Setting Calorie Goal Higher Than Recommended

Cinder333

I have been on every diet known to man/woman. I have done weight watchers, sparkpeople, MFP, Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem, the Cabbage Soup Diet, the Big Breakfast diet, Atkins, Southbeach, etc.

I am at my highest weight (other than when pregnant years ago). When I do calorie counting I usually start at 1200-1350. I do well for awhile, but feel really hungry and end up dropping the whole thing. I started MFP again yesterday. This time I want to try eating 1450 or below a day, and adding walking at least 30 minutes/day.

MFP recommends 1220 calories for .5/week loss. Has anyone tried doing a bit higher than recommended? And if so, how long should I do before reevaluating? It might end up being too high, and if so I will drop it down a bit.

I am 5'1" and 132 pounds.

thanks

ElizabethKalmbach

Do you have a fitness tracker? The nice thing about MFP is that it will synchronize your calories used with a fitness tracking app to track some of your exercise calories to add to the base 1220 as you move about throughout your day.

Most android phones have sufficient hardware to run the Google Fit app, which reports movement to MFP reasonably well, provided you have your phone on you when you walk around.

My baseline is in the 1200's somewhere, to lose 1.5 lbs per week, but by the time I'm done walking my dogs and running around all day, the combination of my tracking app and MFP usually have me up to 1500 to 1800 calories to eat to still lose at the expected rate.

cmriverside

Well, if you use Myfitnesspal's calculations you are supposed to add in exercise on the Exercise tab and then eat more on those days, so that would likely put you at about 1450-1550 per day on exercise days.

From Help at the top of every page: How does MyFitnessPal calculate my initial goals?

corinasue1143

I don’t use mfp recommendations, but base my goal calories on past experience. It sounds like you could benefit from the same approach.
You know the only people who fail are the ones who quit. As long as you keep trying, you will eventually find a way to succeed. It sounds like you are ready to succeed!
If you already know 1200 is not sustainable for you, why even try it? As long as you eat in a deficit, you will lose. Slowly, but you will lose.
If mfp set you on 1220 a day, mfp thinks your tdee without intentional exercise is 1470. Mfp says eat under 1470 calories a day and you will lose weight. I say try it! What have you got to lose but time and a few pounds anyway?
Everyone keeps repeating you lose weight in the kitchen, you get fit in the gym. But actually, you could just try just eating 1470 everyday, exercising a little most days and not eat back your exercise calories to create a deficit.
Good luck to you! Stick with mfp. Keep tweaking it and I bet you find success!

Cinder333

Thanks everyone! Corinasue1143 - I agree. I figured even if I lose 1 pound a month it will be better than gaining like now. I am also eating food I really like so I am not feeling deprived. I'm just bulking it up with extra veggies.

MelodiousMermaid

@Cinder333

When I restarted this time, I figured I needed to minimize the restrictions, and if it resulted in stalls/slow losses, then so be it. I set my calories to maintenance, and it's made things a lot easier, because then I'm choosing my deficit each day. I pre-log my foods, aiming for meeting a protein goal I've looked into and set for myself, then build around that.

There have been a few days that the plan has gone out the window, but I have yet to have a true binge day in 4 weeks, which is big for me. I've eaten to full maintenance a few times, but am trying to teach myself that it's OK if the trade-off is kicking the binge monster out of the house.

girlwithcurls2

MelodiousMermaid wrote: »

@Cinder333

When I restarted this time, I figured I needed to minimize the restrictions, and if it resulted in stalls/slow losses, then so be it. I set my calories to maintenance, and it's made things a lot easier, because then I'm choosing my deficit each day. I pre-log my foods, aiming for meeting a protein goal I've looked into and set for myself, then build around that.

There have been a few days that the plan has gone out the window, but I have yet to have a true binge day in 4 weeks, which is big for me. I've eaten to full maintenance a few times, but am trying to teach myself that it's OK if the trade-off is kicking the binge monster out of the house.

^This is me.

I am losing ridiculously slowly, but my plan is to lose the last 10-15 pounds, so getting them off for good won't happen quickly anyway. I am struggling because I start doing well, stop logging (??) and then the scale creeps up. Recommitting to logging daily, weighing daily, and hoping that the warm weather clothes I just put away will fit better next spring. The good news is that the binge monster doesn't visit anymore. I just have to realize that there's less wiggle room overall.

Unknown

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deannalfisher

mylastrodeo wrote: »

Any formula that sets your calorie intake is going to be flawed...If I followed MFP's recommendation for losing 2 lb per week, I lose 1.5 lb per DAY! Calculate your TDEE and BMR, and go from there....Keep tweaking whatever amount of calories you go with until you find-out what works for YOU, personally....

which means you likely have a higher than expected activity burn - do you have your profile set to sedentary or active? are you eating back exercise calories? (MFP does NOT include purposeful exercise in their calorie goals)

Danp

mylastrodeo wrote: »

Any formula that sets your calorie intake is going to be flawed...If I followed MFP's recommendation for losing 2 lb per week, I lose 1.5 lb per DAY! Calculate your TDEE and BMR, and go from there....Keep tweaking whatever amount of calories you go with until you find-out what works for YOU, personally....

Really? MFP recommendation put your daily calorie deficit at 5250cal per day? Impressive. So impressive that I'm inclined to say that it's completely untrue. Or dare I say, Impossible.

OP, MFP takes the details you provide and use them to calculate a good starting point for calorie consumption. From there, depending on how you feel and how your'e progressing you can tweak those numbers to find the calorie deficit you need so that you can get sustainable results. Give it a month or so then see if some adjustments can be made.

apullum

mylastrodeo wrote: »

Any formula that sets your calorie intake is going to be flawed...If I followed MFP's recommendation for losing 2 lb per week, I lose 1.5 lb per DAY! Calculate your TDEE and BMR, and go from there....Keep tweaking whatever amount of calories you go with until you find-out what works for YOU, personally....

If you are losing 1.5 pounds per day for more than a very few days of water weight loss, then you need to go to the doctor.

MikePTY

The goal MFP gives us is only as good as the info we give it. A lot of the time we underestimate our activity level. A lot less people are sedentary than they think. If you are walking at least 30 minutes a day, you are lightly active (or need to log the walking as seperate exercise and eat back all of the calories it tells you). You really should be only eating a sedentary calorie goal if you barely move around all day. So my guess is that you have some more calories to play with than you think.

WinoGelato

0.5 lbs/week is what you should be aiming for with so little to lose. Whether MFP’s goal of 1220 NEAT (not including exercise) is right for you or you can go higher and still lose really is difficult to predict just from numbers, but after 4-6 weeks of data (especially if you are logging accurately using a food scale) you should be able to get an idea of your basic numbers.

For what it’s worth I’m 5’2 and lost my weight eating b/w 1600-1900 cals but I also was averaging 15k steps per day so my TDEE was ~2200 at my most active.

Cinder333

Thanks everyone! I think the above posters are correct - I did not account for exercise at all. I will try this for a few weeks, then adjust if needed. I am finding 1450 easier to live with so far.

Mdeva

As long as you don’t take MyFitnessPal too seriously, you’ll be ok. The MFP programmers aren’t mathematicians (not even arithmeticians).

Use MFP as a guide - as a reminder to eat better - but adherence to their “goal calories” (even if all food is correctly logged) is no guarantee of weight loss - simply because the calculation algorithms are severely flawed.

AnnPT77

Mdeva wrote: »

As long as you don’t take MyFitnessPal too seriously, you’ll be ok. The MFP programmers aren’t mathematicians (not even arithmeticians).

Use MFP as a guide - as a reminder to eat better - but adherence to their “goal calories” (even if all food is correctly logged) is no guarantee of weight loss - simply because the calculation algorithms are severely flawed.

(1) This is a thread started in 2019, inactive since October 2019 until today.
(2) MFP uses one of several standard, widely-accepted research-based algorithms to estimate calorie needs.
(3) No statistical estimate (basically a population average number) is precisely accurate for every single individual, pretty much by definition. The one MFP uses is likely to be close for most people, if they use correct profile settings, because most people are close to average.
(4) None of that means that the programmers are/aren't, or do/don't need to be mathematicians/arithmeticians, nor does it mean that the algorithms are flawed, let alone "severely flawed".