Calories in VS Calories out

kaijah8
kaijah8 Posts: 7 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I am questioning the calorie intake that MFP gave me. MFP is telling me in order to lose weight, I have to eat 1200 calories a day. Here is what Im looking at:

Weight 149.8
Height 5'6"
Age 29
Female

I am doing Beachbody's Focus T25. Its 25 minutes 4x a week, 50 minutes 1x a week and a stretch day on Sunday.

My BMR (according to MFP) is 1421

I wear a FitBit and without exercise, I am actually burning around 1800.

According to this information, If I burn 300 calories during a workout and eat 1200 calories, I should be losing 2+ pounds per week.

This is not the case. I have actually gained back almost a pounds in the last week. (Im on week 3 of T25).

I need to better understand my BMR and exercise as it plays a role in weight loss.

Replies

  • kgeyser
    kgeyser Posts: 22,505 Member
    Well, the first problem is you set an unrealistic goal in MFP to lose 2 lbs per week, which is why you have ridiculously low numbers. You are well within healthy weight for your height and should be aiming for a 1/2- 1 lb loss per week.

    This will help: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-Sexypants
  • editorgrrl
    editorgrrl Posts: 7,060 Member
    Well, the first problem is you set an unrealistic goal in MFP to lose 2 lbs per week, which is why you have ridiculously low numbers. You are well within healthy weight for your height and should be aiming for a 1/2- 1 lb loss per week.

    This will help: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-Sexypants
    ^^^This. Also, you must eat back your exercise calories. Have you connected your MFP & Fitbit accounts? If not, it's the "Apps" tab at the top of this page.

    It may sound counterintuitive, but trust us. Weight loss takes a whole lot of trial & error to find what works for you, and what you're doing now is not working.
  • TX_Rhon
    TX_Rhon Posts: 1,549 Member
    ^^^^^^ +1
  • DebbieLyn63
    DebbieLyn63 Posts: 2,654 Member
    How many calories have you been eating up til this point? If you have already been restricting your calories to lose weight up til now, and you have recently started an intensive exercise program, then the pound gained is water weight in your muscles to use for repair. Do not worry about that, just keep going and it will come off in a week or so.

    Of you are just now starting to restrict your calories, then figure out about how many cals you have been normally eating and take 250-500 off of that number. Or you can stay around the same amount you have been eating, and create your deficit with your exercise. It will be slower that way, but you are in the healthy weight range now, so you don't have much to lose.

    I would focus more on body composition at this point, and less on the scale number.

    ETA And at your weight, you will NOT lose 2 lbs a week at 1200. MFP will not give you a number below 1200, no matter what your BMR turns out to be. Try changing it to 1 lb a week and see if it changes your calorie goal any.
  • kaijah8
    kaijah8 Posts: 7 Member
    Well, the first problem is you set an unrealistic goal in MFP to lose 2 lbs per week, which is why you have ridiculously low numbers. You are well within healthy weight for your height and should be aiming for a 1/2- 1 lb loss per week.

    This will help: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-Sexypants

    My goal is not to necessarily lose 2lbs per week. It is to lose in general. At 1 pound per week, MFP says I need to eat 1460 calories. I usually eat around this amount. It just doesnt make sense that im gaining back what I lost in week 1. This is especially considering I went from 3000 - 4000 calories of fast food to eating clean and weighing food. I was a clean eater until about a year ago. My dad got very sick and was in the hospital. I began eating a lot of hospital food and fast food for the 8 months he was there. Prior to march 2013, I weighed 135. I started gaining weight pretty quickly once I fell off the bandwagon and gained almost 20 pounds since March 2013.
  • kaijah8
    kaijah8 Posts: 7 Member
    How many calories have you been eating up til this point? If you have already been restricting your calories to lose weight up til now, and you have recently started an intensive exercise program, then the pound gained is water weight in your muscles to use for repair. Do not worry about that, just keep going and it will come off in a week or so.

    Of you are just now starting to restrict your calories, then figure out about how many cals you have been normally eating and take 250-500 off of that number. Or you can stay around the same amount you have been eating, and create your deficit with your exercise. It will be slower that way, but you are in the healthy weight range now, so you don't have much to lose.

    I would focus more on body composition at this point, and less on the scale number.

    ETA And at your weight, you will NOT lose 2 lbs a week at 1200. MFP will not give you a number below 1200, no matter what your BMR turns out to be. Try changing it to 1 lb a week and see if it changes your calorie goal any.


    I explained the story in another comment, but until my dad got sick in March 2013, I was a clean eater and in great shape. i weighed 135. When he got sick, I started eating food from the hospital cafeteria and grabbing fast food all the time. Ive gained 20 pounds since march 2013. I would just think that I should be losing something - and not gaining, especially since prior to the start of this year, I was eating anywhere from 3000 - 4000 calories a day and 99% of it was fast food.
  • editorgrrl
    editorgrrl Posts: 7,060 Member
    Weight fluctuates day to day & throughout the day. Don't panic. Give it another week.

    And read the Sexypants link.
  • kaijah8
    kaijah8 Posts: 7 Member
    Well, the first problem is you set an unrealistic goal in MFP to lose 2 lbs per week, which is why you have ridiculously low numbers. You are well within healthy weight for your height and should be aiming for a 1/2- 1 lb loss per week.

    This will help: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-Sexypants
    ^^^This. Also, you must eat back your exercise calories. Have you connected your MFP & Fitbit accounts? If not, it's the "Apps" tab at the top of this page.

    It may sound counterintuitive, but trust us. Weight loss takes a whole lot of trial & error to find what works for you, and what you're doing now is not working.


    I did connect my FitBit to MFP. At 2lbs per week it tells me to eat 1200 calories. At 1 pound per week it tells me to eat 1460 calories. Do these calories include what I burn during exercise? For example, I have Saturday off from T25. I do not exercise at all. Do I eat the just 1460 calories? On Monday when I burn 300 calories with T25, should I then be eating 1760 or do I constantly eat 1460 regardless?
  • jennah8
    jennah8 Posts: 5 Member
    Someone will probably answer your question before me but I was very confused about this at first as well. You are to eat a MINIMUM of the calories that my fitness pal gives you. So basically whether you work out or not, you need to eat 1,460 calories. A lot of the exercises on my fitness pal are WAY over the calories you actually burn, so when I rely on my fitness pal or the calories that show up on the machines at the gym, I only eat back half. Also you should focus on your Macros as well, which is the pie graph it shows you. I try to match that as perfectly as I can. OH and drink LOTS of water. I could not lose even a pound until I started making sure I drank 6-8 cups of water a day. My body was holding on to all the water it could i guess.
  • jennah8
    jennah8 Posts: 5 Member
    Just to add to that post cause it was a little confusing, yes you do eat 1,760 when you burn 300. Always eat them back, or half.
  • SezxyStef
    SezxyStef Posts: 15,267 Member
    Well, the first problem is you set an unrealistic goal in MFP to lose 2 lbs per week, which is why you have ridiculously low numbers. You are well within healthy weight for your height and should be aiming for a 1/2- 1 lb loss per week.

    This will help: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-Sexypants
    ^^^This. Also, you must eat back your exercise calories. Have you connected your MFP & Fitbit accounts? If not, it's the "Apps" tab at the top of this page.

    It may sound counterintuitive, but trust us. Weight loss takes a whole lot of trial & error to find what works for you, and what you're doing now is not working.


    I did connect my FitBit to MFP. At 2lbs per week it tells me to eat 1200 calories. At 1 pound per week it tells me to eat 1460 calories. Do these calories include what I burn during exercise? For example, I have Saturday off from T25. I do not exercise at all. Do I eat the just 1460 calories? On Monday when I burn 300 calories with T25, should I then be eating 1760 or do I constantly eat 1460 regardless?

    No the calories are just your food if you exercise you eat those back...but that being said burns are unrealiable so most say 50%-75% back.

    So if your base is 1460..and you burn 300 per machine or other device or MFP database eat back 150-225 of those calories...
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 49,022 Member
    I am questioning the calorie intake that MFP gave me. MFP is telling me in order to lose weight, I have to eat 1200 calories a day. Here is what Im looking at:

    Weight 149.8
    Height 5'6"
    Age 29
    Female

    I am doing Beachbody's Focus T25. Its 25 minutes 4x a week, 50 minutes 1x a week and a stretch day on Sunday.

    My BMR (according to MFP) is 1421

    I wear a FitBit and without exercise, I am actually burning around 1800.

    According to this information, If I burn 300 calories during a workout and eat 1200 calories, I should be losing 2+ pounds per week.

    This is not the case. I have actually gained back almost a pounds in the last week. (Im on week 3 of T25).

    I need to better understand my BMR and exercise as it plays a role in weight loss.
    You shouldn't be trying to lose 2lbs a week unless you're well over 200lbs. Shoot for 1% of your body weight a week. Try just eating around 1600 and see how that goes.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness industry for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
  • editorgrrl
    editorgrrl Posts: 7,060 Member
    I did connect my FitBit to MFP. At 2lbs per week it tells me to eat 1200 calories. At 1 pound per week it tells me to eat 1460 calories. Do these calories include what I burn during exercise? For example, I have Saturday off from T25. I do not exercise at all. Do I eat the just 1460 calories? On Monday when I burn 300 calories with T25, should I then be eating 1760 or do I constantly eat 1460 regardless?
    First, set your MFP goal to .5 lb. per week. With less than 25 lbs. to lose, anything more is unhealthy.

    Ignore your Fitbit calorie goal. Fitbit has no calorie minimum, and eating less than 1,200 calories is both unhealthy and unnecessary. And Fitbit pro-rates your calories by time of day. So just go by your MFP calorie goal.

    Here's an explanation of calorie adjustments I posted to MFP's "Fitbit Users" group: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/forums/show/1307-fitbit-users

    When you set up your MFP account, you specified an activity level: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/change_goals_guided MFP used your answer, plus your age, sex & height, to estimate how many calories you burn every day (your TDEE). Then you set your weight-loss goal, and MFP subtracted the appropriate deficit to calculate your daily calorie goal.

    Once you link an activity tracker to your MFP account (via the "Apps" tab at the top of every page), you start getting calorie adjustments. If your tracker says you burned more calories than MFP estimated, you get a positive adjustment (meaning more calories to eat). If you enable negative calorie adjustments and you burn less than the MFP estimate, you will lose calories. (But negative calorie adjustments will never drop your daily calories below 1,200.)

    Log food & drink in MFP. No need to log step based activity. Log non-step based exercise (like swimming or spinning) either in Fitbit or in MFP--never both. If you choose to log in MFP, you'll be asked for start & end times. Then MFP will override your step data during that time.
  • flipperscr83
    flipperscr83 Posts: 3 Member
    I was in the same boat. I have a fitbit, exercise, and use MFP. I wasn't losing weight. Says 1200 calories a day, until using fitbit.

    Now. can have about 1500 depending on activity, sometimes 2500/day.

    Either way, was staying right below the lowest, either MFP or fitbit. No weight loss occurring, gaining in fact.

    Then I read this.

    http://www.shapeupshop.com/weightloss/water-weight-loss.html

    Since adding water, loss has started occurring. You always hear people say drink more water. Bit everyone was saying "because it makes you full so you don't eat as much". Makes no difference to me since I was counting calories. But, now it makes sense.

    Dehydration causes kidneys not to work right, causing liver to pick up slack, causing fat to not get metabolized.

    Bam, weight loss.

    Add water, lots of it. I bet it will start sheding off like crazy.

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