The "Olivia Method" - the cool new way to set up your MFP go

BJC78

144 lbs. 5'6 goal weight 135

CyberEd312

Maybe I am not reading this right, but how is this any different than setting your BMR by MFP and setting it to sedentary and then whatever you want to lose (mine is set to 1.5 lbs. lost a week) this then give me my daily caloric intake (with my deficit already built in to lose 1.5 lbs a week) and then when I exercise, i eat those calories back. Doesn't that get the same results??? If not please explain... My deficit (set by MFP is 750 calories less a day) which even when I eat back my exercise calories, I try to stay when 250 calories of that 750 calorie deficit which gives me a 1000 calorie deficit for that day. On days I take off exercise then my deficit is already built into my MFP calories so I just eat to my net...

rosepetals_03

I can't believe I'm posting about a method named after myself, but it really was the easiest way for people to recognize it - and it's kind of cool

So this is a special thread stemming from the impromptu popularity of something discussed here: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/406319-a-different-way-to-set-up-mfp-goals-that-works

I started doing this after a meeting with a sports nutritionist. I found a way to set up MFP so I could see my daily deficit each day, and I could maximize my calorie burn on heavy workout days, and not have to eat like a bird on my non workout days.

This is mostly appropriate for people who's maintenance calories before exercise are less than 2200. At 2200 or above, you can safely create a 1000 calorie deficit without exercise - so if you set up MFP to lose 2 pounds a week it would set your calories to 1200. You would then eat all your exercise calories and keep your 1000 calorie deficit, making noticeable progress quite achievable.

When you have less to lose, your options are to decrease your deficit by eating more, or eat less and run the danger of a weight loss plateau because your body isn't getting the nutrients it needs for basic functioning. Well we can all agree that eating less (under your BMR) is not a good way to go. We could try setting to .5 lb a week weight loss, but there's not a lot of wiggle room with 250 calories, and a few off calculations with exercise and food and you could find yourself gaining, not losing.

With this method, you can reach whatever deficit you want day by day, and you will know that you are safely keeping your deficit under 1000 (2 lbs a week loss). Rather than force feed yourself on high calorie burn workout days,, you can use those great workouts to maximize your weight loss - which, let's face it, is probably one of the main reasons why we workout to begin with.

If you'd like to try this method or need help figuring out how to set up your MFP goals, feel free to post your info: weight and BMR and I or someone will help you out.

So here are the guidelines:

Step 1: Figure out your BMR - this is your body's calorie requirements for basic functioning. You would burn this if you just stayed in bed all day. There is a BMR calculator on this site under TOOLS. This is going to be your minimum number. You will be aiming to eat at least this much, or about 100 calories higher per day, whether you workout or not.

Step 2: Figure out your Maintenance calories before exercise. You can use MFP's calculations based on your activity level. My nutritionist used an easy calculation of BMR x 1.3 (for light activity). This is the number you're going to set your MFP calorie goal to. You're not going to eat this number, but it will be a marker for how much of a deficit you are creating.

Step 3: Figure out how many exercise calories it will take to reach a 1000 calorie deficit (the maximum). Do this by adding 1000 to your BMR, and then subtract your maintenance calories (the number you found in step 2). This number will let you know how many calories you can burn through exercise without eating them back. If you burn more than this number, you will HAVE to eat the surplus calories at least to keep your safe 1000 calorie deficit.

I'll use myself as an example for the calculations:

Step 1: BMR = 1480
Step 2: BMR x 1.3 (1480 x1.3) = 1924
Step 3: (BMR + 1000) - maintenance/ 1480 + 1000 - 1924 = 556.

So I set my MFP calorie goal to 1924.
I aim to eat at least 1500 - 1600 calories per day, regardless of exercise, but definitely no less than 1480.
If I burn more than 556 through exercise on a given day, I should eat at least the surplus calories. So if I burn 800 calories through exercise, I would want to eat at least 244 calories above my goal of 1500 - so at least 1744.

Now for the fun part. When you look at your numbers in your tracker, the green number under the word REMAINING will show your total deficit for the day. The smaller that number, the closer you are to maintaining your weight. If that number is near 500 and you kept it like that for a week you would lose 1 pound. If that number is near 1000, you would lose 2 pounds. I usually aim to keep that number between 500 - 1000. I personally LOVE being able to see my deficit for the day. It really makes me feel in control of my weight loss. I have a small deficit on my days off from working out, and I have a larger deficit on my long run days (big calorie burns).

One more thing - don't forget to readjust your numbers as you lose weight!!

Good luck and happy deficit creating!

GAH!!! My brain is fried today.... here are my numbers... can you help?!
My BMR: 1283 (according to MFP)
My Maintenance: 1539.6
My 3rd Number: 743.40

After this I'm basically lost... on a regular/non-work out day how many calories should I consume? If I workout and burn 350 calories (for example) how many calories would I need to consume that day?? Thanks a bunch!!! EDITED to add: I'm 26yrs old and 5'2" 130lbs if this matters

olivia3263

Maybe I am not reading this right, but how is this any different than setting your BMR by MFP and setting it to sedentary and then whatever you want to lose (mine is set to 1.5 lbs. lost a week) this then give me my daily caloric intake (with my deficit already built in to lose 1.5 lbs a week) and then when I exercise, i eat those calories back. Doesn't that get the same results??? If not please explain... My deficit (set by MFP is 750 calories less a day) which even when I eat back my exercise calories, I try to stay when 250 calories of that 750 calorie deficit which gives me a 1000 calorie deficit for that day. On days I take off exercise then my deficit is already built into my MFP calories so I just eat to my net...

Ok, so for me, if I were to set my calories the MFP way, with a sedentary setting it would have me at 1776 calories a day to maintain. If I wanted to set it up so that I lost 1.5 pounds a week, it would have me eating 1200 (less than 1.5 pounds a week because it won't go below 1200 - to lose 1.5 pounds a week I would have to eat 1,026 which isn't safe). If I choose 1 pound a week, it gives me 1276. Now for someone like me who runs a lot, i would have to eat VERY little on my off days, and then eat quite a lot on my long run days, still only running a smallish deficit. I could choose not to eat all my exercise calories to create a larger deficit, but it would be unclear how many I could not eat back without forcing my body into panic mode.

By doing it this way, I have a minimum safety number I need to hit, and then I can see the deficit I'm creating, making sure to keep it in a safe zone of less than 1000. If I want to reach a greater deficit, I know how much I need to work out to achieve it.

For people who have less to lose, and women in particular, it is harder to work the numbers when it caps off at 1200 net. It's a way for us to lose weight at a noticeable rate without being unhealthy.

olivia3263

GAH!!! My brain is fried today.... here are my numbers... can you help?!
My BMR: 1283 (according to MFP)
My Maintenance: 1539.6
My 3rd Number: 743.40

After this I'm basically lost... on a regular/non-work out day how many calories should I consume? If I workout and burn 350 calories (for example) how many calories would I need to consume that day?? Thanks a bunch!!! EDITED to add: I'm 26yrs old and 5'2" 130lbs if this matters

Set MFP to 1540. Aim to eat 1300 each day both on workout days and non-workout days. You'll be creating a 260 calorie deficit before working out. You can reach the maximum deficit of 1000 by burning 743 calories during exercise. If you burn a larger amount than this, you need to eat the surplus calories. If you burn 350 calories, and stick to eating 1300, you'll reach a deficit of 590 (if you averaged this for the week you would lose 1 pound).

chrissy1965

thank you Olivia will give it a go..

vs1023

OK. I've been thinking about this all day and here's what I've come up with:

I weigh 155 lbs and my BMR is 1435 cals. Maintenance is 1790. So I set my goal to maintenance and my activity level to sedentary. My goal will be to eat around 1435 leaving me a deficit of 355 on non-workout days. If I burn more than 645 cals in exercise I need to eat more, but this is where I'm stuck.

Two questions:
1. How in the world are you people burning 600 calories or more in exercise per day? I never burn that much (that I know of - I don't have a HRM).
2. So say I burn 700 cals in exercise, how many cals do I need to eat at that point?

This is a super interesting method! I'm excited

I would get a HRM. I take BodyPump and BodyCombat 3-4 days a week and for each one I can burn 500-600cals. Sometimes I do both classes back to back burning 1100-1200 cals according to my HRM which is a Polar F7.

sdwelk11

Think I get it.. Bumping to try it

kikkipoo

Hmmm, weekly thread, or new group? Which do you think we should do?

I would prefer a group. It's so much easier to follow without having to search down a weekly thread.

joclougherty

GAH!!! My brain is fried today.... here are my numbers... can you help?!
My BMR: 1283 (according to MFP)
My Maintenance: 1539.6
My 3rd Number: 743.40

After this I'm basically lost... on a regular/non-work out day how many calories should I consume? If I workout and burn 350 calories (for example) how many calories would I need to consume that day?? Thanks a bunch!!! EDITED to add: I'm 26yrs old and 5'2" 130lbs if this matters

Set MFP to 1540. Aim to eat 1300 each day both on workout days and non-workout days. You'll be creating a 260 calorie deficit before working out. You can reach the maximum deficit of 1000 by burning 743 calories during exercise. If you burn a larger amount than this, you need to eat the surplus calories. If you burn 350 calories, and stick to eating 1300, you'll reach a deficit of 590 (if you averaged this for the week you would lose 1 pound).

Hi Olivia, that totally makes sense. I feel the same, even though I'm not running as much as you, I'm probably doing 20-25 miles per week and as my weight got lower, MFP was only giving me 1200 cals per day which I couldn't possibly do! That was only to lost 1lb per week and I just thought, this can't be right, I'm doing loads of exercise, why is it so low. I changed it to only lose .5lb per week for the last 6 weeks but have hardly lost anything. The same 3/4 pounds keeps going off then on again. I do tend to zig zag a bit unintentionally because I eat more at the weekend than in the week so hopefully I'll get some results with your method. I also wanted to say that now I've set it up, when I look at my Iphone app the deficit for the week is great, so this week it's about 4000 but when I go back to the last month or so, if I'd been using this method my deficit was only about 1000 per week for what I was eating, so no wonder I didn't lose. Can't get my head around that........

CyberEd312

Maybe I am not reading this right, but how is this any different than setting your BMR by MFP and setting it to sedentary and then whatever you want to lose (mine is set to 1.5 lbs. lost a week) this then give me my daily caloric intake (with my deficit already built in to lose 1.5 lbs a week) and then when I exercise, i eat those calories back. Doesn't that get the same results??? If not please explain... My deficit (set by MFP is 750 calories less a day) which even when I eat back my exercise calories, I try to stay when 250 calories of that 750 calorie deficit which gives me a 1000 calorie deficit for that day. On days I take off exercise then my deficit is already built into my MFP calories so I just eat to my net...

Ok, so for me, if I were to set my calories the MFP way, with a sedentary setting it would have me at 1776 calories a day to maintain. If I wanted to set it up so that I lost 1.5 pounds a week, it would have me eating 1200 (less than 1.5 pounds a week because it won't go below 1200 - to lose 1.5 pounds a week I would have to eat 1,026 which isn't safe). If I choose 1 pound a week, it gives me 1276. Now for someone like me who runs a lot, i would have to eat VERY little on my off days, and then eat quite a lot on my long run days, still only running a smallish deficit. I could choose not to eat all my exercise calories to create a larger deficit, but it would be unclear how many I could not eat back without forcing my body into panic mode.

By doing it this way, I have a minimum safety number I need to hit, and then I can see the deficit I'm creating, making sure to keep it in a safe zone of less than 1000. If I want to reach a greater deficit, I know how much I need to work out to achieve it.

For people who have less to lose, and women in particular, it is harder to work the numbers when it caps off at 1200 net. It's a way for us to lose weight at a noticeable rate without being unhealthy.

Ok makes more sense for those that are getting put under 1200 calories daily, I don't have that problem lol and probably never will. My BMR (calories remaining) with my deficit figured in still leaves me with 2480 calories to consume daily and that is before you start adding in my exercise calories are figures in. I will pass this on to a few friends that are closer to that 1200 a day number.... Thanks.....

rosied915

Maybe I am not reading this right, but how is this any different than setting your BMR by MFP and setting it to sedentary and then whatever you want to lose (mine is set to 1.5 lbs. lost a week) this then give me my daily caloric intake (with my deficit already built in to lose 1.5 lbs a week) and then when I exercise, i eat those calories back. Doesn't that get the same results??? If not please explain... My deficit (set by MFP is 750 calories less a day) which even when I eat back my exercise calories, I try to stay when 250 calories of that 750 calorie deficit which gives me a 1000 calorie deficit for that day. On days I take off exercise then my deficit is already built into my MFP calories so I just eat to my net...

WOW~ just wanted to Congratulate you on your outstanding success!! I read your story and you are quite an inspiration to all of us here!! Would you think about posting here with us sharing some of YOUR secrets? Congratulations again!

So, Good Morning Everyone!

As far as Group, Weekly, etc goes~ I vote for whatever keeps this going!

olivia3263

Ok, I created a group. Here it is: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/groups/home/1170-olivia-method

cruzanna

bump

Charlotte012

bump

joclougherty

Ok, I created a group. Here it is: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/groups/home/1170-olivia-method

Joined!

kikkipoo

Thanks Olivia. You've become an instant icon!

kikkipoo

Bump because this is exactly what those of us who are trapped in MFP's 1200 minimum calorie nightmare need.

getsveltEagain

So my numbers would be:
BMR = 1580
1580 * 1.3 = 2054
(1580 + 1000) - 2054 = 526

So I would set my calorie goal to 2054 and then eat about 1554 a day to lose half a pound. But that is a half a pound a day right?

With the exercise I would do something like this.... If I burn more than 526 on a given day I would eat the surplus. For example, if I burn 750 calories I would eat 224 making my day total 1778.

edit: I am currently 170 lbs, 5'3.5", female, and 30yrs old. On an average day (according to my Bodybugg) I burn 2000/2100 calories (24hr day/midnight-to-midnight)

Not half a pound a day - gosh, that would be amazing, wouldn't it? Amazing but not so safe. It takes 3500 calorie deficit to create 1 pound loss. If you average 500 calories a day, that equals 1 pound lost in a week (500 x 7). So if you create a 500 calorie average deficit everyday for 7 days, you'd lose a pound.

Thanks for the reply... I thought that half a pound a day was too extreme!? Did the math with the exercise make sense?

Iceskatefanrn

This looks completely fascinating, and I'm just now starting a more intense gym-committment routine, but I just can't read-digest this right now! Plan to really STUDY it later on!

Thanx for sharing!

:drinker: :drinker: :drinker:

Ice

kit548emt

I've always been so confused by all of this, and read a lot of information on it but the way you explained it made more sense to me (after I read it a few times lol ) I've set mine to calculate that way. I'm anxious to see how it works out.

Thanks for the info!!!

DoubleE615312

bump for saving....

HealingMe

Oh gosh, this method just seems really confusing. Isn't there a way I can set up my MFP to show me EXACTLY how many calories I can eat and still lose at least 2 lbs a week? Trying to remember how many calories to leave in the green just seems to complicated.

pbaker8307

Bump

palak126

Is it OK to net less than 1200 calories per day?

My numbers-
BMR: 1274
Maintenance: 1656
Max exercise burn w/o eating back calories: 618

So if I eat 1274 and burn 618 (to get a max deficit of 1000) that would put my net at 656 calories. Is it okay to net less than 1200??

kerrbear20

bump. im going for this

sjpowell24

To much for my Mummy Brain..... Bugger!!!

Soon2BeMrsThomson

Help!!

I know my targets etc are set up all wrong and this is why I'm not losing just maintaining which is not good as I have a long way to go to my target (168lbs) - I'm 5'7 and weigh 264lbs - MBR is 1984 and I do 3 x sessions a week earning 500 cals a time. What should I set my targets at to lose 2lbs per week?

Any help would be much appreciated!!

Thanks

Donna x

I would say the same for you as well. If you have more to lose, it's easier to create a 1000 calorie deficit before exercise, so I would stick with the traditional MFP goals, and eat your exercise calories to create that deficit. Just set up MFP to lose 2 pounds a week

Thanks for your help Olivia, much appreciated!!

olivia3263

Is it OK to net less than 1200 calories per day?

My numbers-
BMR: 1274
Maintenance: 1656
Max exercise burn w/o eating back calories: 618

So if I eat 1274 and burn 618 (to get a max deficit of 1000) that would put my net at 656 calories. Is it okay to net less than 1200??

Apparently it is. You get scolded by MFP if you eat under 1200 actual calories when you complete your diary, but you don't when you net under 1200. This is something that tripped me up to, but if you think about it, the only way for someone with a low BMR to get a decent deficit is to net under 1200 (using exercise of course, and making sure to eat at least your BMR). I would still go by how your body feels. I can only go about 3 days netting that low and then I feel yucky, so I have to spend a day or two with a smaller deficit and I feel better.

kikih64

Might give this a try. Thanks for the post!