Weekly report help

louisechloe90

Hi I am new to my fitness pal, one week in. I've exercised or walked everyday. I'm confused by my weekly report, does this mean that I am 3 calories over how much I have burnt?

Thank you for any help 😄

AnnPT77

No, it doesn't mean you ate more calories than you burned in total.

It means that if you logged every day, you ate dramatically under your calorie goal: 9,479 calories logged, out of 19,976 calories MFP said you could eat and lose weight, assuming that you put a weight loss rate (X pounds or kilos per week) in your MFP profile.

As I understand this report:
19,976 is your daily base calorie goal, plus your exercise calories or fitness tracker adjustment.
9,479 is the number of calories of food you logged during the week.
9,476 is the number of exercise calories you logged or the total fitness tracker adjustment.

I'd infer that your base daily calorie goal is 1500? (19,976 total goal minus 9,476 exercise, result divided by 7). MFP intends that you eat that goal, plus a reasonable estimate of exercise calories, which can be manually logged in MFP, or from a fitness tracker adjustment.

What exercise did you do that got you 9,476 exercise or tracker adjustment calories? That's a big number, more than most people would experience - over 1300 calories per day on average.

If these number are accurate, I think you're under-eating quite dramatically, which usually doesn't work out well. I wonder about the exercise adjustment, though.

Please don't under-eat, if that's happening. It increases health risks, makes it tough to stick with calorie goal long enough to lose a meaningful total amount of weight.

yirara

What Annp said. I also have the same question: more than 900 calories burnt exercising, thus 1300 calories per day seems grossly exaggerated. Did you connect a fitness tracker to MFP? What kind of tracker do you use and what kind of exercise do you do?

louisechloe90

I have a fitbit connected. My job is quite physical, I do around 15,000 steps a day and I go to the gym 3 times a week. Thank you for the replies 😄

yirara

Ah ok! Did you set your activity level to very active? With 15000 steps per day you're certainly in the highest activity level, and this will give you probably quite a few more calories to eat to prevent undereating, getting sick and giving up.

I... don't know whether you should activate negative calorie adjustment or not. I don't have a linked tracker but I think this is the way. Maybe someone can chime in?

AnnPT77

louisechloe90 wrote: »

I have a fitbit connected. My job is quite physical, I do around 15,000 steps a day and I go to the gym 3 times a week. Thank you for the replies 😄

It could be right, then. You could double check to see if a TDEE calculator (averaging in your very active job and exercise) gives you a similar estimate to your MFP total goal post-exercise, with the difference of the deficit for weight loss figured in, of course. I like this one:

https://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/

The estimates won't exactly match because MFP and a TDEE calculator make different assumptions, but it would be reassuring if they were broadly in the same general neighborhood.

If the numbers in your report are accurate for you - which you'll have a good handle on once you have 4-6 weeks of data to average out - eating only 1354 calories daily on average (9,479 divided by 7) rather than your 1500 calorie base allowance plus exercise (2,854 calories to eat daily) is increasing your weight loss rate by up to three pounds per week in addition to whatever loss rate you asked MFP to give you.

Three pounds a week (let alone 3 plus your intended weight loss rate) is really only sensible if a person weighs well over 300 pounds at least, probably more. Many of us here (me included) think it's sensible to stick with a loss rate in the range of 0.5-1% of current weight per week, with a bias toward the lower end of that unless severely obese and under close medical supervision for deficiencies or complications.

I accidentally lost weight too fast at first - though nothing close to 3 pounds a week. There was a honeymoon period where I felt good - energetic, not hungry - then I hit a wall. I was suddenly weak and fatigued, and even though I started eating more immediately, it took multiple weeks to recover back to my normal self. No one with a busy life needs that!

Best wishes!

AnnPT77

yirara wrote: »

Ah ok! Did you set your activity level to very active? With 15000 steps per day you're certainly in the highest activity level, and this will give you probably quite a few more calories to eat to prevent undereating, getting sick and giving up.

I... don't know whether you should activate negative calorie adjustment or not. I don't have a linked tracker but I think this is the way. Maybe someone can chime in?

If I were linking a tracker, I would 100% enable negative adjustments, FWIW. I think if a person trusts their tracker, they would believe it when they are less active than usual, not just when more active.

louisechloe90

Thank you both for your advice. I'm very new to this. I'm 12st 7lb, so not wanting to lose a lot just so I am happy with my body. I'll have a look at the weight loss rate and add more calories to balance it out 😄