An easier way to setup goal calories - eating for who you wi

heybales

So I have actually been doing the above and those figures I used aren't far off my own. The only variations are that I take one day off dieting where I eat maintenance level or above and I'm actually exercising a bit more and not eating back those calories. However my observed weight loss is 11.5 pounds. I follow a low-moderate carb regime and I know from my off-diet days (and past experience) that this type of diet causes me to drop up to 4 pounds of water. But that still leaves me with 7.5 pounds of genuine weight loss. Almost 3 times the amount I would expect following your hypothesis (if I have understood you correctly).

I also feel very healthy, haven't been unwell during that period, have plenty of energy and are sleeping well.

Clearly one persons experiences do not make scientific fact, but I'd be interested in your thoughts of how my observations challenge your hypothesis, or not.

Because it depends on the amount of the deficit, how big was the drop to begin with in general, how much was the drop under healthy estimated BMR, how messed up was your BMR from past diets constantly going up and down, how are your genetics for dealing with it anyway (strong stock?), what was true BMR, ect.
Those things can all determine how quickly your body responded to the lack of energy for required functions.
All things very difficult to impossible to try to experiment with if the suggestions cause you to start out on the low end of super stressing your system. You can either start at safe end, or potentially unsafe end. You may luck out too, in which case MFP has worked for you for a long time, and no need to change.

If never really abusing your system with cycling diets every few years, and good genetics, it could take as long 6-8 weeks for the system to lower. And while a 20% drop, perhaps your true healthy BMR is 2000 instead of estimated 2200.
So you'll see more normally expected weight loss at the beginning, probably tapering off, depending on how long it takes your system to respond. And if you don't have much to lose, that works just fine, if you started with a healthy BMR at first.
So for a while, your BMR is buzzing along up here, your calories are down here, you got great 600 deficit. And that slowly but surely shrinks. Now, it could take longer if BMR was actually lower than estimate.

As far as feeling under weather or tired, probably not if good genetics. If prone to sickness, this would stress the system.

But, you are also NOT keeping it suppressed constantly. For your system, often enough eating high to help it. Others have found they have to do that every 3 days, or everyday have a variation, it prevents a stall. Which this method automatically does if you have exercise at least sometimes.

heybales

Someone suggested making a group for ones to post how they are doing if following this routine.
Or to warn of hazards in the method, ect.

You must have 3 people to join the group before you can create it.

Whose in?

Can also have other moderators - any desire?

And a name, and image. Thinking of "Eating for Future You - better goal calories"

Any thoughts, rotten tomatoes, peanuts from the gallery?

joclougherty

Someone suggested making a group for ones to post how they are doing if following this routine.
Or to warn of hazards in the method, ect.

You must have 3 people to join the group before you can create it.

Whose in?

Can also have other moderators - any desire?

And a name, and image. Thinking of "Eating for Future You - better goal calories"

Any thoughts, rotten tomatoes, peanuts from the gallery?

I'm in! Thanks for replying to my post. I'm still a bit confused about what MFP will say when I enter my cals but I'm going to adjust it now and see :0

SteveTries

I'm happy to join as a skeptic if you like :-)

becjerami

Someone suggested making a group for ones to post how they are doing if following this routine.
Or to warn of hazards in the method, ect.

You must have 3 people to join the group before you can create it.

Whose in?

Can also have other moderators - any desire?

And a name, and image. Thinking of "Eating for Future You - better goal calories"

Any thoughts, rotten tomatoes, peanuts from the gallery?

I'm in!

carolann_22

Hey, I did this, and the recommended calories is about 250 cals lower than my current BMR. BUT, I'm quite overweight. Is this okay, as in, not going to cause a problem with BMR? Thanks!

moiramab

bump for next month (if stagnating XD)

eileen7316

I'll try it too. Let us know about the group.

joclougherty

Can you just check my figures please?

I'm 41 but 42 in April so used 42 for calc. Female
I'm 158lbs and want to be 138lbs (Started at 190 on MFP but have got complacent since before Xmas and stayed the same weight)
I sleep for 8 hours but watch tv for about 2-3 hours
I work 5 days in an office
I have 3 children under 8 years
I run about 20-25 miles per week at approx 11 min miles (4 hours approximately per week)
I do about 2 hours housework per week
I am always active at the weekend, probably walk for an hour/housework for an hour/cooking/playing with kids etc. rarely sit down except when the kids go to bed.

I used:
Rest 10 hours
Very light 13 hours
Light .5
Heavy .5

This gave me at my current weight BMR 1453, exc cals 621 and total cals 2074. At my goal weight of 138 it gave me BMR 1367, exc cals 584 and total cals 1951.

Compared to MFP - if I put in my current weight and click maintain weight, it gives me 2050 cals so very similar, but I have to be on ACTIVE setting to get that much. From my description above would I really be active? I would never have set myself to that on MFP, I was on sedentary at first then changed it to lightly active because I was starving!

My new weight on MFP - gives me 1920 cals to maintain with activity level set at active.

Is this just because MFP activity calculator isn't accurate? What cals per day do you suggest I use? Thanks a lot!!

Also, when setting up MFP do I put my weight at what it is now or what I want it to be? If I put 158 current and 138 goal weight and set up at maintenance and cals at 1951 (as per the other website) and exercise sedentary it says I will lose minus 0.4 per week, so gain........ do I change activity level to active? If I do that then it says a loss of 0.2 lbs per week.

Sorry, another thing! I can't seem to add exercise without adding calories on MFP it just won't do it.

Taking this in reverse order. Oh, excellent job already on loss!

Correct on the exercise calories. I thought I tested that out, you have to enter the big 1 calorie for it to record.

So that you can still use the loss tracker, always keep track of your current weight. In fact, when you Check-in you can manually add other items to check, like the hrs you put at the different activity levels.
But you can forget MFP's other automatic calculations now - they will be off.
Because even if you set a high activity level so maintenance calories is the same, and set to maintain weight, they will be subtracting your daily calorie goal, which now contains activity in it already. So those calcs should come close to 0.
I also think when you mess with that area, it resets your Daily Goals, I only tried once and it pissed me off after already changing a bunch of stuff. Maybe it was using their BMR calc that did it.

This method is exactly because 4 broad levels seems to scare most folks from using anything but sedentary, and then you must record your exercise calories, hopefully accurately. Well, that is the way it suggests actually. But how close is just 4 levels, as you proved to yourself was scary.
Plus, MFP is more than willing to take your too aggressive goal and push you a little or a lot under your BMR it calculated. Which is not good for long term weight loss.

You didn't mention height, but I backed into 5'7" it appears, and you did a very honest evaluation, and got the math right too for weekly hrs divided by 7. You have a very nice regular probably sustainable routine.

Using this method, you got the correct future maintenance calories of 1951, to record as your MFP manually entered Goal calories.
Which you are probably thinking looks scary high, and not far below current maintenance estimate.
True.
But that site underestimates calorie burned for activities, plus you put in true Rest time, not BMR x 1.2 for everything.
So I wouldn't be surprised if those runs burn 600-800 calories easy in reality.
So on those days, net is now 1351 on low side, plus take out all the other activity you really do. You are likely under your future and current BMR by just a small amount, hopefully small if you were honest with levels and times.
But a couple other days you'll safely be above it for recovery.

So you are never riding the line below your hopeful healthy BMR, allowing it to burn as much as it can.
And this calorie cycling, above and below BMR keeps it from settling way down for many people. So much so I've seen the calorie cycling goals. Not sure how that works easily on MFP.

Now the only thing you have to change is your Current weight whenever.
Your goal calories stay the same.
You don't record exercise calories (well, 1), just time and activity, to confirm you are hitting your exercise goals you used.
And you don't have to change the goal calories until such time as the routine really changes.
Any little sessions of exercise thrown in every few weeks won't be bad effect.

And when you get closer to goal weight, you'll find out if the estimated BMR figure was below or above your real healthy BMR figure. If estimate is above real, you'll stall a few lbs out. If below, you'll keep losing. Since a healthy BMR then, you can adjust safely to finish it off.

Sorry to keep on but I'm still getting my head around it! What is the difference between doing this and just setting my daily cals to 1600 and adding my exercise? I know it means that I don't have to eat all my exercise cals on the day I've done the exercise but I don't really do that anyway. I usually eat a bit more when I run but not all cals for the day but I do eat more at the weekend and drink wine one night per week. So, in effect I'm really looking at cal consumption for the whole week. I put in my food for the whole week (or just quick add cals eg 500 lunch, 600 dinner etc) so that I can then look at the iphone app and it tells me how many left over for the week so I know I've got some extra if I need them. I wish this website allowed you to look at your weekly cals but it doesn't.

Also, using your method and giving myself 1951 per day (13657 per week) and exercising about 2500-2800 (included in the weekly cals) how much should I expect to lose? I know I will gradually drift down to my goal weight because I will be eating the correct number of calories for that weight, but is it going to take a really long time?

Yori1

Bump for later.

KatrineJohansen

That's a really good idea!

janenightingale

bump

NellaSweet

This makes a lot of sense.

determined2lose89

Very very interesting. Bump.

jenluvsushi

Bump for reading later...thanks!

NellaSweet

bump a bit more complicated than i realized gotta come back.

toffee322

wow i tried the site and it gives me almost 2000 calories, while MFP only allows me 1500 exercise calories included. big difference! but i've been eating over calories on most days anyway.. since i get hungry or i like to snack...

jenluvsushi

I need help to really understand this. My goal weight is 160 - I went to the site that you mentioned and typed everything in and it comes up with 2163 total calories. So this is what I should be eating each day to LOSE weight??? I am currently 242 lbs.

thats about my stats (currently 243ish, goal weight possibly 160) and it says to eat 2704 to lose. just for ****s n giggles, i entered my current weight and it says i would need 3336 to maintain @243.

I am in the same boat...I'm sorry but 2700 is way too much for me at my current weight much less my goal weigh of 160. Right now my BMR is around 1800 so I am sticking to that. I have noticed that these calculators really vary...I like this one better:

http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm

I also like the advance setting where you can add in your body fat (if you know it) to get a more accurate BMR. The more muscle you have, the more calories you get. Don't get me wrong, I am all for eating more food but 2700 calories is not going to do it for me. I put my goal weight in this calculator, put the lightest activity level and estimated my future body fat % (on the high end) and guess what....it was almost exactly my current BMR....I feel like a scientist, LOL!

pickulz76

I really want to try this out as I havent had any success losing weight !
But I do need help with the calculations plz!

I am 5' 1'
Currntly at 154.1 pounds
Goal Weight 115
Age 35

For calculating activity levels (the confusing part for me) I have had a personal trainer for the last 2 weeks and I do intense workouts..and am hoping to continue for at least 2 months!

6 days a week I do 75 mins of cardio (intense) since I burn 8-9 calories a minute = 'Heavy'
3 days a week I do 30 mins of weight training ='Moderate'
6 days a week I do 15 mins of an abs workout = 'Moderate'

Resting 12
Very light 7
Light 2
Moderate 2
Heavy 1


BMR calories 1273
Excercise cals 1087
Total calories 2360

So now I change net calories consumed to '2360' ?

And I eat 2360 calories every day? Am I understanding this right??? Isnt that a lot?

Symphony6

Brilliant. Keeping an eye on this.