MFP calorie goals.... Are they always correct?

megbrown03

Hi Friends! I need advice badly! MFP says my daily cal intake should be 1,460 cals. I have started going to the gym 4 days a week. I do 30 minutes of various weight machines and 20 to 30 minutes of cardio every time. There is really no way to accurately log my exercise. And, I HAVE NOT LOST A SINGLE POUND!!!! I'm very frustrated because I am working my tail off and the scale hasn't moved. Several of my nurse friends have said that I should eat 2,000 cals a day to lose if I am working out so much. What are your thoughts on this? Any and all help would be greatly appreciated! TIA :0)

DeguelloTex

Need more info. Stats, time, etc.

rankinsect

How often are you weighing, and are you consistently weighing at the same time of day?

Are you accurately logging your food, including using a food scale for everything?

How long have you been working at this and not seeing any change?

There are plenty of reasons why you could be losing fat but not seeing changes on the scale. Need more info.

Christine_72

Could you set your diary to public? You'll get more detailed help, as sometimes can pick up little errors here and there that you haven't noticed and can help pinpoint if there is a problem in that area.

abatonfan

Credit to lemonlionheart. The big thing is to give it time (if you just started a new exercise routine, you may be experiencing water weight gain) and USE A FOOD SCALE TO ACCURATELY LOG YOUR CALORIES CONSUMED (I cannot stress this enough -it's possible to be off by at least 500 calories by using measuring cups instead of weighing):

megbrown03

I haven't started to log my food yet... I am sticking to clean eating other than a diet dp every day. I've only been going to the gym for 2 weeks but I thought I would at least see a few pounds difference by now.I weigh every morning after my workout. 30 minutes of weights and 20 to 30 minutes on treadmill or elliptical. 4 days a week.

rankinsect

megbrown03 wrote: »

I haven't started to log my food yet... I am sticking to clean eating other than a diet dp every day. I've only been going to the gym for 2 weeks but I thought I would at least see a few pounds difference by now.I weigh every morning after my workout. 30 minutes of weights and 20 to 30 minutes on treadmill or elliptical. 4 days a week.

"Clean" eating, strength training, and cardio are all positive things to do for your health, but none of them are really going to help you lose weight. In general, unless you track your calories, you will naturally tend to simply eat back all the calories you burned during exercise.

You can't out-exercise a bad diet - and even healthy food with unhealthy portion sizes can be a bad diet. The #1 thing that will help you lose weight isn't clean eating or exercise (although both are good for other reasons). The #1 thing to help you lose weight is to manage the amount of food you consume. If you're here, like many of us, the chances are you can't successfully do this naturally, hence why we count.

Christine_72

I would start weighing yourself first thing in the morning before your workout and before eating or drinking anything.
Also, it would be a good thing to start logging your food so you know where your calories are. A food scale is helpful for accuracy.

MarcyKirkton

Logging is essential. Otherwise, you could be eating 2500 calories a day and not realize it.

abatonfan

megbrown03 wrote: »

I haven't started to log my food yet... I am sticking to clean eating other than a diet dp every day. I've only been going to the gym for 2 weeks but I thought I would at least see a few pounds difference by now.I weigh every morning after my workout. 30 minutes of weights and 20 to 30 minutes on treadmill or elliptical. 4 days a week.

How can you say MFP's calorie goals are correct when you're not making sure that you're eating to MFP's calorie goals? It's super easy to eat 3000+ calories in "clean" food (walnuts are "clean", but they're close to 800 calories per cup). All that matters for weight loss is consuming less than what your body burns per day (CICO), while plans like eating "clean" help to make sure you are eating a variety of nutrient-dense foods.

Tblackdogs

I've been on here for about 8 weeks and I've lost about 7 pounds and besides my normal dog walking and a few longer walks, I've done no extra exercise. My calorie goal is 1550 per day and I've only gone over that about 8 times. So exercise if you want to, but I highly recommend logging your calories and trying to stay at or under your goal.

PeachyCarol

20 minutes of cardio and some machine weight training will burn some calories, but not enough to create a huge deficit in calories which will show on the scale.

If you've been relying on your current activity level to burn off weight, that's not going to happen. Weight loss mostly happens due to creating a calorie deficit through diet. Exercise is for fitness.

The composition or "cleanness" of your diet isn't what counts, it's the amount of calories you're eating vs. how many calories you burn.

Your nurse friends are wrong about how much your current work out routine would impact your caloric needs, btw.

If you input your stats into MFP correctly, the calorie amount it gave you should be correct for losing weight. The problem is, since you're not logging your food, you have no way of knowing if you're actually eating that many calories.

Most people are very poor at estimating calorie intake.

If you want to see real results, get a digital food scale and use it.

Verify all data base entries when logging your food so that you're using correct data when you log. You can use https://www.supertracker.usda.gov/foodapedia.aspx or www.nutritiondata.self.com to double check.

Even though this sounds like a pain, trust me it's not. Also trust me that the results will be worth it!

shirleyann2013

10 percent is exercise, 90 percent is what you put in your mouth. That of course is just a guess however for me, it is all about what I put in my mouth. Exercise is to keep my joints and muscles working properly and keep my heart healthy. Definitely keep track of what you eat ....log it in along with your exercise. Everything is just an estimate. To get an accurate measure of the caloric impact of exercise and the calories that you ingest you have to measure very accurately using sensitive instruments.

megbrown03

Thank you all so much for the input! I will definitely start logging!