Seeking Help to Adjust Calorie Intake

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So, if I get this correct, if hypothetically I were to eat 1843, I'd maintain - and in theory eating under that # I would lose with a caveat - if you eat too far under the body readjusts to maintain where you are using your fat for energy and despite initial drops in weight, you stop losing - did I come close to getting that right?

I guess the next logical question is - what # (discarding the 1200 MFP assigned - I assume now I should discard that and reset it), do I pick between my BMR and TDEE, i.e. between the 1450 and 1843 that will jump start my body to be nourished and to lose the weight???? Is there some other calculation to get that one final # to set MFP to and eat at that # each day???

Also, side note, is Fitness Frog a decent site to get the TDEE or would you recommend another one???

For the first part, yes - that's basically it. Close enough for (y)our purposes here.

For the second, also yes, more or less. If you've been undereating for too long, though, it may take a while before you see results, as your metabolism will need to find it's way back to operating properly. That's a clumsy way of putting it, but I think/hope you understand what I mean. As such, you may have a gain at first - but don't get discouraged - once your metabolism is back in good working order, you'll see results.

As far as fitnessfrog goes, it seems fine. I get pretty close to the same number over at http://www.fat2fitradio.com/tools/bmr. And those numbers work pretty well for me.

You can either simply adjust your MFP fitness profile to lose a particular amount of weight until it comes up with a number you want, or you can go to your MFP "MY HOME" page, click "Goals," then "CHANGE GOALS," "Custom" and "Continue," and manually input a Calorie goal between BMR and TDEE.


edit: The exact Calorie number to input depends upon how much you really have to lose. If you have less than 10 lbs, then go with TDEE-10% - which would be about 1650, provided 1843 is your TDEE. If you have 10-20 lbs, try TDEE-15% - about 1560. And if you have over 20 lbs to lose, you may be able to go with the "standard" TDEE-20% - which would be 1475.

In addition, I just saw Bonny's post. 1500 is a good - nice and round, too - number to shoot for if you have a bit to lose. Whatever number you end up with, just try to get close - a little over or under here and there is fine.

When using the TDEE method, there are some other variables to consider...and I'll try not to muddy the waters too much.

What activity level did you give yourself when calculating your TDEE? When calculating your TDEE, you should include all exercise, as well as your day to day. If you are exercising at all, most would be considered light active at minimum (usually 1-3 hours of exercise per week). To be honest, 1843 seems like a low TDEE to me...did you select sedentary? Many people select sedentary when in reality, many people aren't actually sedentary.

Most people who use the TDEE method use a % off rather than the standard 500 calories (to lose 1 Lb per week, etc). So, TDEE - 20% (typical starting point), in your case would be 1,474 or thereabouts...just above your BMR. If your TDEE calc is accurate, you'd have a weight loss deficit of 369 calories which would give you roughly 3/4 Lb per week weight loss. I'm thinking your TDEE might be a little higher, so you would probably lose between 1-1.5 Lb per week (not linear) on 1,500ish or so calories. At any rate, if you eat between your BMR and TDEE you will lose.

So I went to the Fat 2 Fit and following your screen shots plugged in #'s - lingering question - I see you particularly note to plug in your current weight on the one screen that asks for your goal weight - I was unclear why and obviously, the #'s change - with my true goal weight the # comes back as 1877 and your way with using current weight, it comes back as 2122. Also, for comparison, the Fitness Frog was in the 1800's................

So do I knock off the 20% from the 1800 # or the 2122#? I figure that this would be the # I'd readjust to per day - right??

Knock the 20% off the 2122. The way fat2fit works is you put in your goal weight and if you eat that many calories, eventually you will get down to goal and those same calories will be your maintenance calories. It's a great way to go if you have extreme patience and/or have very little weight to lose (i.e. 5-10 Lbs).

As I noted in your previous post, I thought your initial TDEE seemed kind of low...if you took the 20% off of 2122 you'd be roughly 1,700 calories which sounds more like it...be roughly 1 Lb per week

I probably wouldn't. Unless you do some sort of really high intensity workout and you burn a TON of cals...I would probably just stick with 1600.

Absolutely! I decided to only "note" my pedometer steps and not eat back anything - ate 1590 yesterday and targeting 1600 today forward - it just makes sense - the 2 week lag and stall with no loss, I was under 1200 every day - not enough..............I really get now the logic and how the body is smart enough to stop some systems to keep a heart beating or brain working - will keep you posted for sure!

Since I am targeting my TDEE for reset right now, I am NOT adding in any exercise calories. I am, however, tallying up my exercise calories and recording my activity in the "notes" section of my food diary so I have a record of it.

I am in a similar situation, except that since I've only been doing this for 5 weeks, I'm still losing weight rapidly - it's been over 2 lbs. per week so far (12ish total), which is of course lovely, but which has started making me suspicious of MFP's recommendations, since I only put in 1 lb. per week as my desired rate of loss, 'cause I was nervous about overdoing it and sending my body into some kind of compensatory starvation response or metabolism slowing or whatever. So is the basic consensus here that I should ignore MFP's recommendation and eat like 1500+ calories per day, not 1200? (The fat 2 fit calculator thing gives me a TDEE of 1969 for "light activity," so 1500 would be like 24% under that)
Does anybody know why MFP is so far off? I'm curious as to why it thinks it's a good idea to recommend something under the BMR its own site calculates!
So far it's been working for me, so obviously I'm nervous about suddenly going way over what it recommends, but I also don't want to mess up my metabolism...
(Thanks!)