Do you Update your diet / fitness profile

lucan07

I go into settings once a week and update my diet fitness profile to amend for the weight I have lost (1-1.5kg). Therefore my calorie allowances etc are calculated on current weight and not historical weight which would be high if I have lost.

It occurred to me that when people start to struggle with their weight loss, if they have not made this amendment then it would surely be a factor in the reduced loss. I cannot recall seeing anywhere on the site any guidance on doing this so it could be overlooked and some people could be working to calorie estimates for someone much heavier.

Duck_Puddle

Mfp will automatically recalculate (or ask if you want to recalculate) for every 10 lbs lost. There really isn't THAT big a difference in calorie needs for weights differing by less than 10lbs.

tx_mom72

I did't recalculate until I lost the 1st 30. Then it only dropped my calories by about a 100.

cmriverside

It's also important to change your Goals in general.


"Lose two pounds a week" is not a reasonable goal when you have less than 30-ish pounds to lose. It's too aggressive.

lucan07

It's also important to change your Goals in general.


"Lose two pounds a week" is not a reasonable goal when you have less than 30-ish pounds to lose. It's too aggressive.

If you're referring to my goal thats the second I am currently 79lb down since january and have saved the final 10kg to go much slower I have done it with with medical supervision due to surgical hernias I can place two fists in and other problems. My weight was gained due to medication (high dose steroids), which gave me all sorts of problems including steroid induced diabetes (now cured) final target weight is 80kg.

lynn_glenmont

MFP did ask me if I wanted to readjust after I recorded a weight 10+ lbs below my start, but I've averaged about 2.4 lbs loss a week in the first seven weeks (with a goal of 1 lb loss a week), so I don't see any point in decreasing my calories at this point. I'll wait until the weight loss slows before considering that.

I'm losing more than my goal in part because I don't always eat all of my exercise calories back, either because I'm just not that hungry or I'm too busy to eat a real lunch, and if I make do with a healthy snack or two during the afternoon, I can't fit all the remaining calories into my stomach in the evening, unless I binge on calorie-dense nutrient-poor foods, aka "junk." I can't see eating when I'm not hungry; that's the kind of behavior that led me to being overweight, or obese by BMI standards, in the first place. And that recorded deficit doesn't account for all of the extra weight loss, so I suspect that my basic activity level isn't really sedentary, despite my desk job. I'm pretty confident my calories-in logging is reasonably accurate; I weigh or measure everything I fix myself, and review the entries in the database to make sure I'm using accurate entries. I do eat once or twice a week from food trucks or mom-and-pop shops, so there's a little more guess work involved in those calories, but again, it can't be off by enough to cover much of the extra weight loss. Anyway, my point is that rather than fidgeting with readjusting my BMI, or obsessing even more about the accuracy of my calorie intake and expenditures, to try to get to the "right" target number, I'll just keep the number I have as long as it's working, and adjust along the way as empirical evidence, rather than MFP calculations, suggest is appropriate. I'm not arguing that that's the right approach for everybody, and I may change my mind if it stops working for me.

piggyb73

Yes, I do it every week. I lose about 10 calories at a time but since day 1 I've dropped 360 calories. I think everyone should do it, it takes two seconds to hit update.and it's gradual so it doesnt' hurt anything, I think...

zyxst

I have to because MFP doesn't recalculate like it says it will. I also track on LoseIt!, which does recalculate with weight changes, so when LI's calorie goal is lower then MFP, I update my profile.

qtgonewild

I log my weight in the app it never asks me to recalculate. not once. I keep an eye on it tho, i haven't changed it yet.

joshdann

If you set your daily calorie goal manually, it will not ask if you want to recalculate. My actual needs differ pretty significantly from what MFP's auto feature gave me, so I don't let MFP decide my intake, I just use it for tracking.

donjessop

Every Sunday I go through the calculations again to start the week off fresh. I need to lose more weight than my daughter weighs (she only clocks in at 110 lbs) so the changes aren't massive on a weekly basis but it keeps my aware of what is going on and that is priceless.

tilmoph

Sometimes, about every 10 lbs or so. Though the last time everything changed, I was just seeing how much it thought I should eat once I hit my closest possible goal. Then I set everything back to current, and MFP decided I should up my calories another 200/day.

Turns out the old setting was giving me a 2.6lb/week deficit, this time it gave me 2 on the dot. Though really, I use this site more for tracking macros than setting goals. Still, I though it was kinda funny.