MFP calorie level increases

spaingirl2011
spaingirl2011 Posts: 763 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi all,

Just a quick question. I have my calorie goals set to losing 1lb a week (with the intention of eating back 1/2-3/4 of my exercise calories). Before all of the fun holiday splurging began (I weighed 145lbs, 5'4), they had me at 1350 calories a day (again, I ate back a good portion of my exercise calories). I decided, for the sake of self-honesty to log where I am weight-wise today after the holiday splurging and I'm at 147.2. MFP recalibrated my calorie intake to 1440 calories a day. That seems like an awfully high jump from 1350 when I only had a 2.2lb gain. Does that seem strange to anyone else?

One of the reasons I'm doing the "eat your exercise calories back" rather than the "use your TDEE to calculate a base number and eat -15% or -20% back is because my exercise/calorie burn level is all over the place and I tend to get confused and overestimate how much I can actually eat... which leads to stalling or gaining. But I feel like this calorie goal is much higher than it should be ...

Anyway, thanks for your thoughts!

Replies

  • jennegan1
    jennegan1 Posts: 677 Member
    Have you ever manually set your own calorie goals? Im taking that you plan on going back to eating more healthy now that the holidays are almost over. Why dont you eat and drink everything you normally do for a week log everything and see what your average is? It may not even be 1440 it might be closer to 1350 or 1400
  • Phoenix_Warrior
    Phoenix_Warrior Posts: 1,633 Member
    You must've hit a calculated threshhold between the two weight levels ( i think it recalculates every 5-10 lbs). I don't think it would stall you to keep it that way. I eat 1550 sedentary at 5'5" 126 lbs and lose about a pound a week. I eat more on exercise days.
  • bekahlou75
    bekahlou75 Posts: 304 Member
    I'm 5'4" and weigh 150. I set MFP to .5 pounds a week, sedentary, and it gave me 1430 calories. If you have your activity set to something higher then I can see how it would give you 1440.
  • jennegan1
    jennegan1 Posts: 677 Member
    Have you ever checked other websites? Perhaps try this one http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm
  • spaingirl2011
    spaingirl2011 Posts: 763 Member
    Thanks for your thoughts so far, everyone! One of the things that has been worrying me is that I tend to have really high calorie burns from exercise (though, the more research I do, the more I'm realizing that it may be my HRM overestimating my lifting burns) and the higher my base calorie intake is, the more I would have to eat in order to eat back to a 1000-1200 net. In the past when I have had a higher base goal and eaten back exercise calories, I've gained. So I'm really just trying to avoid that.

    I really appreciate hearing all of your experiences! Looks like I'm going to have to do some experimenting!
  • spaingirl2011
    spaingirl2011 Posts: 763 Member
    I'm 5'4" and weigh 150. I set MFP to .5 pounds a week, sedentary, and it gave me 1430 calories. If you have your activity set to something higher then I can see how it would give you 1440.

    I have my activity goal set to lightly active. Though I do a lot of sitting (I'm a PhD student) I also walk to and from campus and exercise 5 times a week.
  • Cortelli
    Cortelli Posts: 1,369 Member
    Is your activity level other than sedentary? MFP recently adjusted the formulas used for several activity levels. See the following thread for an explanation: http://myfitnesspal.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/1375583-a-message-about-myfitnesspal-s-updated-nutrition-goals
  • spaingirl2011
    spaingirl2011 Posts: 763 Member
    Is your activity level other than sedentary? MFP recently adjusted the formulas used for several activity levels. See the following thread for an explanation: http://myfitnesspal.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/1375583-a-message-about-myfitnesspal-s-updated-nutrition-goals

    Wow! That explains so much! Thank you!

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