Recommended Calorie Intake....more like starvation!

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FierceFox81
FierceFox81 Posts: 89
in Health and Weight Loss
Questioning why MFP is having my goal calorie intake to be 1240. This seems WAY to low. I am 5'5' currently weight 147-152 lbs. I have a desk job with little walking around/lifting. Workout 5+ times a week 45-60 mins (burning on average 500 calories a workout). I just did a triathlon last weekend, so my workout are usually prettty intense. Sssooooo why is this site telling me such low of an intake????????????? That puts me, well anyone, into starvation mode! Sure I want to drop a few pounds, maybe 1/2-1 lb a week, and I understand the scale might not change due to muscle mass..

So why in the world does this site recommend to eat so few calories when I'm training so much? This is rediculous! If I would take a day off from the gym and only eat what it is recommending I would be really shooting myself in the foot.

hhhmmmmm slightly annoyed at how this site does not take in more individualized lifestyles/training...blah blah blah

Ok I'm doing venting, for the time being :o)

Replies

  • BrianSharpe
    BrianSharpe Posts: 9,248 Member
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    It sounds like you may have set up your MFP activity level as sedentary? (quick calculation of your BMR x 1.2 - 500 cal comes to 1,244 cal).

    Eat back your exercise calories or adjust your activity level on MFP so that it reflects something closer to TDEE - 500 cal (which would probably yield something closer to 2,000 cal per day)
  • 1holegrouper
    1holegrouper Posts: 323 Member
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    If you are averaging 500 calories per workout I would definately eat those calories too. You should then feel more full. Also, check your levels of whole unprocessed foods. When there is an unusual amount of hunger then either the calorie intake calculation is wrong or the types of foods being eaten are overstimulating the appetite (ex; sugars, artificial sweeteners, alcohol, simple starches, etc.) In general, the more fruits and vegetables we eat the more bulk there will be and we will feel more full. People vary on their sensitivity on this but as a general rule: the 'cleaner' we eat the more satisfied our hunger is. (to put it in Yoda speech)

    If you are doing all of that and are still overly hungry then I would start looking at things like meal and exercise timing/scheduling.

    ETA: by your photos it appears that you have a very small percentage of body fat. So nearly 100% of your energy is coming from your food. Without viewing your diary that makes me guess that your diet is spot on and that this is merely an issue of upping your calories a bit and meal timing.
  • BerryH
    BerryH Posts: 4,698 Member
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    As Brian said, unlike other sites MFP does not include exercise in your activity level. Instead you record it separately and "eat back" your exercise calories (or a good proportion, say 80%, to allow for a margin of error). that'll give you a nice buffer on heavy training days!

    Also as you don't have much to lose to get to a healthy weight consider setting MFP to lose 0.5lb a week, and certainly no more than 1lb per week.
  • Ladyeliah
    Ladyeliah Posts: 34 Member
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    The basic calorie recommendation is set up for a person that is not exercising at all to still have a calorie deficit and still lose weight. When you workout, log what exercise and for how long and that will add calories to your daily goal.
  • ka97
    ka97 Posts: 1,984 Member
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    The calculation is based on the info you input regarding your goal (how much per week you want to lose) and your activity level. If your activity level is sedentary, then you eat back any extra calories "earned" by exercising.
    I am in a much similar situation and have a hard time sticking to my calories on a rest day. However, I also know that on some of my heavier workout days, I don't eat back all the exercise calories - it's just not possible. So I might go over on a rest day, but for the week it all averages out. So that would be one way to consider doing it.
    Alternatively you could change your activity level in your settings to accurately reflect your workouts; in this case you wouldn't eat back your exercise calories. Or manually change your calorie goal based on either your TDEE from one of the many online calculators, or by tracking your own calories burned over the course of the week and averaging it per day.
    And as someone else mentioned....don't set your goal to more than .5lbs loss per week.
  • DanaDark
    DanaDark Posts: 2,187 Member
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    MFP doesn't calculate in exercise. It asks you so it can set up your exercise tracking page.

    Log your work outs and then see what happens to your calories.
  • TheRealParisLove
    TheRealParisLove Posts: 1,907 Member
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    You have to add in your exercise and MFP will add in those calories. If you choose high fiber, high protein foods, I promise you won't feel hungry on 1200 net calories (after exercise calories) a day.

    This program is highly customizable. Check out all the variety you get in your settings and you'll see that you can change the plan to whatever you want. I changed my macros to 40% carb, 30% fat and 30% protein. I also increased my fiber requirements to a minimum of 25 grams a day.

    You can alter calories burned on your workouts to reflect the use of HRM, you can increase your calories burned goals on a daily or weekly basis. You can even invent your own exercise settings.

    Just mess around with the tools for a bit. It's pretty awesome.
  • FierceFox81
    FierceFox81 Posts: 89
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    Thanks everyone. Yeah I added my stuff and it adjusts it. Still think it's crazy low for days I don't feel like hitting the gym. Oh well... :)
  • kdeerhake
    kdeerhake Posts: 5 Member
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    I agree 100% with your rant, and I'm 5'7 and 150-157lbs. I had to go in and set custom goals to keep myself from starvation mode. There is no way my body could live off of 1200 calories (that was my recommended intake) any day, let alone all the time. Keeping my intake at around 1,900-2,000 calories a day and doing my normal work outs, I still lose here and there.

    Everyones bodies are different and so are their workouts, maybe for some the low calorie intakes work for them.
  • savnicolee
    savnicolee Posts: 7 Member
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    If you're burning that many calories through exercise, when you add them to your exercises of the day, it'll give you that many more calories you can eat in the day.. and if it's too low as it is, then change your activity level. You know yourself better than MFP does. You can also manually change your goals if it isn't working for you. Hope this helped :)
  • geekyjock76
    geekyjock76 Posts: 2,720 Member
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    I agree 100% with your rant, and I'm 5'7 and 150-157lbs. I had to go in and set custom goals to keep myself from starvation mode. There is no way my body could live off of 1200 calories (that was my recommended intake) any day, let alone all the time. Keeping my intake at around 1,900-2,000 calories a day and doing my normal work outs, I still lose here and there.

    Everyones bodies are different and so are their workouts, maybe for some the low calorie intakes work for them.
    kdeerhake, the 1200 figure (which I admit is given out like candy on Halloween here) represents the net calories consumed after subtracting the deficit chosen from food calorie restriction. So if you set yourself a daily deficit of 500 calories (from food restriction only), your daily gross is actually 1700 calories. Adding or increasing exercise adds to the deficit, which needs to be replaced with food if you wish to net 1200 and stay with the given plan. So if you burn 200 calories in additional decrement, that puts your gross to 1900.
  • ladyraven68
    ladyraven68 Posts: 2,003 Member
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    Thanks everyone. Yeah I added my stuff and it adjusts it. Still think it's crazy low for days I don't feel like hitting the gym. Oh well... :)

    you can manually change your calorie goal. Just go to goals, then chose custom instead of guided.

    like you, i didn't like the 1200 I was given so went for the "Maintenance less 20%" approach and have lost most of mine eating 1600. Been off it for 2 weeks on holiday, but back to 1600 as of yesterday.

    Work out your TDEE and deduct your chosen deficit, and then you can eat the same every day.

    This may help - http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/654536-in-place-of-a-road-map-2-0-revised-7-2-12
  • Oishii
    Oishii Posts: 2,675 Member
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    I knew NOTHING about calorie counting pre-mfp. I thought 2lb a week sounded nice and slow (doh!), set my activity level to moderately active and mfp gave me 1200kcal a day. I gave myself exercise calories for everything, even doing the washing up, and still lost over 2lb each week! This scared me, so I tried adjusting to lose 1.5lb a week, and it still said 1200, and even at 1lb a week it still said 1200.... So mfp THOUGHT I should be losing less than a half of what I was!

    Through experimentation I have found I maintain on 2450+exercise, so 1200kcal was around half my calorie needs. By the time I'd reached my goal, I was also anaemic.

    Next time I would start from mfp maintenance and see what happened (I would lose!). Maybe you should try that, then adjust up or down accordingly.
  • geekyjock76
    geekyjock76 Posts: 2,720 Member
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    I never let MFP calculate my settings because I was leery as to which formulas they used.
  • Oishii
    Oishii Posts: 2,675 Member
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    I never let MFP calculate my settings because I was leery as to which formulas they used.

    The one they use is meant to be the most accurate, but I'd like to do more research on that because it is WAAAAY out for me. I'd like to know more about the variables they did and didn't look into.

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