MFP Calorie Goal Too High?

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  • bluetalonuk
    bluetalonuk Posts: 15
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    You're male and 145 pounds? What height?

    5' 7"
  • bluetalonuk
    bluetalonuk Posts: 15
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    You're overcomplicating this. What are you eating calorie and macro wise? Is that maintaining your weight? If so, you have your answer.

    I'm stuck at the 145-150 pounds level. I want to be at 22 BMI and therefore need to get down to 140 pounds.
  • DebbieLyn63
    DebbieLyn63 Posts: 2,650 Member
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    OP has already stated that he is 5'7", and that he is a postman who walks everywhere and all day long.

    I think the confusion is caused by the OP having his activity level set to active on MFP, then has the FitBit that gives him the extra calories for all the walking he does.

    If I understand this correctly, then he is indeed getting double calories for all of his walking exercise, but I could be wrong, who knows.
    Even with all the walking he does, I don't see a man at his height and weight, and in his 40s, needing 4000 calories to maintain.
    Seems a bit high to me.
    2850 sounds much more reasonable.

    OP- This all comes down to trial and error. Try your plan for awhile and see what happens. Adjust up or down as necessary after a couple of weeks.
  • DebbieLyn63
    DebbieLyn63 Posts: 2,650 Member
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    I did the 5:2 plan for a couple of months to break thru a plateau last Summer. It worked really well for me. If it works for you, great. Once you get to goal weight, most people maintain by doing 6:1.
    Good luck to you and keep those cards and letters coming! :smile:
  • BerryH
    BerryH Posts: 4,698 Member
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    I'm stuck at the 145-150 pounds level. I want to be at 22 BMI and therefore need to get down to 140 pounds.
    You're already in the healthy range. Are you maintaining at the moment? If so, religiously record everything you eat and drink, average it out over a week and take off 500 calories .

    But as a slim man who does a lot of cardio for work, you may want to consider body re-composition as a goal. Get some weight training in as your formal exercise to change your body fat percentage rather that trying to get lighter.
  • bluetalonuk
    bluetalonuk Posts: 15
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    If I understand this correctly, then he is indeed getting double calories for all of his walking exercise, but I could be wrong, who knows.
    Even with all the walking he does, I don't see a man at his height and weight, and in his 40s, needing 4000 calories to maintain.
    Seems a bit high to me.
    2850 sounds much more reasonable.

    OP- This all comes down to trial and error. Try your plan for awhile and see what happens. Adjust up or down as necessary after a couple of weeks.

    Thanks for the information.

    As I said earlier going to do the 2850 (for 5 days) and 600 (for 2 days) and see if my weight starts to move in the right direction.

    Might switch to only 1 x 600 cal day if my weight starts to go below my target.
  • 89nunu
    89nunu Posts: 1,082 Member
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    Nevermind the calories fitbit puts onto your mfp, what does your fitbit dashboard tell you you should eat?
    also do you have runkeeper connected to mfp? if you got fitbit connected to runkeeper and then runkeeper to mfp you will double log your exercise. Once from fitbit to mfp as normal fitbit adjustments, and the second time from runkeeper to mfp as exercise calories.
    Just the fitbit on it's own won't log exercise calories on your mfp account...
  • melaniecheeks
    melaniecheeks Posts: 6,349 Member
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    Since you're already at a healthy bmi, the 5:2 approach will be really slow. I'm not saying don't do it (I've been following it for a year now), but "fast" it is not. Please have realistic expectations.
  • bluetalonuk
    bluetalonuk Posts: 15
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    Nevermind the calories fitbit puts onto your mfp, what does your fitbit dashboard tell you you should eat?
    also do you have runkeeper connected to mfp? if you got fitbit connected to runkeeper and then runkeeper to mfp you will double log your exercise. Once from fitbit to mfp as normal fitbit adjustments, and the second time from runkeeper to mfp as exercise calories.
    Just the fitbit on it's own won't log exercise calories on your mfp account...

    Fitbit is saying I should eat 4000+ cals / day too.
    and the way runkeeper works with fitbit is if you log an activity with runkeeper, fitbit ignores the steps from the sensor during that time (in the case of cycling there is lots of effort but little logged steps)

    So fitbit and runkeeper ARE NOT DOUBLE LOGGING STEPS
  • Timmmy40
    Timmmy40 Posts: 152 Member
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    With that much walking everyday you should be able to eat 3500 calories a day and maintain your weight. I don't see 20 -25 miles a day. I get the 10 miles to and from work, but 13 miles at work. Fitbit is over exaggerating the distance.
  • Love4fitnesslove4food2
    Love4fitnesslove4food2 Posts: 711 Member
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    I cannot fathom why a 5'7 male would be so insistent on getting to 140 pounds. I'm sorry, I'm just rather confused.
  • EvgeniZyntx
    EvgeniZyntx Posts: 24,208 Member
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    Ok,

    I'll try to explain this.

    The 1.9 multiplier that you have in your original calculation represents a highly level of activity. It includes all your walking.
    Therefore, if you want to base it on that. MFP is correct to give you about 2800 calories. You would then not eat back your walking calories.

    If you set that correctly and add the fitbit on (and configure it correctly) it will tell you when your day has shown walking in excess of 2800 calories. It shouldn't be giving you 4000 unless you are doing some very extreme walks.

    If you want to log manually your walking put MFP at sedentary (1.2 multiplier) and then log the 2000 cals of walks. Make sure you subtract the baseline calories as those are already calculated in (about a third per hour of walking is just BMR).

    Hope that helps.
  • bluetalonuk
    bluetalonuk Posts: 15
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    With that much walking everyday you should be able to eat 3500 calories a day and maintain your weight. I don't see 20 -25 miles a day. I get the 10 miles to and from work, but 13 miles at work. Fitbit is over exaggerating the distance.

    Fitbit logs 5 miles verified by GPS into work. 5 mile "walk" takes me 90 mins. So 13 miles in 8 hrs is a walk in the park (excuse the pun)
  • bluetalonuk
    bluetalonuk Posts: 15
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    It shouldn't be giving you 4000 unless you are doing some very extreme walks.

    How about 10 miles at 4-6 mph + 13 miles at 3 mph. extreme enough for 2000 cals??
  • DebbieLyn63
    DebbieLyn63 Posts: 2,650 Member
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    I cannot fathom why a 5'7 male would be so insistent on getting to 140 pounds. I'm sorry, I'm just rather confused.

    Because that is a BMI of 22. perfectly normal for the average male.
  • DebbieLyn63
    DebbieLyn63 Posts: 2,650 Member
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    There is also the theory that your body gets used to a certain activity over time and becomes more efficient. This would mean that someone who is used to walking 25 miles per day wouldn't burn as many calories as someone at the same height and weight, who just started walking that amount. In this case, the FitBit would be giving you more calories than you are actually burning.

    Again, that would bring you back to trial and error, which you are doing.
  • BerryH
    BerryH Posts: 4,698 Member
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    OP, why don't you open your diary so we can see what you eat and your exercise calories, then we might be able to better advice you.
  • tigersword
    tigersword Posts: 8,059 Member
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    It shouldn't be giving you 4000 unless you are doing some very extreme walks.

    How about 10 miles at 4-6 mph + 13 miles at 3 mph. extreme enough for 2000 cals??
    How do you get 4-6 mph? 90 minutes to walk 5 miles is 3.3 mph.
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,293 Member
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    It shouldn't be giving you 4000 unless you are doing some very extreme walks.

    How about 10 miles at 4-6 mph + 13 miles at 3 mph. extreme enough for 2000 cals??
    How do you get 4-6 mph? 90 minutes to walk 5 miles is 3.3 mph.

    I assumed he was mixing up KPH with MPH, 4-6 KPH = 2.5-3.8 MPH

    Also OP, since you walk that much all the time you will be more efficient at doing so, therefore burn less calories than any calculator would assume. The more you do something the "better" you get at it, and you don't use as much energy to do the same thing. I think the 2800 or so would be more reasonable than the fitbit for this reason.
  • EvgeniZyntx
    EvgeniZyntx Posts: 24,208 Member
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    It shouldn't be giving you 4000 unless you are doing some very extreme walks.

    How about 10 miles at 4-6 mph + 13 miles at 3 mph. extreme enough for 2000 cals??
    How do you get 4-6 mph? 90 minutes to walk 5 miles is 3.3 mph.

    It is still about 2000 cals (plus or minus 100) for a guy of his weight.
    Given the amount of time, he is failing to subtract the basal amount (calories already included in MFP just for being "there") which are somewhere around 700-900.

    With 23 miles of walking - it should not be more than 2900-3300.

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