Daily caloric allowance

johnhenry883

Good morning people! I have been back at myfitnesspal for a few weeks now after a long time away. I have a question for anyone able to answer it.
Myfitnesspal says my daily caloric allowance is 1780. I have been trying to come close to that with a goal of losing 2lbs a week. I have lost 10lbs or 5 lbs a week.
Will I lose 2lbs a week just sticking to that 1780 calories a day?
Also....there are times with my exercise that I have considerably more calories left to use up. Do I need to use them so that I wont lose more than 2lbs a week?
Thanks for your help!

mylittlerainbow

If you set MFP for losing 2 pounds per week, then it should have factored in your current statistics and created a sufficient deficit in calories so that 1780 IS the pace for losing 2 pounds per week.

Many don't eat back their exercise calories (or eat back only half of them), because depending on where you get them from, exercise calories burned are often overstated and food calories eaten might be estimated more than they should be, so this gives you a cushion. But if everything is measured accurately, eating back all of your exercise calories will still leave you at the pace that you set on MFP - i.e., to lose 2 pounds per week. Good luck!

Sued0nim

Whilst this ^^^ is true

If you are losing 5lbs a week over a few weeks (eg not just the first 2 or 3 where water weight can make a huge difference, but ongoing into 6 - 8 weeks) then you need to significantly increase your food intake

johnhenry883

Thank you for your reply....So would it be a safe bet that if I want to lose 2lbs a week that maybe leaving 500 exercise calories earned each day on the table would be about right?

oolou

johnhenry883 wrote: »

Thank you for your reply....So would it be a safe bet that if I want to lose 2lbs a week that maybe leaving 500 exercise calories earned each day on the table would be about right?

That depends on what your total exercise calories are. If that is roughly half your exercise calories, then yes, in theory that should work out.

johnhenry883

Thank you to everyone for your help!

Yi5hedr3

Set goal to 1lb/week. 2 lbs is too aggressive. Also only log 1/2 of your exercise calories, to get a more realistic calorie goal.