Simpler daily macro and total calorie goals

phil_dixon

The app often messes with my goals because I’m forced to select a ‘lose/gain/maintain weight’ goal rather than simply setting my own total caloric and macro targets by grams without reference to my weight. This is problematic for those of us who are relying on visual assessments which don’t always align with weight (many of us just have a physical goal in mind and the weight is just a product of that visual goal).

This means we don’t all have clear measurements we’re targeting for weight loss or weight gain. Some of us just want to either lose, gain or maintain based on how we look. The app currently ties goals to a weight measurement but this is problematic for those of us that don’t have a specific weight measurement in mind, but are instead looking simply to increase or decrease total caloric consumption until we reach a point we’re physically satisfied with.

It would be excellent if the goals could be set simply based on total calorie AND total macro daily targets in grams and nothing more. Most serious programs calculate caloric targets based on each individual’s response to their training and diet and don’t aim for a specific weight (with notable exceptions for weight loss ‘goals’ and athletes targeting weight categories). But in most cases, general loss/increase/maintenance is the goal with total caloric consumption being the target without being mathematically tied to an estimated net impact to current weight. Weight should be allowed to be measured to monitor responses to diet and exercise but shouldn’t have an automatic impact to caloric values based on goals (because that’s best assessed by a human and not an algorithm).

AnnPT77

You can set your own calorie goal and macro goals. You don't need to go through guided setup. You may need to set a loss/gain goal, but that will have no impact if you set your own calorie goal, except in some encouragement or warning messages you can simply ignore. The "in 5 weeks" thing when you close your diary will be wrong, but it's pretty much always wrong IME anyway.

If you use free MFP, you can only set macro goals in percents, in 5% increments. If you want to set macro goals in grams, premium MFP will let you do that.

The goal weight you put in your MFP profile has zero impact on the calorie goal it will give you. The exercise frequency/time you put in your profile has zero impact on your calorie goal. (That, too, is just for some tracking and encouragement messages you can ignore.)

Maybe I'm reading you wrong, but it seems like one of your chief concerns is having to put in a goal weight at the start. Don't worry, the number you put in that weight doesn't affect anything much at all, and certainly doesn't affect how your calorie goal is calculated if you do go through guided setup.