5 week prediction - is it accurate?

JK1542020

So you know when you complete your diary it gives you a prediction of what youd weigh in 5 weeks if you eat that amount of calories each day? Is there any chance you can do better? I assume its suppise to be motivational but i find it very depressing and the opposite of motivational. I think "is that all?!" And it makes me want to eat less wich isnt necessarily a good thing.

Is it accurate? Can i acheive better or is that it?

amusedmonkey

If you're looking at the number and thinking "is that all", you probably have unrealistic expectations. The 5-week predictions are not always accurate, and for many people, they tend to be wrong in the other direction (you lose less) for various reasons including water weight fluctuations and not eating exactly the same every day for 5 weeks.

Adjust your expectations. It's better to understand what a realistic weight loss rate looks like than to get frustrated with yourself and give up because of not achieving those unrealistic numbers you're hoping for.

PAV8888

How much do you have available to lose and how much are you trying to lose every week?

The predictions are usually wrong in ALL directions because people neither eat nor move the same for 5 days in a row and even when they do weight still changes unpredictably.

However I concur with @amusedmonkey that the most common reason people give up is unrealistic expectations, hence my first question.

random_fractal

I take it with a pinch of salt, no one eats exactly the same stuff and does exactly the same exercise every day

amusedmonkey

PAV8888 wrote: »

How much do you have available to lose and how much are you trying to lose every week?

The predictions are usually wrong in ALL directions because people neither eat nor move the same for 5 days in a row and even when they do weight still changes unpredictably.

However I concur with @amusedmonkey that the most common reason people give up is unrealistic expectations, hence my first question.

Yes, you are right, it could be wrong in any direction. My thoughts were influenced by the barrage of why am I not losing weight threads and those who lose more just don't post as often.

AnnPT77

freelymama wrote: »

So you know when you complete your diary it gives you a prediction of what youd weigh in 5 weeks if you eat that amount of calories each day? Is there any chance you can do better? I assume its suppise to be motivational but i find it very depressing and the opposite of motivational. I think "is that all?!" And it makes me want to eat less wich isnt necessarily a good thing.

Is it accurate? Can i acheive better or is that it?

You won't see it if you don't click on "Complete this Entry"/"Complete Diary".

I believe the only other effect of not clicking that is that MFP won't put the end of day message into your timeline, telling your MFP friends you completed the day and did/didn't come in under calorie goal. If you want to tell your MFP friends how your day went, you can type a message on your timeline instead (and that actually probably would get you more social interaction, if you're more descriptive than the default message).

So, it's pretty optional to see that. If you don't want to, don't click "Complete".

I agree with others that it would be more productive to focus on making your weight loss process more sustainable, not faster. (You're getting advice above from people who've actually been successful at loss and maintenance, in case that isn't clear.)

Most of us will be best served by figuring out how to stay at a healthy weight permanently, after we get to goal. Not only does keeping the loss process more sustainable make it likelier we'll actually reach goal, it also makes it likelier we'll be healthy/strong/vibrant when we do, and it gives us a chance to experiment with finding an exercise and eating routine that will keep us at a healthy weight long term.

Losing fast? Gets us to goal quicker, unless the unsustainability torpedos the overall effort, and may not do any of that other good stuff.

Best wishes!

patrickaa5

I think it's motivational when I overeat and see that if I keep that up for 5 weeks I'll gain 15lbs.

lgfrie

I stopped clicking on Complete this Entry months and months ago LOL haven't seen the 5 month prediction since.

To answer the question: If you eat exactly the same amount of calories and do exactly the same amount of exercise every day for five weeks, then the predictor gimmick will likely turn out to be fairly accurate. All it's doing is extrapolating out from Today, across the next 35 days.

What I used to sometimes find fun was completing my diary on a binge day after attempting to log everything. That was back when I was around 280 lbs and still completing diary days. I'd have a mega-binge and it'd tell me if every day looked like today, in five weeks I'd weigh 335 pounds or something like that. I found that motivational to get back on plan

MostlyWater

Not in my experience.

xmissxamyx

patrickaa5 wrote: »

I think it's motivational when I overeat and see that if I keep that up for 5 weeks I'll gain 15lbs.

That's really the only time i ever click 'complete diary' if I've eaten way more than i should've. Seeing the negative impact laid out in front of me really motivates me to do better.

brendog79

I'm 340 lbs. Mfp is estimating a 17 or 18 lb loss in 5 weeks but I've lost 11 lbs in 10 days now for an avg of a lb a day.

Jacq_qui

Nope, not accurate, not useful, but I like to see that one day I might weigh that!

hipari

The 5-week prediction is now within 10lbs of my first major milestone goal. Seeing the prediction go up, down and near that goal is motivating me because it makes two things more concrete: 1) I am losing weight and getting closer to that goal, and I can reach it in a reasonable amount of time 2) If I eat over my calorie goal, it will have concrete effects on whether the scale moves towards my goal or not.

I don't trust the prediction to be accurate, though.

sassysmom35

Every day for the past 3 months it says in 5 weeks I'll weigh somewhere in the 150s.
Every. Day.
Currently 167.4
And I weigh EVERYTHING and don't eat my exercise calories back.
So yeah not accurate at all over here lol
I wouldn't put any stock in it

sijomial

I deliberately had an uneven daily eating pattern so the daily prediction was wildly inaccurate despite losing weight steadily week on week. My actual rate of weight loss only needed one small adjustment to my calorie goal after a few weeks to compensate for fairly relaxed but consistent logging to proceed at my predicted rate.

Not sure what you mean by "doing better"?
To be hitting my weight loss goal on target was the best I could do and either slower or faster weight loss was worse not better because I picked a sensible and sustainable rate of loss.
Losing quicker wasn't my aim and I suspect you may be regarding "faster" as "better" when those words have different meanings.

Kabbij

I don't know how accurate it is, but I use it as a vague indication that I'm on the right track as long as mine says 2.5kg less (a pound a week), I'm happy! If I overeat and it says less, I know I need to do better.