How often do you reset your goals?

08_GreenEyedMomma

I've been faithfully logging here for 39 days! My longest streak ever here on MFP, and as a result of my weighing & logging, I'm down 7.2 pounds in those 39 days. I got curious earlier and checked my goals. MFP has my current weight from Monday's weigh-in, and when I clicked the get started button, it lowered my daily calorie goal 30cals. Not much, and I knew it would at some point. Just wondering how often everyone here who is still losing adjusts that. I haven't really hit a plateau yet, and I'm pretty regularly beneath my current goal now so I don't think dropping another 30 is going to be hard. Would once a month (I'm just over a month, but close enough) be a good timeframe, or is it generally advised to use a weight loss increment, like every 10lbs/15lbs?

Lois_1989

I hadn't really thought about it if I'm honest, but I guess hitting a plateau would be a good sign. I'm down 10lbs so I can't imagine it would be much lower right now, judging by yours. Maybe after 20lbs?

ZoneFive

I would recalculate every 5 to 10 pounds. Lowering your calories by 30 or so is pretty easy. I didn't check till I'd lost 20 pounds and found myself having to adjust by nearly 400 calories, which was a real smack in the face. Spare yourself the grief!

rmgnow

It depends on how aggressive I want to be. I recalculated when I hit a little plateau

HeidiCooksSupper

I recalculate with every new pound down. I know, it sounds excessive but it means I am diminishing my daily calorie limit by 5 or so calories at a time. I basically don't notice that I was eating 1660 calories a day a few months ago and I'm now eating 1520. I plan to keep doing this until I reach the TDEE for the weight I want to be and slide into maintenance.

batters1964

ZoneFive wrote: »

I would recalculate every 5 to 10 pounds. Lowering your calories by 30 or so is pretty easy. I didn't check till I'd lost 20 pounds and found myself having to adjust by nearly 400 calories, which was a real smack in the face. Spare yourself the grief!

That's really useful, thanks. I've just recalculated and my calories have lowered by 20!

lucerorojo

Can you explain what you mean by resetting goals? How do you recalculate? The MFP has our current weight in it.

IsabeausRose

MFP has me set at the lowest calories possible for a woman, 1200. So it will never adjust any lower than that no matter how much weight I lose. Just info for anyone else on a 1200 calorie plan.

jdlobb

I'm adding 100 calories a week to see how high I can get while still losing 2lbs a week.

lucerorojo

IsabeausRose wrote: »

MFP has me set at the lowest calories possible for a woman, 1200. So it will never adjust any lower than that no matter how much weight I lose. Just info for anyone else on a 1200 calorie plan.

So it does automatically adjust otherwise? Why would people manually change it if MFP does it? (I see there is an edit button that one can change the calorie intake).

estherdragonbat

I haven't reset mine in a while because I'm still losing weight at or slightly above 1lb a week, which is where I've had MFP set my deficit. (I eat back roughly 50% of my exercise calories and, so long as I'm not hungry and not losing more than the 'ideal', I'm not changing that.)

Truth is, on days when I don't exercise, I feel pretty restricted on 1380. I like snacking and I make room for stuff like popcorn, dry cereal, string cheese, and veggie dogs. Being on 1380 means it takes more planning to pull that off and I like being able to lose without feeling hungry or deprived.

Under the circumstances, I'm not in a hurry to scale back my calories until I need to. (Currently 43 lbs from goal.)

nowine4me

A big part of weight loss is mental, right? If those 30 extra calories are going to keep you sane and on track, just manually change your goal to add them back.