Stupid Questions?!

shevydt

Hi everyone

I have been using MFP for a while now BUT I think I have been using it wrong... I have just gone premium and now just wanted to reconfirm what I think I now know.

My goal is to lose 1kg a week - I did the guided goal set up and based on everything, MFP tells me I must consume 1380 per day as a goal plus any exercise calories I earn. For example, today so far:

1380-999 food+388 exercise = 769 remaining

I always thought I had to leave the = at about 500 to have a calorie deficit however I have just read that MFP ALREADY takes the deficit into account so actually, I can eat all of the remaining calories in order to lose weight.

For weeks now I have been eating around 1100-1200 and I have stopped losing, after some investigation today, I believe that this is because I am eating too few calories and my body is going into ‘starvation’ mode.

So am I right in saying that, for example today, I can eat the rest of the 769 today in order to stick to the 1kg per week loss calculated for me by MFP?

Sorry for the stupid question!

Thanks
Siobhan

cmriverside

Yes. You want the "remaining" to be Zero.

Starvation mode in this context isn't what's happening.

Here is the great starvation mode thread:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1077746/starvation-mode-adaptive-thermogenesis-and-weight-loss/p1

pjwrt

I didn't see the stupid question. If you dint have a question, you'd be either knowledgeable or not interested.

(I like "remaining numbers", because I know I've forgotten or under-counted calories somehow, so it's all good.)

autumnblade75

If you are at a plateau, it may be because you are consuming more than you think, or because you are overestimating your exercise calories. I wouldn't presume to know which. If you are not using a food scale, it is likely to be the former. If you are using MFP's exercise calculations, you might find it helpful to know that a large number of users prefer to eat back only a portion of the allotment. The numbers can be ... optimistic.

lynn_glenmont

autumnblade75 wrote: »

If you are at a plateau, it may be because you are consuming more than you think, or because you are overestimating your exercise calories. I wouldn't presume to know which. If you are not using a food scale, it is likely to be the former. If you are using MFP's exercise calculations, you might find it helpful to know that a large number of users prefer to eat back only a portion of the allotment. The numbers can be ... optimistic.

If today is typical, I am going to presume that if this is a logging problem, it's mostly a food logging problem.

OP only logged 388 exercise calories. Even if that's twice what OP actually burned, the error would account for less than a quarter of the difference between projected weight loss (1 kg per week) and reported results (no change in weight).

Not to mention that it sounds like OP thinks they've been eating 500 cals per day below goal because they didn't understand that the deficit was already accounted for in the calorie goal.

@theshevymarie , are you using a food scale and checking the database entries you use?

callsitlikeiseeit

sijomial

theshevymarie wrote: »

I always thought I had to leave the = at about 500 to have a calorie deficit however I have just read that MFP ALREADY takes the deficit into account so actually, I can eat all of the remaining calories in order to lose weight.

You asked MyFitnessPal to estimate your calorie goal to lose 1kg a week - and it did just that, it gave you your goal to achieve that rate of weight loss. But that goal is only for a non-exercise day.

If you had asked MyFitnessPal to estimate your calories to maintain your current weight it would do that.


Suggest you go back through the goal setting routine and also have a serious think about if the most aggressive rate of weight loss is suitable for you and also likely to be an eating level you can adhere to long term.
(Keep in mind the Activity Setting has nothing to do with your purposeful exercise - a common mistake.)

If you want help with results (over an extended period of time) not matching expectations then making your diary public helps enormously.

shevydt

Hi everyone Thank you for your comments. I have since made my diary public for future assistance.
I am very meticulous about tracking, logging, checking and re checking my calories against packaging / online etc (I do not take the MFP counts as gospel).
Since this post, I was able to successfully lose weight after upping my calorie consumption to match the MFP calorie goal (YAY) and realise what I had done wrong.
I have subsequently plateaued AGAIN but this could be attributed to many things, I don’t think my eating is now the problem - finally!

cmriverside

Good! Keep going, stay the course, congrats on your weight loss and just trust the process.

As you lose weight you will likely need to adjust, so just keep good records - and plateaus are gonna happen.

Here: http://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations/

TheMrWobbly

The advice given on exercise calories is very true. I eat around half of my exercise calories as given by MFP as they seem very generous and I am still losing at around the 2lb a week target MFP calculated for.

NovusDies

"Plateaus" for me are just periods of time where water retention masks my fat loss. It doesn't mean the fat loss has stopped it just means that when I get on the bathroom scale I can't see it. This is standard operating procedure for me. I also go through periods where it looks like my weight loss has slowed down but it has not. If by deficit I am to lose 2 pounds a week I will lose 8 pounds per month but it most often happens in "whooshes".

What I like to say is that it is better to trust the food scale than it is to trust the bathroom scale. If I log my food accurately I will lose fat each and everyday I am in a deficit. I can trust that because it has been happening for the last 19 months without fail. If/when it does stop I will need to tighten down my logging again or re-evaluate my activity.

Danp

If your weight loss stalls again you may need to tighten up your food logging so that you're getting an accurate record of the actual number of calories you're consuming.

A few 'red flags' I noticed that you might want to keep an eye on.
- Volume/serving entries. "1 medium" this, "0.5 a container" of that and "1 serving" of the other aren't going to be accurate. All that food needs to go on a scale and logged by the gram to ensure your calories are correct.
- Recipe entries. There were a few entries that appeared to be recipes rather than individual foods. Be careful with these as you have no idea how the recipe was made originally and the reported calories could be way off
- 'Quick adds' - loads of quick adds. These are by their definition pure guesswork and could be way way off. Even a poor database approximation is likely going to be closer than a guess at quick added calories.
- Round entries - There were a few entries where it was exactly 100g. Round numbers like that tend to indicate a guess as very very rarely will you put food on a scale and have it weigh exactly 100g let alone for it to happen repeatedly.

Just a few things you might want to consider tightening up if the progress doesn't get moving again.