Confused on the weekly totals; advice appreciated!

missblondi2u

Since I now have 3 months of solid numbers in MFP and in Libra (a weight tracking app), I'm trying to analyze the data. However, I am somewhat confused on the MFP weekly numbers. Below are screenshots of 1) MFP's Total Calories for the week, 2) MFP's Net Calories for the week, and 3) Libra's Statistics based on my actual weight loss trends.

My first question is for the total calories screenshot. It reports that my daily average is 1753, but also says that I am -2473 "calories over weekly goal." In simple English, if I am a negative number of calories over the goal, shouldn't this mean that I am under the goal?? Since my daily goal is 1400, and my daily average is 1753, I calculate that I am over my weekly goal by 2471 because (1753-1400)*7 days = 2471. So where does the negative number come from? Is it a mistake?

My next question is about my overall deficit. Over the last week I have lost 5.39 pounds, which Libra reports as a deficit of 2692 calories a day. Looking over a longer time period, the last month, my weekly weight loss has been 2.79 pounds a week for an estimated 1397 daily deficit. I have MFP set to lose a pound a week with a 500 calorie daily deficit, and according to the MFP weekly net totals, I've averaged 1190 (because I've only been eating back a little over half of my exercise calories based on being told repeatedly that exercise calories are way overestimated by apps like MFP and Map My Walk). This means that my daily deficit should be only about 710 (500 built-in deficit plus 210 because I'm netting lower than my goal). So how did I create a deficit that's almost twice that amount over the last month and almost four times that over the last week? Even if I had eaten back all of my exercise calories (which I've been told are overestimated), I would still have a deficit way over the 500 calories I intended. What's going on??

Some additional info--For the first month I didn't exercise at all and just stayed under my calorie goal (which was higher at the time because I weighed 206), and I lost the expected 1 pound/week. I started walking between 2-4 miles a day about two months ago, which is more exercise than I have ever done in my life. As you can see on the Libra screenshot, my rate of loss has accelerated as I've progressed. Reading the forums, I see many times where people report having faster losses in the beginning, and then slowing down as they lost. My experience is the opposite. This leads me to think that either I am overestimating my calories in (which I don't think is the case) or I'm underestimating calories out. My activity level is set to sedentary because I sit at a desk over 8 hours daily during the week and my only real activity is my walking which I log with Map My Walk.

Does anyone have an insight as to what's happening here? I'm not saying I haven't enjoyed my accelerated weight loss, but I don't want to deprive my body if I should be eating more.

Your thoughts would be much appreciated!

WBB55

For the last week, it looks like you've been eating an average of 1750 per day. You're netting 1200, so this means your log an average of 550 exercise calories per day.

In the past week you've lost 5.39 lbs (congratulations). If you continue to follow the same eating patterns, I suspect this would slow back down to about a pound per week. It's hard to guess what your actual calorie deficit is if you've recently changed things.

If you aren't hungry, I say don't change anything. But if you are hungry, adding in another 100-200 clearly shouldn't be a problem. My guess is you had a "woosh" this week where your body rid itself of a lot of water it was hanging onto to repair muscles or help with the fat metabolism. I think most people would be happy to hear your story about eating 1750 calories per day and continuing to lose weight

CyberTone

missblondi2u wrote: »

My first question is for the total calories screenshot. It reports that my daily average is 1753, but also says that I am -2473 "calories over weekly goal." In simple English, if I am a negative number of calories over the goal, shouldn't this mean that I am under the goal?? Since my daily goal is 1400, and my daily average is 1753, I calculate that I am over my weekly goal by 2471 because (1753-1400)*7 days = 2471. So where does the negative number come from? Is it a mistake?

In my view, it is a software developer's mistake. If you are under your weekly Calorie goal, the number is displayed as positive, and the word "under" chosen by the software developers matches the positive number. On the other hand, if you are over your weekly Calorie goal, the number displayed is negative, and the word "over" chosen by the software developers should require the absolute value - a positive integer - of the negative number to be displayed; which it currently does not. So for now, a negative number paired with the word over means you are over. But remember, the current display could change with the next iOS or Android app update, or a future update.

macgurlnet

I have a cold so my brain is a little foggy, but I seem to recall a few instances where the math was broken. I think @CyberTone is on the right track with saying the wording is wrong.

But I think another part of the issue is that the total calories completely ignores extra calories earned through exercise, so it's a fairly useless piece of info by itself.

My daily goal is 1500. I am currently nearly 2k calories OVER that for the week, but, when I switch to Net, I see that I'm under by 1300 (it's early in the day, so part of that 1300 is today's calories). As far as Net goes, I've either been a touch over or a touch under and it's balancing out.

Personally, I would ignore total calories unless you switch to the TDEE method and set a goal that includes exercise calories. Then it would be a useful piece of info. As it is, I don't see a reason to care about that number.

~Lyssa

missblondi2u

CyberTone wrote: »

missblondi2u wrote: »

My first question is for the total calories screenshot. It reports that my daily average is 1753, but also says that I am -2473 "calories over weekly goal." In simple English, if I am a negative number of calories over the goal, shouldn't this mean that I am under the goal?? Since my daily goal is 1400, and my daily average is 1753, I calculate that I am over my weekly goal by 2471 because (1753-1400)*7 days = 2471. So where does the negative number come from? Is it a mistake?

In my view, it is a software developer's mistake. If you are under your weekly Calorie goal, the number is displayed as positive, and the word "under" chosen by the software developers matches the positive number. On the other hand, if you are over your weekly Calorie goal, the number displayed is negative, and the word "over" chosen by the software developers should require the absolute value - a positive integer - of the negative number to be displayed; which it currently does not. So for now, a negative number paired with the word over means you are over. But remember, the current display could change with the next iOS or Android app update, or a future update.

This makes sense. Thanks!

missblondi2u

WBB55 wrote: »

For the last week, it looks like you've been eating an average of 1750 per day. You're netting 1200, so this means your log an average of 550 exercise calories per day.

In the past week you've lost 5.39 lbs (congratulations). If you continue to follow the same eating patterns, I suspect this would slow back down to about a pound per week. It's hard to guess what your actual calorie deficit is if you've recently changed things.

If you aren't hungry, I say don't change anything. But if you are hungry, adding in another 100-200 clearly shouldn't be a problem. My guess is you had a "woosh" this week where your body rid itself of a lot of water it was hanging onto to repair muscles or help with the fat metabolism. I think most people would be happy to hear your story about eating 1750 calories per day and continuing to lose weight

Thanks! I am very happy with my results, and I keep reminding myself that it will slow down, but I keep getting these "wooshes." I would have thought that my extra water weight would have come off by now, but perhaps not. Also, unlike several posts I have read, my weight hasn't gone up a single day since I started exercising. Maybe I should just shut my mouth and enjoy it, but I'm a numbers person and it just seems like my "checkbook" isn't balancing for some reason.

AnnPT77

One other point: Don't expect your consumption & loss pattern to be *exactly* on point with MFP's estimates, or expect your exercise calories to be mis-estimated by *exactly* the same amount as someone else's. While many will say each of us is not a special snowflake, it *is* true that each of us has a slightly different metabolism, a slightly different food scale, a slightly different exercise intensity, etc. These things add up.

You're doing yourself a great favor by tracking carefully and keeping the data. Once you have a longer-run (month or ideally more) of consistent data, so that you see whether there are "whooshes" and other aberrations, among other things, you're in a pretty good spot to predict your own personal loss rate for a given calorie goal.

For me (despite being old & hypothyroid), it's appearing that I lose a bit more weight at a given level of consumption (carefully measured) than MFP predicts, while eating back nearly all of my (conservatively estimated) exercise calories. Why? Who knows. But I'm not complaining. And it's information I can use as I move toward maintenance.