beginning at maintenance target for net calories?

dmayer123

Is anyone out there well versed in the concept of beginning with your calorie goal set to the # of calories you would eat if you were maintaining at your ideal weight? It makes sense to me, logically. It's easier to manage than going low and then trying to build up to eating more calories later. But for me, it's the difference of netting 1200 calories/ day as set by MFP and netting 1769 as set by your average calculator (height 5'6; goal weight 140; age 47). Should I just try it for a couple of weeks and see what happens? Has anyone else had luck with this?

rose313

There were a group of people who were doing this, I forgot what the method was called, but there was a specific way to calculate everything and it seemed to help a lot of people. Maybe someone else can remember what it was called so you can search it.

dmayer123

thanks!

al142

Here's a couple of the old threads:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/395721-eat-for-the-weight-you-want-to-be

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/602887-anyone-tried-eat-for-weight-you-want-to-be

Edit: Just put in your infomation into MFP as if you are at your goal weight and it will tell you how many calories you would need in maintenance at that weight.

maizerage66

This is a very confusing topic and I actually just recently learned of the right way to do it. But here's the thing, 1769 calories you got from your outside calculator factors in any activity that you do on a daily basis. I'm not sure what you used but even if you're lightly active your maintenance calories will be a little bit higher to account for that light activity. MFP does not take exercise into account, and gives you a lower amount and expects you to track your exercise and eat more from there. But that constantly changes based on the person so the MFP version of this is a bad way to do it. So what you should do is go with the 1769 calories per day, do whatever activities you do but don't log it into MFP, and eat that same amount of calories per day every day. Weight loss/gain/maintenance is based on weekly totals and eating 1769 calories per day with whatever activity level you put in will give you the best chance of maintaining your current weight. I hope this helps!