Calorie Intake for Weight Loss

TexasTallchick

Hi all! Do you find that what MFP gives us as a calorie goal to lose weight relatively accurate? I am a very tall (6'3), 50yo female. I've lost about 34lbs since March, but I'm still confused about how many calories to eat. My doctor says 1700, MFP tells me 2050, but it seems that if I eat anything above 1000, I don't lose. I plateaued for a whole MONTH until I lowered my intake again to around 800, which I know is entirely too low.

I'm accurately weighing/measuring my food and logging everything. 2050 calories to lose 1lb a week that MFP gave seems insanely high to me.

Are you using the MFP-given calories to lose and are they accurate? If not, did you experiment until you found what works?

Thank you!

Lietchi

I actually lost faster than the weight loss rate I selected.

There are many variables that will determine if the calorie goal works or not:

• accurate food logging (it's easy to make mistakes)
• accurate exercise calories, if calorie adjustments for exercise are active and/or accurate activiy level setting
• your personal metabolism: MFP uses statistical averages based on sex, age, height, weight, but individuals may r may not be average. Most will be quite close to average, but there can be outliers - in both directions, requiring significantly less calories than average or requiring significantly more calories.

I have a feeling you don't have enough patience when you say you don't lose eating above 1000kcal. I don't know when you started in March, but I calculated this based on mid-March (90 days of weightloss):

• 34 lbs lost → with a rule of thumb of 3500kcal per lb of bodyfat, you had a total deficit of 119000 calories, which is a daily calorie deficit of 1322 (119000 diveded by 90).
• I don't know what your actual calorie intake was, averaged over those three months, but presuming it was 800 calories, that would make your TDEE 2122
• And you didn't eat 800 calories on average per day over the whole periode I'm guessing, probably higher, so your actual TDEE would be higher than the number I calculated above.

With the precise dates and calorie intake you can do the math yourself. It indicates that you don't need to starve yourself. You don't mention what your current/starting weight is, but you've been losing very quickly - I really doubt that you can't lose weight eating more than 1000 calories considering your calculated TDEE is higher than 2000kcal.

I would recommend sticking to a plan (calories, and exercise if applicable) for at least one month/menstrual cycle before determining if it's working or not. Plateaus/stalls can be caused by hormone cycles, increases/changes in exercise and other factors, which can mask fat loss on the scale.

Lietchi

I'm going to focus on this part here, since there are several periods in your explanation and this one is the clearest one:

"I didn't understand why my progress had stalled so much, and was incredibly frustrated, so I dropped my calories down to 800-1200. From 3/7 to 5/4, I went from 345.6 to 318.6.

However, between 5/5 to 5/27, I stayed exactly the same. Not one budge in almost an entire month of sticking to my program."

So you lost 27lbs in 58 days (just over 8 weeks), 3.25 lbs per week which is very fast. (Generally speaking I would say too fast, although it's within the guideline of max. 1% of weight loss per week). Losing that fast is stressful for the body. And stress often equals water retention. Which would seem to be the case since you had a stall of 22 days. (22 days is not a month 😉).

Doing the math again and presuming that 800-1200 calories means 1000 on average:

• in 58 days, a daily deficit of just over 1600 calories → a TDEE of 2600
• if I include the stall (80 days total), the daily deficit would be just under 1200 calories → a TDEE of nearly 2200
• with a TDEE somewhere between 2200 and 2600 calories, you can eat above 800-1200 calories and still lose weight. Perhaps even at 2050 calories, although probably slower than you would like. But it does require patience and sticking with it.

You know, it's quite common to see people eating very little, then get a stall on the scale (because of stress-related water retention), conclude that they should eat even less… and end up in a cycle of deprivation. When actually patience is the solution and perhaps even eating a bit more to stress the body out less 🙂 I'm naturally a more patient person (heck, I intentionally chose a slower rate of loss, which is even more of a mind game with weight fluctuations masking fat loss). I lost weight eating 1700 calories (+exercise calories) and I'm only 5ft5! But we're all different of course.

So my advice would be to choose a reasonable goal (your doctor's suggestion of 1700 sounds reasonable for example) and then give it at least 4 weeks to see what happens. Perhaps a bit longer, considering you've been eating less, so you might get a bit extra water weight when you increase your intake.

And using a weight trend app might be beneficial too (Libra for Android or Happyscale for iOS), sometimes we think we aren't losing weight when we look at individual weigh-ins, but when we look at the graph over time the trend becomes clearer.

BethanyMcDonald5828

I think it's too high. It's telling me to eat 2200 calories a day to lose 2 lbs a week. I logged that for ten days and gained half a pound.

The calorie calculator on calculator.net is telling me to eat 1700 to lose 1 lb a week so I will try that this next week.

TexasTallchick

Well, you're 100% accurate when you say I'm not patient. Math is not my strong suit, but I'm going to attempt to follow your instructions. I'm going to just share this, even though it's embarrassing. I was 376 on 8/7/24. Mortifying. I'm 6'3, 50yo widowed woman in menopause. I appreciate you bringing that part up because it never occurred to me to take that fact into consideration. Per my doctor's recommendation, I ate 1600-1800 calories, weighed/measured/logged everything that went into my mouth, and did 30 mins of cardio 3-5 times per week starting on 8/7/24 at 375.8. I did get down to 349 by 11/7/24.

Then, I injured myself and had to stay off my feet for an entire month. I stayed with my sister and ate whatever she gave me. I didn't count calories for that reason. I subsequently didn't stray much during the holidays because there were no parties or big dinners at all after losing my husband. Between 11/8/24 and 3/6/25, I lost only 3.4lbs. That's it!! I didn't understand why my progress had stalled so much, and was incredibly frustrated, so I dropped my calories down to 800-1200. From 3/7 to 5/4, I went from 345.6 to 318.6.

However, between 5/5 to 5/27, I stayed exactly the same. Not one budge in almost an entire month of sticking to my program. I knew I had to shake things up to get the scale moving because I still have so much to lose. This is why I dropped even lower.

I just kept doing the right things and from 5/28 to today, I've gone from 345.6 to 311. This is clearly where I've seen the biggest drop and is why I can't make sense of eating more than I am. I also do exercise….generally walking, swimming and rowing. I don't eat any calories back.

And, that's my life story. I know this is a lot of info and I hope I entered it all correctly. Again, I truly appreciate you taking your valuable time to respond. Your advice is greatly appreciated!

I

rms62003

Personally - I find the MFP goal too high and I make my own goal. But, I would caution you on going too low on your calories - less than 1200 daily risks nutritional loss.

34lbs in 3 months is A LOT of weight loss, and your body will not like you too much. Your metabolism will likely slow, and being over 50, you don't have much slower to go :) I'd recommend you shoot more for 5-7 lbs a month weight loss. Also, it is natural to plateau once in a while. The body fights weight loss. I plateaued for a whole 3 weeks, but got back on track.

Are you also adding exercise? Especially with that rapid weight loss, I'd be concerned aobut muscle loss. This will not only cause your metabolism to slow more, but hurts your health. Lower muscle mass increases risk of falls, physical ability, etc. Consider some cardio (good to do about 150 minutes a week) as well as resistance training.

AnnPT77

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/48656228#Comment_48656228

Lietchi got it right: You're looking at too-small time chunks. IMO, because you have a lot to lose, you're thinking "faster is better". No. "Fast enough but not too fast" is best.

Look at your whole time between 3/7 and today. In that time, you had one roughly 3-week period in May when you lost nothing in scale weight. Water retention weirdness can do that.

Before that, 3/7-5/4, you lost 27 pounds in roughly 8 weeks, i.e., about 3.4 pounds per week, which is quite fast, even at your weight. You were eating such low calories that we'd expect some adaptive thermogenesis, which is our body slowing down what it can to avoid dying in what it can't tell from a famine. That's not an optimally healthy, thriving state. PP is right, there could be muscle loss, among other down-sides.

Since the short stall in May, you've lost 34.6 pounds from 5/28 to 6/19, roughly 3 weeks, so around 11.5 pounds per week. For sure, some of that was the drop of water retention that caused the scale stall.

But you say of those 3 weeks "This is clearly where I've seen the biggest drop and is why I can't make sense of eating more than I am."

There is a middle ground. Find that middle ground. Please. For the sake of your health.

Over the whole time period, 3/7 to 6/19, you've lost 61.6 pounds. That's roughly 14 weeks, more or less, if I do my arithmetic right. You've averaged 4.4 pounds a week. A bog chunk of that time you're eating calories so low that you can't possibly be getting adequate nutrition. In the recent weeks, you've lost health-threateningly fast, IMO.

A common rule of thumb around here is to lose no more than 0.5-1% of current body weight per week, with a bias toward the lower end of that range unless severely obese and under pretty close medical supervision for nutritional deficiencies or health complications. For you, that range would be about 1.5-3.1 pounds per week. BMI isn't perfect at an individual level, but is a good rough guide. At 311 and 6'3", you're at BMI 38.9, which is still obese but not technically extremely obese any more. Maybe you could be losing 3 pounds a week for a while yet, though I'd encourage slower as more health-promoting and sustainable.

As a woman, and as a woman of 50 particularly, muscle loss would be a really bad plan for long term thriving. (It's great that you exercise. Rowing and maybe swimming may be strength challenging to some extent, but I'd encourage you to add more strength training into the mix if you want to continue at the faster end of a maybe-sensible loss rate.) As older women (I'm 69), muscle loss usually also means bone loss. Osteoporosis is a major factor in earlier mortality (through broken bones, especially broken hips or spinal degradation). Don't increase those risks, I'd strongly advise.

Repeating myself: Faster loss isn't better loss. Faster loss can be riskier loss. There's middle ground between losing 11.5 pounds a week and "nothing". Lietchi explained how to personalize your calorie estimates. Do that. Shoot for maybe 2 pounds a week loss, maybe 3 at most for another few pounds. Use your history to estimate your actual calorie needs. A pound a week would be a 500 calorie cut from that, 1000 daily for 2 pounds a week, 1500 for 3 pounds . . . which is really super fast, skating on the edge, IMO.

Yes, lose the weight. But preserve your health while you do it. Look at weight trends over many weeks, not a small number of weeks.

Please.

TexasTallchick

Thanks to all of you. I need to adjust quite a few things for optimal health, which I will start ASAP. Again, thank you!

Corina1143

I feel like a broken record. I lost weight too fast(accidentally). I lost hair. Big handfuls. Not just on the pillow and my brush, but on the living room floor, in the kitchen sink—it fell out everywhere. I lost skin. I lost energy. I lost muscle. I lost way too much.

I also lost bone mass during that time, but since the tests were 2 years apart, I can't be sure how much to attribute to too fast weight loss.

Please don't try to lose too fast.

fitmom4lifemfp

I've used MFP for many many years, strictly for logging my food. I've never used their suggested calories as their numbers are way too high for me. I maintained my weight for many years - as long as I logged my food. I got lazy a few years back and as a result, gained 22 pounds. Ack!! I started back logging on Feb 1, and as of today have lost 12 pounds. My daily calories are between 900 and 1200 a day, with exceptions on high activity days. I am religious about logging, and I am accurate. I am 69, but have always had to keep a low calorie intake to keep my weight down. That's just how my body works. I haven't been able to run recently (plantar fasciitis for the first time in my life arrggh!) and as a lifelong runner, that has been very frustrating. It's a slow process, but I am determined to lose this last 10 pounds.

springlering62

First of all, sorry for your loss.

I’d like to point out that your loss must have been fairly recent, since holiday plans changed radically.

And then you got sick enough to need care for an entire month.

And then your caregiver cooked as they knew and wanted to cook. Out of your control.

And, if I had to stay with my sister, the fur would fly. Blood pressure would shoot up. Hell, I might shoot her.

You’ve presumably had to deal with paperwork, lawyers, wills, life insurance, all fairly recently.

Stress can manifest as increased cortisol which can do really weird things to your weight and water retention.

Hopefully, things are settling down now, and you can breath, and any effect here will pass.

This is all to say, it’s not always totally calorie driven. Don’t discount stress.

My stress level goes through the roof just imagining life without Mr. S. I can’t imagine living the real deal.

Hugs to you.

AnnPT77

Together, you ( @fitmom4lifemfp ) and I are a graphic illustration of why Lietchi's advice to OP is so important - that is, to use her own logging and weight-change history to get the best estimate of calorie needs, once a person has enough weeks of data to get a reasonable average. You and I both have used MFP for many years, and we're both 69 now.

You say - and I believe you - that MFP significantly over-estimates your calorie needs, so you need to eat less than it recommends for any given weight management goal. In my case, MFP significantly under-estimates my calorie needs, so I need to eat more than it recommends for any given weight management goal.

MFP just spits out averages for demographically similar people. That's the best starting point for anyone, since most people are close to average in calorie needs. But a few people aren't. You and I aren't, and it's in opposite directions. You need to eat 900-1200 plus some exercise calories to lose rather gradually. To maintain, I need to eat around 1900-2000 plus all exercise calories.

Our own recent history, averaged over at least 4-6 weeks (or whole menstrual cycles for those who have them) is the best guide to calorie needs, once we have that much data to average. Other individuals' personal history doesn't give us any direct information about our own calorie needs.