MFP was wrong about my caloric recommendation
Replies
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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!
Being sideways tends to make a person irate. Think how difficult it would be to drink your coffee.0 -
BruceHedtke wrote: »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!
Being sideways tends to make a person irate. Think how difficult it would be to drink your coffee.
Dude .... that's why they invented straws0 -
BruceHedtke wrote: »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!
Being sideways tends to make a person irate. Think how difficult it would be to drink your coffee.
Dude .... that's why they invented straws
I thought they invented straws so we could shoot spit balls??
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blankiefinder wrote: »BruceHedtke wrote: »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!
Being sideways tends to make a person irate. Think how difficult it would be to drink your coffee.
Dude .... that's why they invented straws
I thought they invented straws so we could shoot spit balls??
I thought they invented straws so I didn't have to screw up my lipstick while drinking a soda pop ;-)0 -
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...
So maybe the OP should ask the moderators to remove the thread, or to at the very least change the title!
See, I started reading this thread because the title says: "MFP was wrong about my caloric recommendation"
My expectation is that I will find out that MFP suggested either less or more calories that it should have to someone!
Fascinating stuff for someone like me who tries to improve on his food and exercise logging accuracy and uses tracking spreadsheets to compare his expected results with DXA scans in an attempt to improve on a sub 5% inaccuracy.
But what do I find instead?
An OP who without knowing how much she has been eating or burning adjusted her intake by no longer eating back what she previously thought she was burning!
Not satisfied with making one adjustment at a time, she also decided to eat an unknown "other" amount of calories, such that she is probably eating less than the amount of calories she didn't know she was eating before. (but really, we don't know because: peanut butter, and salad dressing, and oil, and nuts "portions" = we have no clue)
As a result she is now losing weight at a rate that is probably faster than what she should be losing at, if she wants to preserve her muscle mass .
And, of course, if everything is so accurately logged when it comes to calories, I am sure that protein consumption (which just might help her keep her muscles intact while losing weight) is getting logged just as accurately, enabling her to judge whether she is getting enough.
Alrighty then!
While I am truly am glad that the OP has found a solution that seems to be working for her, I am indeed wondering why she bothers to use a calorie counting app when she has no intention of counting calories, and why she seems to think that she is in a position to evaluate whether the MFP recommendation was correct or not!
Anyway: My final opinion is that if the OP just weighs herself on an accurate scale BEFORE using the toilet in the morning, and then repeats the experiment AFTER doing her business, the difference will approximate the value and usefulness of this thread...-1 -
There was a study done to say that everybody (even dieticians!!) underestimate their caloric intake by between 200-450 calories a day, so you definitely could be f*cking up
try slightly overestimating if you're just estimating portion sizes. 0 -
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
Oh dear cali rower I had some sympathy for your predicament until you started this thread. What rabbit said its you that was wrong and continue to fail to log accurately.0 -
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To add to the long list of replies here. I absolutely eat my exercise calories and I set my goal to be 1/2 lb per week. I have lost 9 pounds since starting back with MFP and I was averaging 1 pound per week. I set my lifestyle as a sedentary one which also set the daily calorie intake lower. I weigh and measure my food whenever I possibly can but I also do that so I can get much better at accurately judging what I am dishing out when I can't use the scales or measuring cups and spoons. After a few weeks of measuring, I don't need to do it as much now that I have improved the 'eyes bigger than the stomach' deal. I also wear a fitness tracker and use multiple websites to estimate the calorie burn when exercising. I think that putting in effort is key. In that regard, this tool has been key to enforcing behaviors. Even when I go over my daily calories on purpose, I am still tracking it to see if I am possibly burning more calories than I thought. Tonight I went over on purpose because I am not passing up a dish of fresh sliced peaches for anyone
! 0 -
Once you said that you eat only 1300 cals a day and feel "satisfied" I knew the answer to your problems right there - under estimating. No one is trying to be mean to you, tough love, take it or leave it. The fact that you are measuring your bananas for calorie content makes it obvious you have no idea what you are doing, which is fine! You are a beginner, we are trying to teach you....weigh everything possible in grams. No measuring cups or rulers.
Buy a scale, weigh your food properly, and you will get results - there is no way you know exactly how much an ounce is, stop wasting your time with eyeballing and get serious if you want to lose weight. No one said that you have to do it forever or obsessively, just to get an idea. It will help you.
And IF you do have surgery you still have to weigh your food, even more so because you are only allowed so much at a time. Lose, lose, buy a scale, problem solved.0 -
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MFP wasn't wrong, you were inaccurately logging.0
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[/quote]
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!
[/quote]
So surgery is preferable to using a scale? Have you ever had major surgery? I know multiple people who have had years of unpleasant side effects to lap band, bariatric, and other stomach surgeries for weight loss. I would rather use a scale for a year than have the pain and complications of surgery to lose 100 pounds.0 -
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I used to be in the camp of " I'll never weigh every little thing that passes my lips. How obsessive"
But here I am, doing just that. I enjoy doing it, I can rest assured that I'm being as accurate as possible with my food intake.
Plus I've become a well oiled machine when it comes to weighing and logging my food. It takes but minutes out of my day!0 -
californiagirl2012 wrote: »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!
D'accord!
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Don't blame the tool, blame the person using the tool.
A bad tradesman blames his tools0 -
Sometimes when I'm sad or feeling low, I'll read threads like this and it makes me giggle.0
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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...
Funny how that works.0 -
Alatariel75 wrote: »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.
The first page took nearly 24 hours to overflow to a second page. There is really no excuse to come along to a conversation that's been going for that length of time and reply with the immediate, obvious answer without checking to see if it's already been covered.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.
I don't mean that it's malicious, or that people had ill intent. I'm just suggesting that a pages full of variations of the same reply get in the way of real conversation, and make the OP get on the defensive. Which is exactly what happened...
And you're making a strawman out of my position if you think I'm suggesting that no one should repeat anything ever. All I'm saying is that at some point, having the same thing said over and over becomes detrimental.Hell, a lot of people don't even read the other responses before responding to the OP - it's just the way forums are.
It's just the way *these* forums are. It's certainly not a universal quality of all forums.
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blankiefinder wrote: »BruceHedtke wrote: »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!
Being sideways tends to make a person irate. Think how difficult it would be to drink your coffee.
Dude .... that's why they invented straws
I thought they invented straws so we could shoot spit balls??
I thought straws were invented so that you could entertain kids by pushing the paper down to the bottom, then dropping water on the paper to make it look like a caterpillar evolving0 -
This discussion has been closed.
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