Myfitnesspal telling me to eat too little?

airtas
airtas Posts: 4
edited January 25 in Health and Weight Loss
I was wondering why myfitnesspal tells me to eat less calories than most BMR calcs and other apps like Lose It?

I feel like it is about 500 less than other apps/calcs. Anyone else have a similar complaint?

Replies

  • ecw3780
    ecw3780 Posts: 608 Member
    it expects you to enter all your exercise calories and then eat those back as well.
  • susannamarie
    susannamarie Posts: 2,148 Member
    Many other calculators take your level of exercise into account when they tell you how much to eat.

    MFP expects you to enter your exercise when you exercise and then eat your calories back.

    I find MFP works better for someone like me with a highly variable schedule.
  • avskk
    avskk Posts: 1,787 Member
    I was wondering the same thing. Everything I've looked up says my TDEE is ~1900 and my BMR is ~1600, yet MFP tells me I should be eating ~1300. I'm freaking starving all the time and even eating back (some of) my exercise calories doesn't seem to help. I wonder if MFP underestimates in order to produce a more drastic loss, thereby encouraging word-of-mouth about how effective the program is. (I know, I'm a cynical jerk.)
  • startheory
    startheory Posts: 63
    I agree, it was telling me to eat 1200. I thought I was slowly starving. Upped mine by doing TDEE minus 20% and am still slowly losing (and not eating back any calories). I guess the extremely low calories works for some? IDK...
  • herblackwings39
    herblackwings39 Posts: 3,930 Member
    Also a lot of people automatically go with the lose 2 lbs a week option which requires a 1000 calorie deficit. When you have 80 lbs to lose that might work okay, but when you have 20 lbs to go it gets you stuck at 1200 calories (the lowest MFP goes) and you still probably won't lose 2 lbs a week. Since it doesn't include your exercise in the calculations you need to eat back those calories so you at least net your goal.
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