Gaming the system (old man)

salvyhead

Well, according to MFP - I am now three years younger than my mom.

Their idiotic alternate-universe calculator says I can eat over 2000 a day and maintain. Bull. I can only eat 1800 a day if I have any hope of not gaining again. (I did a carefully controlled month-long TDEE calibration recently to come up with this number.)

I was really getting annoyed with that aggravatingly cheerful end-of-day message: "If every day were like today, you'll weigh X lbs. in Y weeks!) Bull dookey.

I tried tweaking every setting I could think of. I checked sedentary and no exercise, EVER. Still 2050. Grrr.

Then a brainstorm. Changed sex to 'female.' That worked. But then I thought better of it - figuring it would confuse people on the forum. Not to mention my family.

That's when the Mrs. suggested I make myself older. Bingo.

So starting today, I'm 82 years old!! That was the only way I could get the calories anywhere near reality. It's still 40 over but I can live with that.

I have to admit, I look great for somebody my age. LOL!

-S

chubby_checkers

Why not just manually set your calorie goal?

Goals-->Change Goals-->Custom

ekz13

i'm with you on this one. I manually set mine, it had my BMR at 2150, and my TDEE at ~3k saying that I could lose weight at that. seemed WAY to high. I double checked it against IIFYM and Scooby's calc's too and they are all about the same.. I don't get it either.. I would just manually go change it as suggested above ^^^.. oh and keep up the good work at 82yo.. :bigsmile: :drinker:

LynndaMaree

:laugh: :laugh: Now this is to funny. But you did what you had to do. lol lol lol

970Mikaela1

Why not just manually set your calorie goal?

Goals-->Change Goals-->Custom

wheres the fun in gaming the system that way?

tegalicious

I have the opposite problem... All the calculators and mfp say that I will maintain at 2200/day.... I lose at least a pound a week at that....

aarar

I have the opposite problem... All the calculators and mfp say that I will maintain at 2200/day.... I lose at least a pound a week at that....

Same here. I no longer complete my food diary at the end of the day because it tells me the current amount I'm eating will make me gain about a pound a week. The amount it figures I should be maintaining on is what I eat to lose.

tegalicious

I have the opposite problem... All the calculators and mfp say that I will maintain at 2200/day.... I lose at least a pound a week at that....

Same here. I no longer complete my food diary at the end of the day because it tells me the current amount I'm eating will make me gain about a pound a week. The amount it figures I should be maintaining on is what I eat to lose.

Yup! It kept telling me I was gonna gain like ten pounds in five weeks. But now that I have my fitbit attached to my account it has calmed down on the horrible insinuating that I am gonna be a whale in a year.

kyricus

I think the only accurate, or close to accurate, way to gauge your calories is to do it yourself. Spend a few weeks eating and tracking everything, and I mean everything. See what calorie level works for you to maintain, then base your eating off of that. Everyone and every metabolism is different.

erickirb

MFP just estimated your BMR, like every other online calculator, yours may be higher or lower and as such if results are not what you would have expected, adjust your cals up or down to compensate, rinse and repeat every 4-6 weeks.

tegalicious

MFP just estimated your BMR, like every other online calculator, yours may be higher or lower and as such if results are not what you would have expected, adjust your cals up or down to compensate, rinse and repeat every 4-6 weeks.

Yeah my problem is I am just so active. 30000+ steps Monday - Friday and about 20000 on Saturday. I am short and small but my acticity level is abnormally high. They don't have a super active setting lol!

jofjltncb6

Why not just manually set your calorie goal?

Goals-->Change Goals-->Custom

First, ^this.

And second, LOLone month TDEE calibration. You tweak your calories up or down as your TDEE changes. Mine has fluctuated between 2200 and 2900 over the course of the past few years based on analysis of almost three years of daily food/exercise log and weight. Is some of it measurement error or unaccounted for fluctuations? Possibly...but those are in your one month too.

TL;DR - there is no one constant "right" number.

BusyRaeNOTBusty

Why not just manually set your calorie goal?

Goals-->Change Goals-->Custom

But this doesn't change how much MFP thinks your maintenance is, which is what controls the "You will weigh this in 5 weeks" thing.


However I would want to know WHY you maintain at 1850? That would concern me..

tegalicious

Why not just manually set your calorie goal?

Goals-->Change Goals-->Custom

First, ^this.

And second, LOLone month TDEE calibration. You tweak your calories up or down as your TDEE changes. Mine has fluctuated between 2200 and 2900 over the course of the past few years based on analysis of almost three years of daily food/exercise log and weight. Is some of it measurement error or unaccounted for fluctuations? Possibly...but those are in your one month too.

TL;DR - there is no one constant "right" number.

True that!! Mine changes weekly!! So I stay at about 2500/day Monday through Friday and then on the weekends I eat back any deficit that is left over because I am no longer trying to lose weight. Hooray for getting to eat back what ever is left over from the week on the weekends!!

tegalicious

Why not just manually set your calorie goal?

Goals-->Change Goals-->Custom

But this doesn't change how much MFP thinks your maintenance is, which is what controls the "You will weigh this in 5 weeks" thing.


However I would want to know WHY you maintain at 1850? That would concern me..

Yeah. It is a little concerning that you have the maintenance level of an 80 year old man....

salvyhead

Yeah. It is a little concerning that you have the maintenance level of an 80 year old man....

Thanks for the question - I felt the same way last summer. Now I know it's science so I am no longer concerned. By chance - discovered the work of Dr. Leibel, et al, at Columbia.

Basically - if you've been overweight for a significant length of time (years in my case) a calorie's not a calorie. It's more like 1.2 calories. So when you do the math: 1800 x 1.2 = 2160. That's close to where all the TDEE calculators put me without falsifying my age, sex, etc.

What they do not take into effect is the metabolic effect of carrying extra weight for years. Also the reason I plateaued for so long last year - I was believing the MFP numbers (confirmed through other sources) and not losing. For people like me, they're all screwy unless you're normal weight and have been most of your life. (But that kind of defeats the purpose, no?)

The New York Times published an excellent survey of the current knowledge, highly recommended, FYI: http://tinyurl.com/laq3ncp

salvyhead

Why not just manually set your calorie goal?

Goals-->Change Goals-->Custom

First, ^this.

And second, LOLone month TDEE calibration. You tweak your calories up or down as your TDEE changes. Mine has fluctuated between 2200 and 2900 over the course of the past few years based on analysis of almost three years of daily food/exercise log and weight. Is some of it measurement error or unaccounted for fluctuations? Possibly...but those are in your one month too.

TL;DR - there is no one constant "right" number.

As others noted, manually changing your calorie goal does not stop MFP from making annoying statements predicting future weight loss when none will occur.

Also - I should have been more clear. The month-long calibration was after 11 months of MFP logging so I already had a pretty good handle on where I needed to be (1850 - 1900). The calibration just confirmed that my suspicions were correct.

Thanks.

fast_eddie_72

Why not just manually set your calorie goal?

Goals-->Change Goals-->Custom

But this doesn't change how much MFP thinks your maintenance is, which is what controls the "You will weigh this in 5 weeks" thing.


However I would want to know WHY you maintain at 1850? That would concern me..

Is 150 calories really a concern? (Actual question, not poking you) I assumed that there was *some* difference from person to person. I'm sure that metabolism is close, but not identical for people of a given age, sex, height, and weight. Wouldn't 150 calories seem to fall into that zone? Or is it likely even smaller than that?

usmcmp

Yeah. It is a little concerning that you have the maintenance level of an 80 year old man....

Thanks for the question - I felt the same way last summer. Now I know it's science so I am no longer concerned. By chance - discovered the work of Dr. Leibel, et al, at Columbia.

Basically - if you've been overweight for a significant length of time (years in my case) a calorie's not a calorie. It's more like 1.2 calories. So when you do the math: 1800 x 1.2 = 2160. That's close to where all the TDEE calculators put me without falsifying my age, sex, etc.

What they do not take into effect is the metabolic effect of carrying extra weight for years. Also the reason I plateaued for so long last year - I was believing the MFP numbers (confirmed through other sources) and not losing. For people like me, they're all screwy unless you're normal weight and have been most of your life. (But that kind of defeats the purpose, no?)

The New York Times published an excellent survey of the current knowledge, highly recommended, FYI: http://tinyurl.com/laq3ncp

That makes no sense. I'm a 28 year old female, 5'8", 165 pounds who was overweight for almost 7 years. I maintain at 2400 calories.

usmcmp

Why not just manually set your calorie goal?

Goals-->Change Goals-->Custom

First, ^this.

And second, LOLone month TDEE calibration. You tweak your calories up or down as your TDEE changes. Mine has fluctuated between 2200 and 2900 over the course of the past few years based on analysis of almost three years of daily food/exercise log and weight. Is some of it measurement error or unaccounted for fluctuations? Possibly...but those are in your one month too.

TL;DR - there is no one constant "right" number.

As others noted, manually changing your calorie goal does not stop MFP from making annoying statements predicting future weight loss when none will occur.

Also - I should have been more clear. The month-long calibration was after 11 months of MFP logging so I already had a pretty good handle on where I needed to be (1850 - 1900). The calibration just confirmed that my suspicions were correct.

Thanks.

You realize that when you come off of a deficit your weight can fluctuate for the first month or two, right? It's glycogen and water. 1900 is still probably a deficit for you.

Laura3BB

Well the maintainance cals calibrated by MFP, on which I add my Fitbit cals, work fine for me - been maintaining almost 2 months on that now - it adds up to around 1950 cals per day and I'm 66 kg and 41 yrs old.