all your food had that large a variable 5.5-7 inches I could easily see you over eating by 400 calories a day.0
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CaliforniaRower wrote: »CaliforniaRower wrote: »The system assigned me 1350 calories a day. I was NEVER hungry. I felt fantastic. It felt like I was eating tons of food. I cut way back on sugar, chocolate and breads. However, over +6 weeks, I didn't drop another ounce.
I got pretty sad about that permanent plateau. I figured I'd try to address the matter when I got back from vacation.
Well, I decided to do 2 things differently: NOT log my exercise, since I think it was being overly generous with how many calories it thinks I'm burning AND to voluntarily cut (for a while, probably not forever) at least 250-350 calories off their recommendation.
I know there are plenty of people out there who will say, "under 1200 calories per day is dangerous..." and I get that. But so far, I feel fine. And I'm not going to do it forever. And I AM losing weight - finally!
Just a hint for anyone else who thinks, "Plateau?!? Fahgeddaboutit!"
My 100% plan is to drop 8-10 lbs per month, whatever it takes, and then - 3 months from now when I am at my goal - to gently allow in more calories until I find my maintenance point.
(P.S. - I totally acknowledge that because I don't literally weigh everything I eat, I could have been eating more calories than I think I am all along.)
This ^^ the exercise bit.
MFP overestimates the amount of calories burned when you exercise AND I've seen people here record every little thing they do. They get up and spend 15 min vacuuming, and it gets recorded as exercise. That might work for some, but I find what works better for me is to record only my actual exercise, not every little thing I do in a day, and to ensure that the calorie count is low.
And also ... it is really easy to eat more calories than you might think when you don't track accurately. I was floored by things like cereal. What I consider 1 serving of cereal is more like 4 servings. Also cashews. What I consider 1 serving of cashews is about 5 servings. And with certain foods (like cashews) that's a difference between 100 cal and 500 cal.
Thank you for this polite and helpful response. Although I am familiar with how much an ounce is, and I suspect I was fairly accurate, it is true that I will not use a food scale - if it got to that level and I had massive weight to lose, I'd opt for bariatric surgery, I suspect. I cannot imagine the inhumanity nor obsessive behavior (it would be that if I did it) of using a scale.
Thank you again. I'm surprised I stirred up such a swarm of hornets. I've learned to stay off the forums from now on!
Are you just trying to provoke people
Am I misunderstanding or are you saying people who use scales are inhuman? Takes a few seconds to weigh something, not that much of an obsessive behaviour. What is so wrong with use a scale?
Also scales are more important closer to a healthy weight. You seem to be saying that scales are for obese people.
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Wanted to see if poster had genuine issue. Nope.
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<<<brought popcorn with me...sits down and offers the others..some popcorn too... i logged them dont eat it all.0
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mwebster11 wrote: »8 to 10 pounds is too much to lose in a month,you'll go into starvation mode and you'll gain it back.1-2 lbs is a safe way to lose weight,and you'll keep it off.
Starvation mode is sooo 2013/13.0 -
Look MFP is wrong on many things: the food database holds an awful lot of erroneous data; the exercise database in overestimated by 50% for the majority of people; the forums are over-moderated with some medieval punishments in place ...you're right
But...it's a calorie counting site ...and the way calorie counting works best is by learning to understand portion sizes by weighing ...because your body told you you were logging incorrectly as did most responders
That's how numbers work
Nobody is irate because we simply don't care that much ...we were merely trying to help
I AM IRATE
I AM READY FOR BATTLE!
AND SIDEWAYS!
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mwebster11 wrote: »8 to 10 pounds is too much to lose in a month,you'll go into starvation mode and you'll gain it back.1-2 lbs is a safe way to lose weight,and you'll keep it off.
Starvation mode as to the ordinary dieter is a myth.
However, I agree with slow and easy.
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You didn't log properly
you had no idea how much you were eating
so by trimming off more "made-up calories" you managed to hit an appropriate calorie defecit
which seems a little ar$e above face to me but h'oh well .. worked for you
so actually MFP not wrong .. you were wrong
And, this.0 -
TheOwlhouseDesigns wrote: »<<<brought popcorn with me...sits down and offers the others..some popcorn too... i logged them dont eat it all.
I would never do that ..if I logged it...it's mine
Damn you're nice0 -
Still rockin' that helmet
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TheOwlhouseDesigns wrote: »<<<brought popcorn with me...sits down and offers the others..some popcorn too... i logged them dont eat it all.
I would never do that ..if I logged it...it's mine
Damn you're nice
nah just selfish...it makes my deficit larger when i share....
but who am i kidding...i get me some ice cream
Now THAT i eat alone!
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Just looking at your banana example. If all your food had that large a variable 5.5-7 inches I could easily see you over eating by 400 calories a day.
Yep. I eat a banana on my oatmeal every morning, and they usually weigh in at anywhere from 94 to 140 grams. That's a big caloric difference.
Weighing food is very important.
I also believe that MFP doesn't get it wrong, we do.0 -
Weigh. Your. Food.0
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Just looking at your banana example. If all your food had that large a variable 5.5-7 inches I could easily see you over eating by 400 calories a day.
Yep. I eat a banana on my oatmeal every morning, and they usually weigh in at anywhere from 94 to 140 grams. That's a big caloric difference.
Weighing food is very important.
I also believe that MFP doesn't get it wrong, we do.
Seen the stickie list?0 -
Just looking at your banana example. If all your food had that large a variable 5.5-7 inches I could easily see you over eating by 400 calories a day.
Yep. I eat a banana on my oatmeal every morning, and they usually weigh in at anywhere from 94 to 140 grams. That's a big caloric difference.
Weighing food is very important.
I also believe that MFP doesn't get it wrong, we do.
Seen the stickie list?
Stickie list is my friend. Lots of great information there.
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CaliforniaRower wrote: »(P.S. - I totally acknowledge that because I don't literally weigh everything I eat, I could have been eating more calories than I think I am all along.)
So the short version of the story is that you weren't losing weight while eating an unknown amount of food.
Happens all the time...
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CaliforniaRower wrote: »CaliforniaRower wrote: »The system assigned me 1350 calories a day. I was NEVER hungry. I felt fantastic. It felt like I was eating tons of food. I cut way back on sugar, chocolate and breads. However, over +6 weeks, I didn't drop another ounce.
I got pretty sad about that permanent plateau. I figured I'd try to address the matter when I got back from vacation.
Well, I decided to do 2 things differently: NOT log my exercise, since I think it was being overly generous with how many calories it thinks I'm burning AND to voluntarily cut (for a while, probably not forever) at least 250-350 calories off their recommendation.
I know there are plenty of people out there who will say, "under 1200 calories per day is dangerous..." and I get that. But so far, I feel fine. And I'm not going to do it forever. And I AM losing weight - finally!
Just a hint for anyone else who thinks, "Plateau?!? Fahgeddaboutit!"
My 100% plan is to drop 8-10 lbs per month, whatever it takes, and then - 3 months from now when I am at my goal - to gently allow in more calories until I find my maintenance point.
(P.S. - I totally acknowledge that because I don't literally weigh everything I eat, I could have been eating more calories than I think I am all along.)
This ^^ the exercise bit.
MFP overestimates the amount of calories burned when you exercise AND I've seen people here record every little thing they do. They get up and spend 15 min vacuuming, and it gets recorded as exercise. That might work for some, but I find what works better for me is to record only my actual exercise, not every little thing I do in a day, and to ensure that the calorie count is low.
And also ... it is really easy to eat more calories than you might think when you don't track accurately. I was floored by things like cereal. What I consider 1 serving of cereal is more like 4 servings. Also cashews. What I consider 1 serving of cashews is about 5 servings. And with certain foods (like cashews) that's a difference between 100 cal and 500 cal.
Thank you for this polite and helpful response. Although I am familiar with how much an ounce is, and I suspect I was fairly accurate, it is true that I will not use a food scale - if it got to that level and I had massive weight to lose, I'd opt for bariatric surgery, I suspect. I cannot imagine the inhumanity nor obsessive behavior (it would be that if I did it) of using a scale.
Thank you again. I'm surprised I stirred up such a swarm of hornets. I've learned to stay off the forums from now on!
Weighing your food is actually quite fascinating. Maybe it is because I'm a numbers person ... into math, logic, data, stuff like that. But I actually enjoy weighing my food. I'm not doing it right now because I have reached my goal of a 15 kg loss and I'm taking a little break, but I miss it. I just dished out some yogurt, and wished for a scale.
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Look MFP is wrong on many things: the food database holds an awful lot of erroneous data; the exercise database in overestimated by 50% for the majority of people; the forums are over-moderated with some medieval punishments in place ...you're right
But...it's a calorie counting site ...and the way calorie counting works best is by learning to understand portion sizes by weighing ...because your body told you you were logging incorrectly as did most responders
That's how numbers work
Nobody is irate because we simply don't care that much ...we were merely trying to help
I AM IRATE
I AM READY FOR BATTLE!
AND SIDEWAYS!
Sideways? Weird it's up the right way for me.
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I'm not sure how mean this thread got. Not going to read the whole thing.
But the title is mfp was wrong, so it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that people thought the op blamed mfp
Whilst all of this is true, the first page of responses was pretty much nothing but people saying that. It got out of hand. Genuine feedback became something else, because any chance of real discussion of improvement got drowned out by people throwing in more of the same advice that had been mentioned countless times already...0 -
Everything is an estimate. These tools are estimates, even measuring food is an estimate - who's to say how much sugar is actually in a carrot or apple? Or how much fat or protein in an egg. It's all just a close approximation.
But one thing is for sure. If your body doesn't shed the fat over time it's not a deficit and the only thing you can do is eat less more consistenty. So you got that right, whatever method you use to do that. All good then. Go forth and get it done! Boom!0 -
I'm not sure how mean this thread got. Not going to read the whole thing.
But the title is mfp was wrong, so it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that people thought the op blamed mfp
Whilst all of this is true, the first page of responses was pretty much nothing but people saying that. It got out of hand. Genuine feedback became something else, because any chance of real discussion of improvement got drowned out by people throwing in more of the same advice that had been mentioned countless times already...
Thing with forums is, you put a question out there and you're inviting any number if individual responses. It isn't a stacks-on, it's just a number of people all answering the first post without recourse to the other responses. It has always been like that, it will always be like that, and it is a mistake to see it as ganging up or the like - the forums would be a very boring place for most if you were expected not to respond to a query just because a few people already had. Hell, a lot of people don't even read the other responses before responding to the OP - it's just the way forums are. People should see a number of the same responses as a consensus, not as a bashing.0 -
Alatariel75 wrote: »I'm not sure how mean this thread got. Not going to read the whole thing.
But the title is mfp was wrong, so it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that people thought the op blamed mfp
Whilst all of this is true, the first page of responses was pretty much nothing but people saying that. It got out of hand. Genuine feedback became something else, because any chance of real discussion of improvement got drowned out by people throwing in more of the same advice that had been mentioned countless times already...
Thing with forums is, you put a question out there and you're inviting any number if individual responses. It isn't a stacks-on, it's just a number of people all answering the first post without recourse to the other responses. It has always been like that, it will always be like that, and it is a mistake to see it as ganging up or the like - the forums would be a very boring place for most if you were expected not to respond to a query just because a few people already had. Hell, a lot of people don't even read the other responses before responding to the OP - it's just the way forums are. People should see a number of the same responses as a consensus, not as a bashing.
One of the many reasons I adore you .. common sense!0 -
Look MFP is wrong on many things: the food database holds an awful lot of erroneous data; the exercise database in overestimated by 50% for the majority of people; the forums are over-moderated with some medieval punishments in place ...you're right
But...it's a calorie counting site ...and the way calorie counting works best is by learning to understand portion sizes by weighing ...because your body told you you were logging incorrectly as did most responders
That's how numbers work
Nobody is irate because we simply don't care that much ...we were merely trying to help
I AM IRATE
I AM READY FOR BATTLE!
AND SIDEWAYS!
Well, being sideways would make a person pretty irate.
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Alatariel75 wrote: »I'm not sure how mean this thread got. Not going to read the whole thing.
But the title is mfp was wrong, so it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that people thought the op blamed mfp
Whilst all of this is true, the first page of responses was pretty much nothing but people saying that. It got out of hand. Genuine feedback became something else, because any chance of real discussion of improvement got drowned out by people throwing in more of the same advice that had been mentioned countless times already...
Thing with forums is, you put a question out there and you're inviting any number if individual responses. It isn't a stacks-on, it's just a number of people all answering the first post without recourse to the other responses. It has always been like that, it will always be like that, and it is a mistake to see it as ganging up or the like - the forums would be a very boring place for most if you were expected not to respond to a query just because a few people already had. Hell, a lot of people don't even read the other responses before responding to the OP - it's just the way forums are. People should see a number of the same responses as a consensus, not as a bashing.
One of the many reasons I adore you .. common sense!0
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