daily calories

jayenguk

So I don't eat all my daily calories, first of all should I? (I tend to leave between 100 to 200 ) and also does MFP adjust the calories as you drop in weight or do I need to adjust manually?

Lietchi

Ideally, you would eat all of your daily calories. However:
- it depends on your chosen rate of weight loss and how much weight you have to lose. If you've chosen an agressive weight loss rate for the weight you have to lose and/or have a very low calorie goal (for example 1200 calories for women), then undereating is not a good idea. But if, on the other hand, you've chosen a slow rate of loss, your calorie goal isn't very low and you still have quite a bit of weight left to lose, it's not necessarily a bad idea to eat 100-200 calories less since you have enough margin to support losing weight a bit quicker.
- if part of your calories come from logging exercise, you might want to check how realistic the calorie burns are. In some cases, eating back only part of your exercise calories can be prudent, or at least until you have some real world data (actual weight loss rate) to compare with how much you should have lost theoretically.
- generally speaking, your calorie goal is based on statistical averages, but in reality you may or may not be average. It's a good idea to monitor your actual weight loss trend and, if needed, adjust your calorie intake (eat more if losing too quickly, eat less if losing more slowly than intended)
- it also depends on your logging accuracy. If you're not logging accurately and underestimating your intake, a margin of error can be fine.

For your second question: for me, it never adjusts automatically to my lower weight. I need to go through my goal set-up, change a few options (activity level, weight loss rate) and then change them back, and then I'll have an updated calorie goal. Every 5 or 10lbs lost or so, no need to update it more often since the change is small.

callsitlikeiseeit

you should be eating the calories MFP tells you to, yes. That number was developed based on your goals, current weight, and activity level that you entered when you set up the account. The deficit is built in to that number.

For that reason, you should also eat back the exercise calories that MFP adds back IN to that number. This is where it can get tricky though. Exercise numbers tend to be inflated. Especially if you use the ones that MFP gives. For that reason, many people eat back about HALF of that number, and see what their weight does, to get an idea of how accurate it is, and then adjust accordingly (if they are losing faster than anticipated, they eat a bit more, if they are losing slower than anticipated, they eat a bit less). MFP will tell me I burn 600 calories or so for an hour on the elliptical. The reality is about half that, give or take. Activity trackers like Apple watches, fitbits, garmins, etc, tend to be slightly more accurate (based on the person. my fitbit is pretty accurate for ME. others have different results)

In an ideal MFP world, you would get a pop up notification every 10 pounds or so to recalculate your goals which would give you a new calorie goal. Sometimes I get it, sometimes I do not.