In 5 weeks you will weigh...

TheMrWobbly

Don't you just love the message at the bottom of the 'Food Diary' that says "If you continue like this in 5 weeks you will weigh xxx".

The trouble is I just checked and 5 weeks ago mine said 236.4lbs. An impressive 18.4lbs from the weight I was at that time. Currently I weigh in around 247 lbs which I don't think is a bad loss.

Has anyone actually achieved the project weight loss MFP give??

ceiswyn

And did you continue exactly as you did on that one day five weeks ago? Exactly the same deficit every day?

TheMrWobbly

No I do not eat exactly the same food everyday, however my average per day since that 'prediction' is within 30 calories of that particular day so barely any difference.

I am just interested to see if people are achieving their 'forecast'.

Panini911

I never close my diary (other than to test once to see what it did) so don't see it so no idea if i achieved what it said. i'll say very likely no.

lemurcat2

I mostly did when I was first logging and was very consistent about hitting my goal (and had lots to lose). But then I went to a TDEE method and stopped closing, so who knows. When I first went to TDEE and stopped adding exercise it projected me to gain slightly and even though it's irrelevant I found it annoying, which is one reason I stopped closing.

The diary projection is based on its calculation of your TDEE (including any exercise you add in) minus calories consumed, and is nothing but math. If it's off it's that your TDEE is varying daily (extremely common unless you always eat the same percentage of exercise cals and pretty much always have the same activity levels, as well as eating the same). If it is consistently lower than predicted (if you ask for 1.5 lb/week and always hit goals it will project you to lose 7.5 lb in 5 weeks), then your estimated numbers might be slightly off. If it's projecting something like 18.4 lb in 5 weeks, it should be a day in which you were way under goal, as 2 lb/week would be only 10 lb in 5 weeks. So in this case if the numbers are slightly off so you are really losing not quite as aggressively, that's likely a good thing.

CipherZero

I totally ignore the MFP predictions. The scale determines the results.

vim_n_vigor

for a while I tracked the five week weight loss and then averaged it together by week, and when averaged, it really hasn't been too far off. But if I just look at it as a day to day thing, it doesn't come close.

geauxtigerlily

When you went back to look, was that number already there? Or did you have to click "complete this entry" again? I think I've looked at this before, and if you have to recalculate, IIRC MFP uses your current weight and that day's calorie deficit, even if you're looking at food diary data from 5 weeks ago. (Just went back to check it on an old date, and yep, the "5 weeks from today" calculation is run off of your current weight, not the weight at the time of the diary entry, so could be that?)

geauxtigerlily

And I do something similar to @vim_n_vigor, with averaging the prediction, but I do it weekly in an excel graph.



I calculate that 5-week prediction each day, get a range for min to max for each week, and post it on the graph at 5 weeks from today. My actual weight loss are the blue points, the shaded purple are the "forecasts." So it does fall in line sometimes? I use it more as a guideline and to remind myself that what I'm doing today needs to be sustained to make a difference in the coming weeks/months of weight loss.

TheMrWobbly

Great answers guys, thank you very much!

LyndaBSS

TheMrWobbly wrote: »

No I do not eat exactly the same food everyday, however my average per day since that 'prediction' is within 30 calories of that particular day so barely any difference.

I am just interested to see if people are achieving their 'forecast'.

I have found that the projection number varies wildly if I'm even 10 calories off. Almost seems to be based on the exact foods rather than the total calories. Doesn't matter. I treat it as a joke to start my day off. 😀

JAMeadEsq

I find my predictions vary WILDLY day-to-day. For example, on Saturday I ran 18 miles and burned 4991 calories. I ate 3500 calories, for nearly a 1500 calorie deficit. But my prediction said I would gain 10 pounds if I continued at that rate. It must be that the prediction is based on calories consumed and not overall daily deficit, maybe?

mph323

I think CO has a lot to do with the prediction as well. Not only do you have to hit the same calorie total consistently but you have to also hit the same number of calories out, which is a lot harder to figure when you consider NEAT as well as intentional exercise. I never close mine.

heybales

TheMrWobbly wrote: »

No I do not eat exactly the same food everyday, however my average per day since that 'prediction' is within 30 calories of that particular day so barely any difference.

I am just interested to see if people are achieving their 'forecast'.

Well - you would also have to have burned exactly the amount of calories during the day as expected, to have accomplished the deficit that MFP thinks it's seeing.

That's the impossible side, along with the fact that even weighed products to the nutrition label can be allowed off by upwards of 10% easily according to label info.

I never finalized days to notice.

I had a month of training along with good logging where the predicted loss was within 3% of actual.
I added all workouts manually from better calorie burn sources, and activity tracker handled the daily stuff.

cwolfman13

That prediction is an oversimplified formula that assumes everyday will in fact be exactly the same and that weight loss is linear. I ignored it completely.

heybales

JAMeadEsq wrote: »

I find my predictions vary WILDLY day-to-day. For example, on Saturday I ran 18 miles and burned 4991 calories. I ate 3500 calories, for nearly a 1500 calorie deficit. But my prediction said I would gain 10 pounds if I continued at that rate. It must be that the prediction is based on calories consumed and not overall daily deficit, maybe?

No, deficit.

Estimated burn + any workouts logged - eaten = deficit x 35 / 3500 = lbs lost off current weight.

AnnPT77

MFP also appears to be using its default assumptions about one's calorie burn to produce the "in 5 weeks" estimate.

Many of us tell people to take MFP's calorie goal as a starting point, then adjust after 4-6 weeks of logging experience. I initially lost much faster than MFP estimated based on my (accurate) profile settings, so adjusted my calorie goal upward to lose at a more sensibly moderate rate. I have 4 years of logging experience, so quite a lot of confidence in my own estimates at this point.

Every time I close my diary, on a day that's a slight deficit for me (I calorie bank in maintenance), MFP tells me I'll have gained weight in 5 weeks. If I eat/move that way every day, I won't gain; I'll lose. MFP's using its base assumptions about average people of my characteristics to generate the message. For unknown reasons, I'm not average, but evidently somehow twitchier than average ( ), so the message is wrong.

Phirrgus

I don't pay any attention to it. I would much rather the app use images, something a little more creative...

If I go over.


If I am too far under.

nooboots

I quite like the little prediction, it gives me hope!

phred_52

My last entry was July 17. I'm at 175 from 205...Mine said this:

If every day were like today... You'd weigh 149.5 lbs in 5 weeks

No way do I want to go as low as 149. At 5'8" and small boned, I'd be a skeleton, lol. Goal is for 160 again.

GrizzledSquirrel

I hate that message. It only reminds me just how long I have to continue slogging away to keep within my pitifully small daily allocation of calories. I’d rather not see it. Would much rather get a huge firework display for simply hitting THAT DAY. I prefer focusing on the baby steps rather than the mountain top.

AnnPT77

GrizzledSquirrel wrote: »

I hate that message. It only reminds me just how long I have to continue slogging away to keep within my pitifully small daily allocation of calories. I’d rather not see it. Would much rather get a huge firework display for simply hitting THAT DAY. I prefer focusing on the baby steps rather than the mountain top.

Don't close your food diary, and you won't see it. As far as I know, there's no other conseqence of not closing your diary, other than missing that message, and not having the automatic status update on your timeline that you logged your day.

Duck_Puddle

When looked at as kind of a range or average (vs each individual day) and assuming I was eating at approximately the same deficit over the entire period (again-as a range or average vs each individual day), the prediction really isn’t all that far off.

Where it gets sketchy is that I don’t always maintain a deficit for 5 weeks, or the same deficit, and my weight fluctuates wildly (up as much as 8 pounds from one day to the next) so the calculation could be starting from a somewhat skewed spot (meaning I would be losing from a weight lower than the 8 pound water bump that mfp is using for its starting calculation).

But even with all that-it’s not so wildly off that it doesn’t serve as a check-point. Check point. Not gospel.

GrizzledSquirrel

AnnPT77 wrote: »

Don't close your food diary, and you won't see it. As far as I know, there's no other conseqence of not closing your diary, other than missing that message, and not having the automatic status update on your timeline that you logged your day.

Great, straightforward tip! Thanks @AnnPT77

corinasue1143

I just quit closing my diary a long time ago cause I didn’t like the red writing and the warning that I went over my calories when I was 4 or 5 calories over. Does it still do that?

unstableunicorn

I take it with a grain of salt. Next week I’ll have period challenges. This Friday hubby and I are getting pizza while we wait on car reairs. Life happens, but that message upon diary completion lets me know how well (or not so well) I did that day. I ate a lot more Friday or Saturday and was pleasantly surprised by the guestimate, which made it easier to get back on track the following day.

TheMrWobbly

corinasue1143 wrote: »

I just quit closing my diary a long time ago cause I didn’t like the red writing and the warning that I went over my calories when I was 4 or 5 calories over. Does it still do that?

Abso-blimin-loutely. I hate seeing the red. I had to stop tracking calcium as going over my RDA was coming up in red and it was annoying me.