Daily Calorie Goal Change?

kimbernic

Hi guys, I am a bit confused this morning. I weighed in and found I have lost 10 pounds using MFP. It asked me if I wanted to automatically update my goals. I accepted and then when I went to check my day I am now allowed an extra 300 calories per day. I double checked that the goals and they were acceptable and the only info that changed was my weight. Anyone know why I can now eat more calories?

kimbernic

Oh, and that change was not due to excersise done during the day. Sorry, forgot to mention that in the original post.

ladyhawk00

As you lose weight, your goal will change because it takes less cals to move your body for your daily activities. So when you tell MFP to recalculate, it will change your goal.

However, that generally results in a slight increase or decrease. 300 is too much for that to be the case. Are you sure your loss per week goal did not change? That is more likely for a 300 increase. I would double check all of your numbers again, and go into Weigh in, Edit previous entries, and ensure that all of your weigh in numbers are correct.

ambie35

Maybe when it did the update it automatically changed your goals to half a pound or something

tikilu

Try going into your settings and manually update your diet/ fitness profile, the automatic function hasn't worked properly for me or my hubby so we have been re doing it manually to make sure it's right!

ivansmomma

I've been having problemswith this as well. I went in to manually change the "weight goal per week" and it shows up as the same thing. I want to change it from 0.9 per week to 1 pound per week and it keeps going back to 0.9. Any suggestions?

kimbernic

I checked again and I am wondering if originally I had a goal of more than a pound a week. I do remember setting for a pound a week because I didn't have a ton of time to work in exercise. Hmm..... I will have to play with that and see how it changes. Thanks Guys!!

ladyhawk00

I've been having problemswith this as well. I went in to manually change the "weight goal per week" and it shows up as the same thing. I want to change it from 0.9 per week to 1 pound per week and it keeps going back to 0.9. Any suggestions?

If you want to change how much you lose per week, you'll need to calculate exactly how much the deficit should be and set your daily cal goal for that amount. You can't choose a different guided loss per week goal - as in, if it is defaulting to .9 lbs, you can't change it to 1 lb.

Keep in mind also, when you set manual goals, if you go back into guided goals at any time, it will reset ALL of the goals to guided. So try not to do that. lol

And, if you have a manual cal goal, MFP will not prompt you to recalculate every 10 lbs.

kimbernic

I have noticed I was averaging over 1 1/2 pounds per week when I lost the 10 pounds despite it being set for 1 pound a week weight loss. Do you think that could have anything to do with the extra calories when it recalculated? Is the site logic smart enough to look at past stats to calculate future calories? I am still racking my brain. I did change my weekly goal to a pound and a half which got my calories closer to what I was following before but It is still a little higher. I am a pretty big girl so a pound and a half is not pushing too hard for me.

ladyhawk00

I have noticed I was averaging over 1 1/2 pounds per week when I lost the 10 pounds despite it being set for 1 pound a week weight loss. Do you think that could have anything to do with the extra calories when it recalculated? Is the site logic smart enough to look at past stats to calculate future calories? I am still racking my brain. I did change my weekly goal to a pound and a half which got my calories closer to what I was following before but It is still a little higher. I am a pretty big girl so a pound and a half is not pushing too hard for me.

Nope, it won't do that. It's really just a "dumb" tool - it just takes the basic info you give it and uses BMR + activity level to determine maintenance cals. Then it subtracts whatever deficit is necessary for the loss per week goal you chose (or close to it - I'm not really sure why it sometimes uses .7 or .9 instead of the whole number.)

You were likely losing at a higher rate just because at the beginning, most people lose a lot of water weight in addition to some fat. It's normal and slows down after a couple of weeks.

The only thing I can think of is if you entered a weigh in incorrectly, had your age/height incorrect or if you had your loss goal different. The simple recalculation it does when you've lost 10 lbs is usually only maybe 50 cals decrease.