More people that use MFP like this?

DomorVerbeuk

I couldn't come up with a better title, sorry for that.

The general advice I read is to tell MFP how active you are and how much you want to loose per week and let it calculate the amount of calories (and macronutrients) you should eat each day.

I tell MFP I'm sedentary and want to maintain my current weight. I use a stepcounter (garmin vivofit (my choice), fitbit or phone) to decide how much calories on top of sedentary I can take. For loosing 1lbs a week, I aim for staying 500kcal under the advised calories and of course for 2lbs I aim for 1000kcal.

What for me is the big plus of this system is that even on a bad day, aiming for maintenance is often far more possible than aiming for weight loss. Overshooting (gaining more than water weight) happens less, because you actually keep seeing when you're not just not losing as much weight as wanted, but actually the grey zone as well.

So, more people that want to loose weight that still tell MFP to calculate their TDEE and do the math for losing weight themselves?

JohnnytotheB

When I came to this site I let it do the calcs for me. I figure they have more "experience" with what works.

The maintenance thing (to me) is a little trickier/harder because if you have lost weight and are now told to eat more to maintain the current, is weird. It makes sense because you don't want the deficit anymore but after eating less for so long it's uncomfortable. I also think in maintenance you really don't want to eat anymore that they tell you because weight gains may be very quick due to a person being in deficit for probably several months.

amusedmonkey

I do this when I do flexible deficit. As long as I'm under maintenance, be it by 500 or by 5, I'm happy. I do this when I have too much on my plate to focus on weight loss.

cmriverside

I'm not sure I'm understanding your point completely, but once I lost my weight I knew my calorie needs because I had been logging food and exercise for so long. I knew I could eat past the set goal and not gain weight, yes. But when I went into maintenance I knew how much I could eat past the set goal.

Today I know my calorie intake should be 2100-2300 to maintain my current weight. I have my calories set at 1700 (plus any exercise calories I *earn* so it comes out to a rolling number between 1900 and 2100.) That's what I eat. Usually one day per week I'll even be way over that (like 2500-3000 calories eaten.) I've been maintaining this way for years. For the record, MFP tells me I should eat 1500 to maintain. So it's way off. The only numbers that count are my calculations, arrived at over many months and years of tracking.

NovusDies

Maybe it is because I haven't had my coffee yet but I am finding the wording of your post a little confusing.

If you are asking how most people figure out what their maintenance calories are vs their losing calories I am afraid many people that I see that come through here don't actually understand it. I have seen many threads from people who think that if they eat 100 calories above their deficit calorie goal line they will start gaining. Often they have a weight fluctuation at the same time that seems to confirm their fear on the bathroom scale. This can result in an all or nothing attitude which is hard to sustain.

MFP doesn't really do a good job with how calorie goals are presented. It doesn't do a good job with macros either which is why there are so many threads with people who are scared they just gained weight because they exceeded a macro for the day. If I eat above my goal line I get a scary red line that seems to indicate I have done something wrong. I think it should be yellow and red reserved for exceeding maintenance or at least a better explanation somewhere.

Knowing the difference between your full deficit goal and your maintenance can be very liberating. Last Monday I was having a very off day. I still don't know why. I don't really care why as long as they don't happen very often and they don't. My rule is that if I need to eat maintenance on a day like that I do it and I did. Tuesday I was ready to tackle the world again and back on my routine. I credit my sustainability, in part, to knowing when to take the foot off the gas.

MikePTY

If I understand correctly, you are saying that you set your goal to maintenence so that you will always be under it, and feel like you are losing at any deficit, even if it is more than your goal? That is certainly a thing you can do.

I haven't found it necessary though. When I first started, I used MFP to calculate my goals and ate back most of my exercise calories. After I got a better understanding of how my body was losing weight, I switched to setting a custom goal based off of my TDEE. But it always has my deficit built in. I understand that sometimes I will go over my goal, and this is normal and it won't be stalling my weight loss. So I don't see the need to inflate my calorie goal by setting it at maintenence.

Lounmoun

I put in my own calorie goal which should be maintenance for my activity level and aim to eat somewhere between 1200 and that maximum number- usually in the middle. My activty level is pretty much the same every day. My goal is to mostly not gain so it is fine.
In the past I just went with MFP calculations to lose 1 lb a week and ate the amount of calories suggested plus some exercise calories and lost at the expected rate. That was better for consistant loss.

lynn_glenmont

It's been years since I worried about adhering to the MFP goal, especially since MFP underestimates my maintenance, even when I lie and tell it I'm active despite having a desk job (I explain this to myself as a combination of having a lower "chronological" age, at least hormonally and muscle-wise, than the formula MFP uses expects in a woman of my age, of being a bit of a fidgeter and a dance-a-little-while-you-do-the-dishes-and-brush-your-teeth kind of gal, and of just being a lucky statisical outlier).

You have to have a goal to use the site, as best as I can figure, so I have one, but it's really more of a floor -- a net calorie level that I don't want to go below on a frequent basis. (No, it's not 1200 kcal. It's 1770. It's what MFP thinks would let me lose a half pound a week when I tell it that I'm lightly active, but if I adhered to it, I would lose a little over a pound a week.)

I know what my net maintenance level is based on years of data, and that's the ceiling I don't want to go over for my weekly average very often.

paperpudding

I don't quite understand the question.

But what I did was put in my stats and decided my activity level was lightly active and told it I wanted to lose 1/2 lb per week because I only had 22 lb to lose and then I ate to aprox that number plus exercise calories.

Since I did, on average lose 1/2 lb per week as expected, I just kept doing that until I hit goal, then I re set to maintain my weight and did same to my new higher allowance.

In short, yes I did it how MFP told me to.

Johnd2000

Yes. I track my CI with MFP and my CO with a Fitbit. On sedentary days I eat up to maintenance, or slightly over. On exercise days I find I need to leave a moderate deficit “in the bank” as the Fitbit seems to overestimate my burn a bit. I’ve been maintaining like this for over a year, so it works well for me.