A breif explanation of how mfp is setup and how it all works

Newfiedan

This post is for those whom seem to misunderstand how mfp works and need a reminder on it and the finer points of making it work for you.

1) When you joined and put in all your info mfp gave you a daily goal for calories. That goal already has the deficit needed to shed that weight built in right off the crack of the bat with no exercise built in, period end of story. For those whom do not know here is the breakdown on daily deficits based on mfp's goals. The daily deficit is what you need to shed the fat.
1/2 lb loss a week = 250 cal deficit/day BUILT IN.
1 lb/wk loss = 500/day
1.5 lb/wk loss =750/day
2 lb/wk loss - 1000/day.

2) Eating back the exercise calories:
Yes you eat them back unless you want to exceed the goal set forth by mfp every day, IF YOU LOG ACCURATELY EVERY DAY! This is the part that sooooo many seem to have trouble wrapping their heads around. If you log every day and log accurately for food intake and what you burn during exercise via a hrm (get a good one) then it will work without fail. It has done so for me and nearly every single person whom has befriended me on mfp.So lets give an example here:
Person X eats 1200 cals a day, works out and burns 300 cals a day leaving them with 900 net cals, refuses to eat back those exercise cals. They are dipping below starvation mode, give them 2 or 3 days like this and fat loss will stop dead in its tracks and the body will start to consume muscle for survival. So when mfp says eat those calories then that means eat them for a reason, you are not working out for nothing. Your working out to raise your BMR not to shed more fat, let the body shed the fat for you while you enjoy your meal and recover from your workout.

3) Having trouble eating what mfp says you should for caloric intake? You are not alone, many of us do or did not eat enough for fat loss, do not be alarmed. Eating right/more does work I am living proof of that and no I am not trying to sell you something or a fat loss program. I am trying to get you to understand that healthy fat loss is totally achievable without starving the body and it can be done in a way that makes you happy and full of energy. So society/tv/commercials and all those other crack heads/snake oil salesman have it wrong, starving yourself to lose fat is not the answer end of story.

4) Get used to the idea that there are going to be the naysayers out there saying that their "diet" is the best. What else is new, any diet that restricts good healthy foods like fruits, good fats, and healthy carbs is just that it is a diet, not a lifestyle change that will serve you better in the long run. We need to find what works for us and if you trust mfp, log accurately and religiously then it will work for you.

5) Why 1200/day as the minimum? Well this part is debated hotly around here, the reasoning behind that is that it is pretty hard to get the proper nutrition into your body on this low of an intake, so that is why they enforce it so strongly on the site. It is not an arbitrary number they pulled out of thin air, it has been proven several times over that 1200 or less a day is not advisable. Yes you can function on less but do you really want to be walking around starving the body and depleting muscle?

6) Starvation mode what is it? Well simply put starvation mode is not starving yourself from a hunger standpoint. The starvation mode they speak of is when the body is not being fed what it needs so in turn it will slow down the metabolic rate and effectively shut down fat loss. It happens daily on here and the number 1 reason for plateaus as ppl call them on here is that they are simply not eating enough. You can not expect to train like an olympian and eat like a mouse and expect fat loss, it is simple physics. The body need X amount of fuel to run, and X+more for effective fat loss, it is figuring out what amounts work for you to make fat loss a real thing.

So I hope this helps to clear up some misconceptions out there and if you have a question feel free to ask, I will do my best to answer it.

jeannas

Thank you..I am saving this to explain Mfp to my friends.

wendyleach

bump

Dellonious1

Thank you for posting this.. I am new to this site. This cleared a few questions up that I had...
I have a question for you. When X food has 25 calories then it says 5 calories from fat...Does that mean it has a total of 30 calories?

jasonweinberg

an alternate veiwpoint: mfp is a food diary and calculator website. its a tool. use it how you wish. consult your doctor if you are on a weight-loss diet and follow their instructions. there are a lot of people here who seem to believe somehow there is some kind of "one size fits all" program for everyone. there is not. a lot of people here who are not in fact nutritionists or doctors like to play them online. don't listen to them. just because someone posts something online sure as hell doesn't make it true. next thing you know someone from nigeria is going to be transferring millions to your bank account, right?

lil_missfit

Bump

rosybella9

Thank you for posting this.. I am new to this site. This cleared a few questions up that I had...
I have a question for you. When X food has 25 calories then it says 5 calories from fat...Does that mean it has a total of 30 calories?

Nope. The calorie listing at the beginning of the nutrition label is all inclusive. It just breaks out the calories from fat to give people a more objective idea of how much fat is in that food.

lil_missfit

Thanks for the post. This makes lots of sense. I have gone to my doctor for weight loss help in the past and all he did was put me on weight loss pills and monitored me while on them. Some are perhaps family doctors who are not weight loss experts either. Some doctors are over weight themselves. I have spoken to a registered dietician and a personal trainer however, who have given me advice along these same lines as you. Whether you are a nutritious or not, you definitely give sound advice and have managed to have broken this down and explained it better than so called "professionals" I've gone to for help. Two words for you.....Thank you. I love your willingness to help others:))

jeffrodgers1

I am going to second what NewfieDan says.... I too am very much proof of this. This is about lifestyle. Most of my weightloss came from lifestyle change before I found MFP. MFP has substantiated most of what I was already doing and provided me an easy source of tracking my daily totals (good bye notebooks!)

Consider that your metabolism is an engine. That engine drives your life... if an engine burns too much fuel it becomes inefficient, if you fuel it too little, it stalls. Drive faster (exercise) and your body needs more fuel. It will not run without fuel and will break down (in this case it will start to consume your muscle tissue (catabolisis).

Secondly, it is widely considered true that your body requires a certain number of calories to achieve all the necessary nutrients you require to remain healthy. Failing that and your body enters starvation mode. Basically you don't absorb the correct amounts of vitamins and minerals, your metabolism stalls and you start losing muscle. This essentially what happens in anorexia and bulimia.

I started out at 320+ pounds and after countless fad diets, workout routines, pills, and solutions, I realized that I needed to change my lifestyle to achieve health. I learned thru research that the 500 calorie per day deficit is a generally accepted healthy weight loss standard (accross a multitude of plans and programs). Here at MFP the 500 calorie deficit is built into your daily total.

Treat this for what it is... it is a lifestyle guide. As one poster put it... I am not a doctor, I don't play one on tv. But the results are astounding, the price is fantastic, and the support from your fellow MFP'ers is GREAT! If you can log faithfully, exercise reasonably, and use your common sense... this is a great place to be!

NewfieDan... Thanks for Posting this! Your passion for helping everyone is incredible! I applaud your continued efforts.

jasonweinberg

and i still maintain that this site is over-run with self-proclaimed "experts" posting psuedo-science as fact. if you had a bad experience with a medical professional regards to weight-loss then perhaps that doctor is not the right doctor to be consulting for weight-loss. obviously, weight-loss pills are not the answer. but there are trained doctors and nutritionists out there who can be of great help and many of them will tell you things that contradict what this poster has told you. what may seem right for him, may not be right for you and others. and most certainly we are all free to use the toool that is mfp however we as individuals choose to use it.

lil_missfit

That's great. Thanks for sharing. Glad you got it out of your system:)) Just like this poster has shared what he believes is important ( which is his right ) .....so have you ( which is your right ) so hopefully we can all move on. People can post what they want on here. Thanks for letting us alllllllll know that you do not agree with this post.

Newfiedan

I made no claim to be an expert, I simply stated how the site is setup and the theory behind it. Whether or not you chose to follow it is entirely up to you. There are lots of so called experts on here trying to push their way, the only way I endorse is the healthy way, It is health over weight for me, advocating healthy fat loss vs unhealthy fat loss is where I stand.

MericoX

Thanks for the explanation!!

MericoX

Thanks for the explanation!!

theresaaugello

and i still maintain that this site is over-run with self-proclaimed "experts" posting psuedo-science as fact. if you had a bad experience with a medical professional regards to weight-loss then perhaps that doctor is not the right doctor to be consulting for weight-loss. obviously, weight-loss pills are not the answer. but there are trained doctors and nutritionists out there who can be of great help and many of them will tell you things that contradict what this poster has told you. what may seem right for him, may not be right for you and others. and most certainly we are all free to use the toool that is mfp however we as individuals choose to use it.

The poster never stated that this is how everyone should do things. He did an awesome job of explaining what some people can't seem to grasp on this site. I work in a hospital...in surgery and have asked a multitude of surgeons (bariatric, orthopedic and otherwise) if weight loss is sometimes unobtainable for people. Every single one has said that everyone can do it by simply excersizing and eating right. It's just that people opt to try and find the quickest and easiest solutions.

ImperfektAngel

an alternate veiwpoint: mfp is a food diary and calculator website. its a tool. use it how you wish. consult your doctor if you are on a weight-loss diet and follow their instructions. there are a lot of people here who seem to believe somehow there is some kind of "one size fits all" program for everyone. there is not. a lot of people here who are not in fact nutritionists or doctors like to play them online. don't listen to them. just because someone posts something online sure as hell doesn't make it true. next thing you know someone from nigeria is going to be transferring millions to your bank account, right?

haha! my doctor told me to eat 1200 caloried a day! I have not gone below 1500 calories since I started to diet! and have lost 64 lbs!

MyaPapaya75

I have to agree with both the original poster and jasonweinberg
its great to have someone explain how the site works IF there are people who are interested in following step by step...BUT I do think that many many people lose weight on here just as "healthy" doing it their own way and how they choose. Just because their way isnt your way or the sites way doesnt deem it "unhealthy"...MFP is just a guide its not the cure-all for everyones obesity issues some of us have to alter and fix things to better suit our lifestyles and needs and come out just as successful as those who maybe follow step by step Im sure....

Newfiedan

What it boils down to is that there are many paths to weight loss, it is simply a matter of what you choose to follow, the healthy path of which there are many, and the unhealthy paths of which there are many. You can smoke crack and shed weight, is it healthy? Not really lol. You can also eat twinkies and shed weight, but that is not advisable either. Just because you (jasonweinberg ) found a path that works for you does not make it any more right or wrong than the next. I stand behind the healthy path because it has worked quite effectively for me and many others, I do not call ppl down for how they get to the goal, I do encourage them to do it in a healthy manner which anyone with a grain of common sense should. You (jasonweinberg ) totally missed the point of what my original post was about which is how mfp is setup instead you went off on a rant about me proclaiming to be an expert which was never written or stated in the original post. You lost a lot of weight congrats, but to attempt to derail and sidetrack what the original post was about...

ysamatar

Bump! Thank you.

jasonweinberg

well said myasteme..

rileysowner

As far as I can tell the only one advocating anything is that one disagreeing with the first post which is simply an explanation of how MFP works. If you don't like how it does things you can use it as a tool anyway, but for many they want something like MFP that does all the figuring for them. In that case understanding how the site works is important and helpful. I personally set my own calories since I use lean mass to calculate my calorie requirements based on other formulas. Other than that I use MFP as it is designed to be used.

jasonweinberg

yep. that's how i lost my weight: smoking crack. the secret is out. lol. seriously though, as i told you in my private message, my real beef is the ridicuously dramatic and unsubstantiated manner in which you present "starvation mode" and yet claim it is "proven over and over". netting less than 1200 calories 2-3 days in a row will put you into "starvation mode"? seriously?

dave4d

I agree. The original poster was just explaining how mfp works. He wasn't saying that is the only way to lose weight. There are a lot of people who tweak their goals to fit in with the way they want to do things. Some of it is still healthy, some isn't. The calories mfp recommends can be accurate, but they can be off too. It is best to tweak it if it isn't working. Sometimes people have a faster, or slower metabolism than the average person. They will need to make adjustments to their goals accordingly.

Most of us are not experts. We only know what has worked for us, or what others have said work for them.

ladyhawk00

It's fine to disagree and debate - but please keep it on topic and respectful, folks. You can disagree with the opinion or message, but no insulting or attacking the messenger. A healthy debate is always welcome and every opinion is valued, as long as you voice it respectfully. :flowerforyou:

Thanks for your cooperation.
Ladyhawk00
MyFitnessPal Forum Moderator

lil_missfit

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I have to agree with both the original poster and jasonweinberg
its great to have someone explain how the site works IF there are people who are interested in following step by step...BUT I do think that many many people lose weight on here just as "healthy" doing it their own way and how they choose. Just because their way isnt your way or the sites way doesnt deem it "unhealthy"...MFP is just a guide its not the cure-all for everyones obesity issues some of us have to alter and fix things to better suit our lifestyles and needs and come out just as successful as those who maybe follow step by step Im sure....

I increased MFP recommendation to eat only 1200 calories up to 1360. 1200 wasn't working for me, so in that respect I can understand what you're saying. I do agree with the OP because [for me] in the past I have taken the pills my doctor put me on and lost 40+ pounds. The pills zapped out my appetite completely and I couldn't eat if I tried. I worked out HARD everyday and when I did eat it was small portions....then he would take me off the pills and I would stop losing even though I was working out. I also never ate back exercise calories ( too afraid ). I gained every pound back both times. I can't afford nutritionalist and personal trainers....but I have spoken to two. Both have said to replenish your body after you workout and you need the extra calories. Even people in the "expert" world disagree but I think it would be safe to say that our bodies need proper nutrients w/o getting all technical

RadicalCharlie

It's probably best not to argue with Newfiedan.
He is just explaining how MFP works.

I personally don't use it for what it was designed for, and no one is obligated to use it that way.

I'd personally rather starve myself and not eat back my exercise calories to lose weight because that works for me.

jasonweinberg

but that is my whole point: you are not "starving yourself". that is exactly what drives me nuts. this whole idea that if you burn 750 calories via exercise and it brings you blow a net calories of 1200 you "are starving yourself" is patently absurd, yet people toss it around here as if it is fact.

Newfiedan

like my original post said, starving yourself and starvation mode as it is often called (which I happen to disagree with the name of) has nothing to do with actually being physically hungry.

Rodneymc4

Thanks, there must be some truth to this eating back exercise calories thing,

I'm having a hard time eating as much food as this site suggest I eat. I do know that I have lost a considerable amount of muscle with the hope that I would be losing fat...unfortunately the muscle left and the fat stayed. I was still losing weight, but not the weight I wanted to lose. I exercise A LOT, and I don't understand the problem...maybe I am not eating enough food.

Forensi

Seriously man, I think you need to find some resources other than this website and read them and you will find that what Dan is saying is 100% correct not only in relation to this site but to many health and fitness experts across the board.

Newfiedan

The easiest way to answer that question is to try a week or 2 of eating more, worst case scenario you have lost 1 or 2 weeks which in the long run will not hurt you. The only way to tell for sure is to simply try it.