Something must be wrong with my calorie goal

funkyspunky871

MFP has set me at 1370 calories per day. I'm 5'7' and 239.6 pounds. The problem is I know of other MFP users that weigh LESS than me and yet get way more calories than I do. My goals are set to lose 2 pounds a week. Why are my calories set so low? Or does that sound about right?

funkyspunky871

Oh, wait. Just reset my goals, and now I'm at 1310 calories. I lose like 20 calories per pound. It's ridiculous.

MzBug

Depends on the activity level and on your exercise goals. A person who sits at a desk all day and does not exercise will get less of a calorie intake than a person who has an active (up and around walking, lifting, bending) job and has input an exercise goal of 120 minutes of aerobic exercise.

Mindful_Trent

Depends on the activity level and on your exercise goals. A person who sits at a desk all day and does not exercise will get less of a calorie intake than a person who has an active (up and around walking, lifting, bending) job and has input an exercise goal of 120 minutes of aerobic exercise.

Actually your exercise goal doesn't impact your calorie goal. Only your height/weight/age/gender and normal daily activity level do. If you think your goal seems really low, make sure you selected the appropriate activity level (sedentary, lightly active, etc.) The only time exercise impacts your calories is when they are actually added into the log when you do it. This is why MFP adds exercise calories back to your calorie goal for the day, because your deficit to lose weight is taken from your pre-exercise calorie burn and any exercise calories are like a bonus that you can eat back without affecting your deficit.

bellanean

Depends on the activity level and on your exercise goals. A person who sits at a desk all day and does not exercise will get less of a calorie intake than a person who has an active (up and around walking, lifting, bending) job and has input an exercise goal of 120 minutes of aerobic exercise.

Actually your exercise goal doesn't impact your calorie goal. Only your height/weight/age/gender and normal daily activity level do. If you think your goal seems really low, make sure you selected the appropriate activity level (sedentary, lightly active, etc.) The only time exercise impacts your calories is when they are actually added into the log when you do it. This is why MFP adds exercise calories back to your calorie goal for the day, because your deficit to lose weight is taken from your pre-exercise calorie burn and any exercise calories are like a bonus that you can eat back without affecting your deficit.

Excersise goal does inpact my calorie goal. At first I had i would excercise 45 minutes for 5 days a week and I was allowed more calories then when I changed it to 45 minutes for 3 days a week. Not by much, only about 30 calories, but it did change.

Mindful_Trent

Depends on the activity level and on your exercise goals. A person who sits at a desk all day and does not exercise will get less of a calorie intake than a person who has an active (up and around walking, lifting, bending) job and has input an exercise goal of 120 minutes of aerobic exercise.

Actually your exercise goal doesn't impact your calorie goal. Only your height/weight/age/gender and normal daily activity level do. If you think your goal seems really low, make sure you selected the appropriate activity level (sedentary, lightly active, etc.) The only time exercise impacts your calories is when they are actually added into the log when you do it. This is why MFP adds exercise calories back to your calorie goal for the day, because your deficit to lose weight is taken from your pre-exercise calorie burn and any exercise calories are like a bonus that you can eat back without affecting your deficit.

Excersise goal does inpact my calorie goal. At first I had i would excercise 45 minutes for 5 days a week and I was allowed more calories then when I changed it to 45 minutes for 3 days a week. Not by much, only about 30 calories, but it did change.

No, it really doesn't impact it. I promise. I just verified by setting it at 0 exercise goal and then at 9 times per week at 60 minutes per time, and there was NO difference in my calorie goal. If you saw a calorie goal change when you changed your exercise goal, it's because something else changed (possibly an updated weight or something like that).

The only reason your exercise goal is asked is because they compare your actual exercise (time and calories burned) for the day/week to your goal on the exercise log.

bellanean

Depends on the activity level and on your exercise goals. A person who sits at a desk all day and does not exercise will get less of a calorie intake than a person who has an active (up and around walking, lifting, bending) job and has input an exercise goal of 120 minutes of aerobic exercise.

Actually your exercise goal doesn't impact your calorie goal. Only your height/weight/age/gender and normal daily activity level do. If you think your goal seems really low, make sure you selected the appropriate activity level (sedentary, lightly active, etc.) The only time exercise impacts your calories is when they are actually added into the log when you do it. This is why MFP adds exercise calories back to your calorie goal for the day, because your deficit to lose weight is taken from your pre-exercise calorie burn and any exercise calories are like a bonus that you can eat back without affecting your deficit.

Excersise goal does inpact my calorie goal. At first I had i would excercise 45 minutes for 5 days a week and I was allowed more calories then when I changed it to 45 minutes for 3 days a week. Not by much, only about 30 calories, but it did change.

No, it really doesn't impact it. I promise. I just verified by setting it at 0 exercise goal and then at 9 times per week at 60 minutes per time, and there was NO difference in my calorie goal. If you saw a calorie goal change when you changed your exercise goal, it's because something else changed (possibly an updated weight or something like that).

The only reason your exercise goal is asked is because they compare your actual exercise (time and calories burned) for the day/week to your goal on the exercise log.

Well I promise you mine changed. I wanted to lower my calorie goal and this is how I did it. Nothing else changed.

Mindful_Trent

Well I promise you mine changed. I wanted to lower my calorie goal and this is how I did it. Nothing else changed.

The reason your exercise goal doesn't impact your calories goal is because they add exercise calories to your calories on your food log on top of your normal calorie goal - if they also increased your normal daily calorie goal (before adding anything to your exercise log) then it would be double-counting calories.

MFP doesn't automatically update your daily calorie goal when you lose/gain weight. You have to periodically update your goals. MFP will prompt you do to so every 10 lbs. What may have happened before is that you had a weight change that you'd logged but you hadn't reset your goals. So...when you changed your exercise goal, it also registered your weight change and that's actually what changed your daily calories goal.

You can test this by going into your goals, updating them one time without changing anything (to register any weight change you've had since your goals were last set) and then updating it again with changing your exercise goals - you'll see that nothing changes just by changing your exercise goal.

Motleybird

If they're set to 1lb a week instead of 2 they will get more calories.