Enlighten me please. How come people are closing

I can only speak for myself, but If I'm not hungry, I'm not going to force myself to eat (which is why I'm here in the first place). I''m not using MFP #s but ones suggested to me by my MD & the RD I met with (which was anyplace from 1200-1500 calories) If I was using MFP stats, I'd never "eat enough" and would always be eating under their "goal"

I also am not 100% sure of the calorie etc counts of a lot of the food I'm eating (i.e if I eat outside the house), so I want to leave myself some extra calories just to cover what I might be incorrectly logging. I also am not eating back my exercise calories.

Everyone's situation is different. I have a sedentary job & am on medications for various health issues. I for one am not starving myself and more often than not, am closing my food diary eating under my goal which is 1400 calories. I could have easily picked 1200 and then I'd be on target when I closed the diary for the day.

My usual reason is that I ate as much as I felt that I needed to, and didn't want to eat just for the sake of eating.

I didn't just change the foods that I eat when I decided to lose weight. I chose to change the way I eat it, too. I used to snack during the day or pick my dinner long after I was full just for the sake of flavor. But I try to avoid that now. I only eat when I'm hungry, and when I'm not hungry anymore, I stop.

And if I have a day where I eat more fruits and veggies than anything else, I fill up on fewer calories.

Because it's REALLY difficult to get your "remaining calories" right on 0. (Well not really hard, but you have to get very pedantic with small bits of celery and single almonds And pretty meaningless anyway, as all the food and exercise we log is a estimate anyway).

My diary is almost always going to be under or over, sometimes by a lot, sometimes by a little.

And also I think because lots of people have the "must starve self to lose weight" mentality so they will deliberately try to eat less than MFP recommends, which just isn't necessary.

Sometimes when I exercise a ton, I just can't eat back all those calories. It's not because i don't want to, and it's not because I'm starving myself.

I watch my diary like a hawk and log everything, drinks and supplements included. Now, I did have a rough patch recently where I didn't log hardly anything and the scale said I maintained so...? It was a few days and I was really not "feeling it". I posted as much for MFP to know that, Yes I am here but not making too much of an effort today.

If I'm that many calories under for the day I'll sit down with a good book and eat as many raw unsalted almonds as I want to. Usually I'm done by 1/2 cup and have made up for what calories I had been lacking. Other posters have said that it's just an estimate and it's true. We estimate the best we can and for us super busy moms (gotta plug the stay at home mommas of the world!) we just forget. Plain and simple. The cooking, cleaning, running errands, doing arts and crafts and the million other things we do in the day cause us to have selective memories about every single morsel of food we put into our mouths. I'm sometimes guilty of that too.

I wouldn't get terribly caught up in the calories per day. It's really the average net calories over several days or a week that really matters. If I eat more one day then I may eat less the next, sometimes to make up for it or sometimes I'm just not hungry. To lose weight if you can stay under your net goal and accurately track what you eat and what you burn (likely with an HRM or something not overinflated like is sometimes the case here) then you will likely have success, it worked for me.

As mentioned earlier there are all sorts of reasons for what people eat and their goals. One of the main ones is the amount of exercise for the day. The harder my workout the more I want to eat and need to eat to fuel the workouts. By the same token I need to take days off from time to allow my body to recover and usually when I do that I don't find myself very hungry.

The other part of the equation is with regard to the goal itself. Some people are trying to gain and build muscle, others are trying to lose and some are just trying to maintain. For a long time I was trying and mostly able to lose 2 lbs per week and doing so meant I pretty rigorously followed the net calorie principle though on heavy workout days I would often be under, sometimes by a lot if I burned 1,400 calories in a workout in the evening then I'm not likley to eat that much after. Nowadays my goals are different as I'm not really actively trying to lose weight but I am doing more strength training and trying reduce my body fat percentage while toning muscle. I may still lose a few pounds but I'm much more interested in my body fat % which I'm checking monthly. I have as a result upped my calories on here as part of a process to slowly increase them to my TDEE or wherever I feel I can best meet my goals and maintain what I've worked to achieve. I'll probably up them again in a few weeks and then again a month or so after that depending on my body fat measurements, what I see on the scale, how I feel and where I want to end up in terms of long term maintenance. I'm probably a bad example today for losing weight as that's no longer my goal.

Good luck!

Focus on yourself instead of others...

I am not losing weight eating my exercise calories. So I am shooting for 1500 regardless of exercise.

Speaking only for myself... I've recently had my doctor increase my calories and change around how I distribute carbs/proteins/fat. Over the past month or so, I've increased the calories by 400 or so a day... but can't figure out how to add in the others she wants me to without going over on carbs. And, honestly, I feel like I'm eating all of the time anyway. I also add in a little wriggle room for guessing on amounts eating out, etc. On the other side of things, if I were to go over on calories I wouldn't stress out over it ( which happened a few times on vacation a few weeks ago).

I walk an average of 5 miles a day with work...days like today I have a lot of calories left that I could eat (900 cals from exercise)

I work shift work and it's 9:41pm. I got home from work about 45 minutes ago and I have to get out of bed for work at 4:30am. Since i have to go to sleep pretty quick here, I have 2 options. I can close out my day short on calories....or I could bulk up on high calorie (possibly treat like) foods to bring up my calories. For me, the second choice is best.

I would like to add though, that I also have 1 cheat day each week, where I probably make up a lot of my "forfeited" calories. So far it seems to be working for me.

depends on the day; I look at it as an "Average". Many days I may be technically UNDER by maybe 100 cal or so... That really is not very significant . Sometimes, I may be compensating for what I think may be an over estimate on the exercise end. Also, if I am not hungry, I don't eat... Some days I am over... But in average, it works out about right.

What I've noticed is that now that I look at the calories I'm eating and my macros, it sometimes is really hard to get to the 1644 that I'm currently allotted daily, especially when I exercise so it adds more calories and I net even less. I'm sure I completely blew past that calorie allotment when I never paid attention, but now that I'm eating healthier things, that is a lot of calories for me because how much I ate was never the problem, it was just what I ate and the frequency (ie Ben & Jerry's everyday is not a good thing no matter how delicious it is, lol!). Also now that I'm actually drinking a good amount of water that helps me to feel full as well. I tend to net 1200-1400-ish daily during the week. On the weekends when I eat out a lot I'll hit the 1644 and some of my exercise calories sometimes as well. I eat when I'm hungry and I'm just not hungry for those last calories so I don't eat them.

I haven't been hungry or felt deprived at all since starting MFP and steadily losing 1.5-2 lbs a week which is still safe and healthy for the amount of weight I need to lose in total.

However there are people who need every calorie allotted and exercise calories as well to feel satisfied and I believe that that is completely okay as long as you're still moving forward to your goal.

I would prefer MFP gave us the option of selecting a calorie range rather than 1 specific goal. My range would be 1450-1850 and I'd end my day on the low end if I felt good and satisfied, but push up to the top end if my appetite is a little bigger than usual. This is how I do things generally, even though I can't program in the range I have in my head. My actual programmed goal is somewhere in the middle of that range.

I so wish we could set a target range instead of just a target number!!

I would prefer MFP gave us the option of selecting a calorie range rather than 1 specific goal. My range would be 1450-1850 and I'd end my day on the low end if I felt good and satisfied, but push up to the top end if my appetite is a little bigger than usual. This is how I do things generally, even though I can't program in the range I have in my head. My actual programmed goal is somewhere in the middle of that range.

I so wish we could set a target range instead of just a target number!!

You certainly can - MFP just won't tell you what it is. It's easy to set your calories to 1650, and keep in mind that your goal is to end up within +/- 200 calories.

I try to eat slightly under my calorie goal each day because I'm trying to train myself to get off the "see-food" diet. XD Two months on this site, I'm still learning what works for me and what doesn't. I'm also learning what combinations of food work best for me, too. I can't speak for everyone else, but I'm just trying to learn to eat better before I strive for the full 1200 I have allotted.