My daily calories is that a minimum
swervin89
Posts: 3 Member
My daily calories is set at 2900 do I eat the 2900 even if I don't burn 2900 calories some days
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Replies
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Your calorie goal is a maximum. You should try to to exceed it.0
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It's intended to be a maximum. Try to get close to it, but not to go over.
I think rosebarnalice typo'd and wrote "not" as an extra "to".2 -
No, your calorie goal is a limit. If you're using MFP as intended, in order for your weight to change in the direction you want it to, at the rate you want it to (that you indicated when you went through the guided setup), you should eat approximately that many calories each day.1
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goal06082021 wrote: »No, your calorie goal is a limit. If you're using MFP as intended, in order for your weight to change in the direction you want it to, at the rate you want it to (that you indicated when you went through the guided setup), you should eat approximately that many calories each day.
I may be misunderstanding you here I almost always blow by my calories by burning a lot more then I eat at the 2900 but for instance today at 9.:21 tonight I'm only at 2500 calories burned do I eat 400 more or not I'm not really looking to lose more weight as I'm down like 275 lbsif anything I would like to gain a few lbs0 -
Forgive; but it is NOT a "limit".
It is a TARGET in order for you to TARGET the loss rate you selected.
TARGET means that if it was correctly picked, if you log correctly, and if your body reacts according to the population averages then you will probably come close to what you were aiming for.
Trying to "never go over" could lead to you overdoing your deficits. This often has undesirable side effects.
Trying to "never go under" could also backfire. Just be close most of the time and within a few weeks you should be able to adjust your goals based on your own results and logging.5 -
Was yesterday a “weird” day? Were you unusually inactive?
If yes, ignore, keep doing your thing and try to get as close to your goal as possible.
To maintain your current weight you need to keep calories in as close as possible to Calories out. To gain (which you said you wouldn’t mind) , CI needs to be bigger than CO
Also, don’t forget that if you’re using a tracker, you only get the day’s ACTUAL Co on your device at 23:59 - you still have 1/8th of the day left at 21:00…. MFP will show you their calculation for the end of day situation from the get-go - the two numbers will only really “agree” at midnight.
That’s probably as clear as mud. It’s early morning here and I’m not fully caffeinated yet. Shout if I’ve confused you!0 -
Ok, this thread is very, very confusing. @svervin98 I think we need some more information from you.
What is this 2900 calories?
* Do you get them every day?
* Do you have a fitness tracker linked to your account that gives you additional calories?
* Or do you log exercises, and if so what kind of exercise, what duration did you log and how many extra calories did you get?
* also, it would be good to know a bit more about you. How heavy are you, size, age and gender? What rate of loss did you set?
Once we know all those things we'll be able to give better answers.3 -
Now I am confused because there exists posts I didn't see before when I was writing my response.
Have you been tracking on MFP for a long time? If you have, then you should use your own data to estimate how many calories you need to eat to maintain. If you're consistently above that you will gain weight. If you're consistently below you will lose some.
If you are just starting to track food on MFP and you want to maintain then set the guided setup to maintenance and try to eat relatively close to that amount most of the time. Then accumulate data and adjust your goals based on the results you obtain over a time period of 4 to 6 weeks.0 -
It's neither a maximum or a minimum limit on any one particular day.
It's a goal (2,900 + exercise calories) to try to get reasonably close to, on average, to achieve whatever you are trying to do with your weight trend.
If you are using some linked device or other site to set your calorie goal you need to tell people otherwise assumptions about what you are asking and what you are actually doing may not match.1 -
My daily calories is set at 2900 do I eat the 2900 even if I don't burn 2900 calories some days
Your set calories are your target. I'm not sure what you mean by not burning that some days...do you have a linked device? What activity level did you set with MFP? Does it accurately reflect what most days look like?
Or are you using the TDEE method for determining calories? With the TDEE method you have the same calorie target daily, and the numbers average out over the course of a week...so some days you can be in a bigger deficit, smaller deficit, no deficit, or surplus...but at the end of the week it should average out to whatever you have selected as your rate of loss...ie 3500 calories deficit for the week to lose 1 Lb per week.
I personally use the TDEE method rather than the MFP (NEAT) method because my activity and exercise is pretty regular and consistent and I don't really have big swings either way in what I'm doing and what my average TDEE is. Here and there I might have a day that's a big outlier in terms of energy expenditure...like a big all day hike on the weekend or something...or a day that I am unusually very in-active...but these aren't really the norm and immaterial to the big picture.
The NEAT method that MFP uses is beneficial for people who aren't necessarily regular in their exercise and/or they have a more erratic exercise regimen because you can account for each days exercise separate from other daily activity. An example of a more erratic exercise regimen might be an endurance athlete who may have days with long work that burns a ton of calories and days with less work that burns relatively few calories, and days that are complete rest and recovery that burn even fewer calories.1 -
This wins tge prize for the most confusing thread ever 🤣4
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Lets hope TO comes back and answers a few questions asked here. Then we can really help.0
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Ok, this thread is very, very confusing. @svervin98 I think we need some more information from you.
What is this 2900 calories?
* Do you get them every day?
* Do you have a fitness tracker linked to your account that gives you additional calories?
* Or do you log exercises, and if so what kind of exercise, what duration did you log and how many extra calories did you get?
* also, it would be good to know a bit more about you. How heavy are you, size, age and gender? What rate of loss did you set?
Once we know all those things we'll be able to give better answers.
The 2900 calories are the calories MFP set for me to eat
Yes it's everyday I usually burn way more
My Samsung health is linked I don't know if it's adding calories or is MFP is adding the calories
I don't usually add exercise my steps and cardio exercises link themselves
I am male 44 6 foot 4 inches tall and I started my weight tracking at 460lbs and am now down to 184 my problem is now trying to maintain at least and I would like to gain a few pounds but I don't want to stop my routine
I just wanted to know if I should eat the 2900 calories on the rare day I don't burn the 2900 calories
Fort example today I will blow by my calories I'm already over 30,000 steps and 2700 calories burned as of 4pm0 -
To your main question: I would eat the 2900 Calories if I was hungry and if on the context of several days around the particular day I was more or less balanced. Otherwise I wouldn't. It is unlikely that you need to "force" yourself to eat. In early maintenance the danger is usually the opposite.
Your BMI says you're at a good spot. https://www.smartbmicalculator.com/result.html?unit=1&hf=6&hi=4&wl=187&us=0&ua=44&ue=0&gl=
What does your waist to height ratio say?
Now on to the more important stuff... the "how to fish" section
I would suggest that after such a substantial weight loss you try to concentrate on stabilizing your weight, neither gaining nor losing for a bit. You're right that you're able to drift a little bit. But I would be cautious in my drifting especially in the beginning.
30,000 steps is substantially more than MFP's very active setting. If the 2900 is coming from MFP... you've blown right by it--ON PAPER.
MFP's very active setting (an activity factor of 1.8) probably tops out at about 16000 steps for most people. At 30K steps, you are probably running an activity factor close to or above 2.
But again, that's ON PAPER.
Look. You are an individual. Given your individuality which is complicated by your substantial weight loss which potentially introduces its own set of changes all these figures are pretty much guidelines, not authoritative answers.
And you need to concentrate on only changing a few things at a time till you can stabilise your weight trajectory.
Do you use some sort of averaging to look at your weight change over time as opposed to only looking at scale weight?
Libra for android may be the easiest for you. I personally use trendweight.com linked to fitbit (free account without device).
As a male you may want to:
--start a spreadsheet, google sheets should be available to you if nothing else
--grab 2-3-4 weeks of TOTAL DAILY BURNS from your Samsung and enter them there
--grab 2-3-4 weeks of TOTAL CALORIES EATEN from whichever logging app you use to log your intake (presumably MFP) and enter them
--put in the corresponding values from Libra for android for each of those days and calculate the weight difference over the time periods
--assume that each 1lb of weight change is 3500 Calories
Come up with *A* value for your "error"/"non-existent burn"/whatever you want to call it.
This value not only MAY but WILL probably change over time. But it is a much more personalized and accurate value for you today as compared to the multiple other assumptions being made by the various apps and trackers.
Once you know the value then you can see how much you've burned for the day (adjust based on your error) and how much you've eaten and judge where the balancing point is.
Do you HAVE to balance every day? NO. But you do have to more or less balance over time in order to maintain. Or lean in one direction or the other in order for your weight to change.
If you're just starting maintenance be aware of the following:
--the values may change over time.
--you may experience "irrational" changes in hunger even though you're eating more than you were eating before when you were losing. If you keep things under control long enough this shall pass.
--It may take a while for things to settle. Don't count on stopping weight management in any less time than it took you to lose the weight in the first place...
--make the minimal changes that you can commensurate to meeting your goals. If you reduce your walking don't increase food too much at the same time. If you increase food, don't reduce your walking at the same time... try to feather things through for a few months at the very least.
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Super good advice. I only take offense at this:
As a male you may want to:
--start a spreadsheet, google sheets should be available to you if nothing else
--grab 2-3-4 weeks of TOTAL DAILY BURNS from your Samsung and enter them there
--grab 2-3-4 weeks of TOTAL CALORIES EATEN from whichever logging app you use to log your intake (presumably MFP) and enter them
--put in the corresponding values from Libra for android for each of those days and calculate the weight difference over the time periods
--assume that each 1lb of weight change is 3500 Calories
Women like spreadsheets too! Spreadsheets are cool. Though true, as a woman the data should be collected for a longer time to account for at least a whole cycle.5 -
Super good advice. I only take offense at this:
As a male you may want to:
--start a spreadsheet, google sheets should be available to you if nothing else
--grab 2-3-4 weeks of TOTAL DAILY BURNS from your Samsung and enter them there
--grab 2-3-4 weeks of TOTAL CALORIES EATEN from whichever logging app you use to log your intake (presumably MFP) and enter them
--put in the corresponding values from Libra for android for each of those days and calculate the weight difference over the time periods
--assume that each 1lb of weight change is 3500 Calories
Women like spreadsheets too! Spreadsheets are cool. Though true, as a woman the data should be collected for a longer time to account for at least a whole cycle.
I totally took it to mean ‘as a male 2-3-4 weeks’ was sufficient data to see a trend. Not that it was suggesting our tiny lady brains couldn’t handle spreadsheets! 😂4 -
BarbaraHelen2013 wrote: »Super good advice. I only take offense at this:
As a male you may want to:
--start a spreadsheet, google sheets should be available to you if nothing else
--grab 2-3-4 weeks of TOTAL DAILY BURNS from your Samsung and enter them there
--grab 2-3-4 weeks of TOTAL CALORIES EATEN from whichever logging app you use to log your intake (presumably MFP) and enter them
--put in the corresponding values from Libra for android for each of those days and calculate the weight difference over the time periods
--assume that each 1lb of weight change is 3500 Calories
Women like spreadsheets too! Spreadsheets are cool. Though true, as a woman the data should be collected for a longer time to account for at least a whole cycle.
I totally took it to mean ‘as a male 2-3-4 weeks’ was sufficient data to see a trend. Not that it was suggesting our tiny lady brains couldn’t handle spreadsheets! 😂
Yes, I think so as well to be honest. It is very possible though that my brain indeed can't handle spreadsheets, because I keep on making new ones. Need Moar Spreadsheets!2 -
@yirara I tend to ask ladies for spreadsheet help! As correctly mentioned by @BarbaraHelen2013 the male bits have to do with the suggested time scales which are shortened from the 4-6-8 weeks I might have suggested otherwise
If you want an unnecessarily complicated spreadsheet... here's one for you!
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VDmqNpLPu7sbQSochUJNXdp2F7AN15AGgkvS3zLw1GU/edit?usp=sharing
In reality, all you really need is the caloric difference from day 1 to 28 and the trending weight difference and you would derive meaningful results... but hey, the more complicated the more fun spreadsheets can be, right?!?!?! 1 -
In reality, all you really need is the caloric difference from day 1 to 28 and the trending weight difference and you would derive meaningful results... but hey, the more complicated the more fun spreadsheets can be, right?!?!?!
Total spreadsheed love! No worries ducky, I know you well enough. Just thought I mention it on case someone else gets triggered. And to tease you 2
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