Why does it say I’d gain weight…

dunnonutin0

Why does it say I’d gain .2 lbs if I continued like today? I walked and was 163 calories under. Would have been about even not including walking. Was it because it was carb heavy? I thought weight gain was due more to calories than the makeup of those calories 🤔

springlering62

can you post a screen shot of yesterdays diary?

MFP is calorie based. You could eat 100% carbs and as long as your net calories were under, it wouldn’t show that.

AnnPT77

I'll bet you're talking about the "in 5 weeks" prediction thing. Advice: Ignore it.

More aimed at @springlering62 or other long-timers here: I wonder if the "in 5 weeks" projection algorithm got updated when the activity factors changed recently?

OP, that above comment may not mean much to you.

This comment may: Many of us who've been using MFP for a long time, even succeeding at weight loss and maintenance, think the "in 5 weeks" thing is silly and misleading. At best, it's a rough estimate.

Notice that there's wording like "if every day were like today". There's no way in the world that every day will be like today, however perfectly we log. We move more in daily life, or less. One apple is sweeter than the next. Today, even though I try to be exact, I forget to log a banana or a couple of crackers I grabbed when things got busy. The MFP calorie goal is basically an "average person" number, and none of us are exactly average, though most people are close.

None of that really matters. If we stick with a good consistent-on-average calorie routine, maybe adjusting our calorie goal once we have 4-6 weeks of personal results to get reasonable averages, we'll lose weight. The "in 5 weeks" thing is just an unrealistic attempt at an "attaboy/attagirl" when we're lower in calories, or a warning if higher in calories. Just ignore it.

You don't even have to close your diary and see it: Everything will still work fine. I haven't closed my diary in at least months, probably years by now. I'm in year 9 of maintaining a healthy weight anyway. The other app features work the same, whether I close my diary or not.

Don't worry about it.

springlering62

@AnnPT77 🤷🏻‍♀️I dunno? I haven’t closed my diary in years.

It drove me mad. As numbers driven as I am, it was just another level of perfection I’d never achieve, so I stopped closing so I’d stop getting the utterly pointless message.

Haven’t noticed any change in the activity factors myself, although, to be fair, the activity level I tried so hard to cut back on has been creeping back up again. It’s not worth the subsequent stiffness and pain to sit too long. It’s like that supremely annoying medication ad a while back “a body in motion stays in motion”.

OP, (your screen name is awesome BTW) I just want to put a plug in for how much extra energy weight loss will bring to the table. Ignore the dodgy messages and you do you .

but still, you shouldn’t be getting that type of message if you are staying below your net calorie goal. Unless by some wierd fluke you set your “goal” to gain by accident? You might review your goals

AnnPT77

@springlering62 "still, you shouldn’t be getting that type of message if you are staying below your net calorie goal."

True, but that's why I speculated that the "in 5 weeks" projection might possibly not have been adjusted for the new activity factors. The new activity multipliers give most people a slightly higher starting calorie goal. If the "in 5 weeks" still uses the old activity multipliers, people eating at the new-activity-factor calorie goal would likely get "in 5 weeks you will gain this tiny amount of weight" when the person is actually expecting to lose at a moderate rate. Details matter, but it's one possibility.

springlering62

let me rephrase. In a perfect MFP world, where one would assume that MFP would keep the projection in sync with any recently revised calorie goals, one would assume that one would not get that message.

however, assumptions that a perfect MFP operates perfectly in a perfect world, are…..perfectly imperfect?

😬

AnnPT77

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/48655136#Comment_48655136

I think I just spent too many decades writing, testing, debugging software, TBH.

You are right. That's how it should work.

Even if it does, the "in five weeks" thingie causes more trouble than it's worth, IMO. At the right calorie level, in real life, in five weeks something good happens. Predictively quantifying the "something good" is more problematic.