MFP's 5Week weight prediction?

Rayrayy3000

Did any one actually get down to the 5 week weight prediction made by MFP in the food diary? if so what what was your starting weight and what was the prediction that you achieved

fia313

I find its never even close. Much like the food data, its seems to run aimlessly.

AnnPT77

It says "If every day were like today": Same eating, same exercise, same daily life chores and such. That never happens.

Also, MFP is using statistical averages. Most people are close to average, few are exact, and a few are quite far off the averages (high or low).

Did I get down to the 5 week projection? Yeah, and then some. Why? I need more calories to maintain my weight than MFP predicts, even when I set my profile values accurately . . . like hundreds of calories more. Therefore, I lose faster than MFP expects at any deficit calorie level. It happens.

I pretty much never close my diary any more. (I'm somewhere in year 8 of counting, year 7+ of maintaining; and I often don't get dinner logged until after midnight because I'm a night owl, so it doesn't even post the diary status on my timeline.) Last time I did close my diary, MFP told me I'd have gained quite a lot of weight in 5 weeks. I didn't expect to. And I didn't. I know what my actual maintenance calorie needs are; MFP doesn't.

So: Any given individual may randomly lose faster than the 5 week prediction, slower than the 5 week prediction, or pretty close to the 5 week prediction. Mainly, that's because it's an unrealistic prediction, not because there's anything wrong with how fast we're losing weight, or how we're going about that weight loss.

My advice: Look at your actual real-world results averaged over 4-6 weeks (whole menstrual cycles if you have those). Then adjust your calorie intake as needed to achieve a sensibly moderate weight loss rate. Don't worry about MFP's projection.

Veta2018

My starting weight was 170. MFP predicted I'd weigh 159.4 lbs in 5 weeks. It's been 5 weeks and I weigh 164.8 lbs. My eating habits are the same but I've increased my cardio and strength training. I also use measurements and pictures because the scale doesn't know the difference between fat and muscle. I'm proud of my progress and confident I will reach my goal by the end of the year.

kutterba

At my age (75 in a week) I find it doesn’t apply to me. I am not that active, but then, I do watch grade school children, drive them around, and sometimes forget to eat and other times just go crazy! (Think cake & ice cream) On two occasions I got severely dehydrated ~ it doesn’t take much! Lost 10 lbs each time. 😳 I do not recommend this method. I was pretty sick. Just stick with your plan and weigh weekly. It won’t take long to discover what your right method should be. By the way, intermittent fasting works for me. Usually, my last meal of the day is in the afternoon, prior to 5pm and breakfast is around 10am. I’m comfortable with this. And remember this - men are different than women! They lose weight easily, bigger bones and muscle mass…that’s the way it goes. Good luck on your weight loss journey and drink water! My goodness, always have some to drink at hand. God bless.

Sand_TIger

Nope, not even close for me either. I purposely set my calorie goals to sedentary and then under-report the exercise I do, then usually don't even have all of my calorie allowance (I pay attention to protein goals, get veggies, don't go under 1200, etc) and the estimate is still way off. I've begun to think that as little as MFP says I need, I actually need even less energy than that to keep going. It's actually kind of disheartening!

evileyefirefly

I find that if you turn the exercise addition off on MFP you get much closer results. When it sees the large delta at the end of the day due to added exercise (I don't eat my exercise cals back) it will calculate a much larger weight loss. Mine typically are somewhere in the range of 8-10lbs from where I was at my last weigh-in which is pretty close. (Since the beginning of the month I'm down 5lbs, and 26 since July 10th so ~1.7/week) But this will also slow down the closer to your goal weight you are, and if you add in strength training/muscle building. But like it was said above MFP takes averages and calculates it from there.

Numbers wise MFP has been telling me 10lbs in 5 weeks if everything is the same as X day. I stay between 1500-1650lbs daily, the only delta is 5-6 days a week I workout and burn 1000-1500kcal. But I also average 5 days of strength training, so while I'm definitely losing fat I'm gaining muscle. (Can tell from strength tests I do about every week and a half that I'm getting stronger, and I also take hips/waist measurements to quantify)

In the end though, I think its just a way to generally encourage members to keep going. I may start a log for fun to see what it tells me daily for a month or two.

sniderjosh1

It was pretty accurate for me, but I had a super consistent eating and exercise plan at the time. If you have one day where you're "on track to lose 40 lbs" and the next day you're "on track to gain 30 lbs", you definitely shouldn't expect it to be very accurate.

wyattjenniferl97

A few times. Mostly when work was so stressful that I was just eating the same things and doing the same exercise because anything else required too much brain power.

I do the prediction once a week because the downwards trend is encouraging. I don’t expect it to be accurate.

cwolfman13

Rayrayy3000 wrote: »

Did any one actually get down to the 5 week weight prediction made by MFP in the food diary? if so what what was your starting weight and what was the prediction that you achieved

It is impossible for "everyday were like today" which is impossible to achieve. Even if you could get bang on with your calories in (you can't), your calories out are going to vary...some days you're just going to move more than other days...fidget more...exercise more or less...is the weather hotter or colder, etc. There are too many variables for everyday to be exactly the same. It also assumes your calorie target is a bang on target to lose X Lbs per week when in reality these calculators use population statistics to give you an estimate...it's not gospel and many people will fall outside of those population statistics, even if just by a little bit. Your database entries as well as exercise entries would also be assumed to be bang on perfect...which is pretty much not possible with an imperfect science.

The algorithm used for that projection is about as basic as it gets and assumes a bunch of mostly impossible assumptions.

erickirb

every day would have to be like that day for it to work. It is just math, if you were in a deficit on that day of 750 cals, your 5-week loss would be 7.5 lbs. (750*7days*5 weeks)/3,500 cals/lb

collinsje1

kutterba wrote: »

At my age (75 in a week) I find it doesn’t apply to me. I am not that active, but then, I do watch grade school children, drive them around, and sometimes forget to eat and other times just go crazy! (Think cake & ice cream) On two occasions I got severely dehydrated ~ it doesn’t take much! Lost 10 lbs each time. 😳 I do not recommend this method. I was pretty sick. Just stick with your plan and weigh weekly. It won’t take long to discover what your right method should be. By the way, intermittent fasting works for me. Usually, my last meal of the day is in the afternoon, prior to 5pm and breakfast is around 10am. I’m comfortable with this. And remember this - men are different than women! They lose weight easily, bigger bones and muscle mass…that’s the way it goes. Good luck on your weight loss journey and drink water! My goodness, always have some to drink at hand. God bless.

@kutterba You can say men lose weight differently than women sure......but to say we lose weight easily is a pretty bold and unfair statement. Ive lost a pretty significant amout of weight in the last 10 months and it has been anything but easy.

evileyefirefly

So after tracking it for a week eating 1500 calories +/- 50 the 5 week projection changed by less than a pound. I have exercise calories OFF, and with it on I find it will give you much more varied numbers.

AnnPT77

evileyefirefly wrote: »

So after tracking it for a week eating 1500 calories +/- 50 the 5 week projection changed by less than a pound. I have exercise calories OFF, and with it on I find it will give you much more varied numbers.

What's really relevant is what happens to actual body weight on average after 4-6 weeks.

The 5-weeks prediction may be a little more consistent when eating consistently for a week, but body weight will still fluctuate unpredictably over that short a time because of random water/waste fluctuations that aren't related to body fat . . . and it's still only telling you something that's based on a statistically average person, when you may not be average or even close.

evileyefirefly

AnnPT77 wrote: »

evileyefirefly wrote: »

So after tracking it for a week eating 1500 calories +/- 50 the 5 week projection changed by less than a pound. I have exercise calories OFF, and with it on I find it will give you much more varied numbers.

What's really relevant is what happens to actual body weight on average after 4-6 weeks.

The 5-weeks prediction may be a little more consistent when eating consistently for a week, but body weight will still fluctuate unpredictably over that short a time because of random water/waste fluctuations that aren't related to body fat . . . and it's still only telling you something that's based on a statistically average person, when you may not be average or even close.

Agree, I just was experimenting and tracking. From my Oct weight loss and Jul-now the predicted (Without exercise added in) is pretty close.

AnnPT77

evileyefirefly wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

evileyefirefly wrote: »

So after tracking it for a week eating 1500 calories +/- 50 the 5 week projection changed by less than a pound. I have exercise calories OFF, and with it on I find it will give you much more varied numbers.

What's really relevant is what happens to actual body weight on average after 4-6 weeks.

The 5-weeks prediction may be a little more consistent when eating consistently for a week, but body weight will still fluctuate unpredictably over that short a time because of random water/waste fluctuations that aren't related to body fat . . . and it's still only telling you something that's based on a statistically average person, when you may not be average or even close.

Agree, I just was experimenting and tracking. From my Oct weight loss and Jul-now the predicted (Without exercise added in) is pretty close.

With accurate profile settings, my actual weight change is wildly far off MFP's estimate if I add exercise calories (25-30% off), and even more wildly far off if I don't add exercise calories.

Most people are close to the statistical averages. A few aren't. I'm not.

My point is that OP needs a longer observation time to understand how average they are or aren't.

evileyefirefly

[/quote]With accurate profile settings, my actual weight change is wildly far off MFP's estimate if I add exercise calories (25-30% off), and even more wildly far off if I don't add exercise calories.

Most people are close to the statistical averages. A few aren't. I'm not.

My point is that OP needs a longer observation time to understand how average they are or aren't. [/quote]

Interesting. I'd think it would be the other way around, but obviously you're an outlier. In the end though, the MFP prediction is not really a useful tool in my opinion. I guess it serves a purpose to show you what "could be", and for some people that could be encouraging. I typically just disregard it,

jaded989

I mostly disregard it as it is way off for me. I am definitely far from average (and not in a good way). I am generally consistent day to day (calorie intake and excercise are fairly consistent) but don't I even come close to the 5 week projection so I just don't bother with it anymore.

walkintofit

I am not close to it either. I don't lose at 1200 calories a day. I lose at 900 -1000 calories. I am 5ft small build, fairly active, on my feet at work:retail . I average 1300 c a day. Walk bike, row for exercise 3xw.
not willing to go that low on calories.

KimbersNewLife

I am so glad you posted this to get me on track. Back in 2011 I lost 85 lbs and the main thing I did is if the "you will weigh in this much in 5 weeks" was not a loss of some sort- even if it was like -1 lb- I would work off the differnece or if I was coding well and knew in advance change a food choice that was basically my one rule and I lost the 85 that way. I am going to go back to that plan. Thank you SO much!

AnnPT77

evileyefirefly wrote: »

With accurate profile settings, my actual weight change is wildly far off MFP's estimate if I add exercise calories (25-30% off), and even more wildly far off if I don't add exercise calories.

Most people are close to the statistical averages. A few aren't. I'm not.

My point is that OP needs a longer observation time to understand how average they are or aren't.

Interesting. I'd think it would be the other way around, but obviously you're an outlier. In the end though, the MFP prediction is not really a useful tool in my opinion. I guess it serves a purpose to show you what "could be", and for some people that could be encouraging. I typically just disregard it,

I 100% agree that disregarding it is a good plan . . . unless someone can take it rather lightly as a possible motivator, not as Revealed Truth. For sure, no one should be discouraged by the prediction to the point of giving up quickly.

One's own actual weight loss will tell the story, but it takes time.

Me, I am an outlier, I think, based on 8+ years of logging experience now (most of it in maintenance). I don't know for sure why, but it's so. However, once I figured out my personal calorie needs based on my own logging & weight history, my body weight outcomes became very predictable (as a multi-week average).

Some other people are further off from average, too - and it can be in either direction. They won't know until they get few weeks of careful logging in the books.

Too many people think MFP's estimates put them in a specific deficit and will always result in well-defined weight loss at the level selected. But MFP's estimates - or those from any other calculator - are just a good starting point. They'll be close for a lot of people, but not for everyone.