Do You Set Your Calories or Do You Roll with MFP?

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  • jolene_ca
    jolene_ca Posts: 91 Member
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    I set my own. I eat MORE than MFP's suggestion for 1lb a week. I am losing 1.5-2lbs a week most weeks.
  • Amerielle
    Amerielle Posts: 153 Member
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    I set my own. I'm not a fan of the NEAT method so I do TDEE minus 15%...it's probably about time to change it down to -10%. I like to just pretty much have a set calorie amount to plan for every day no matter what my exercise level is. I'm also not too strict on a daily basis and aim for my deficit to even out over a week.
  • Achrya
    Achrya Posts: 16,913 Member
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    I set my own cause I don't like worrying about accuracy of exercise calories. So basically I'm lazy.:laugh:
  • DivaLuvsDisney
    DivaLuvsDisney Posts: 75 Member
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    Right now I'm doing a little of both. I just got done with doing a bulk and now I'm cutting again so I need to be at a deficit. I put all my stats, activity level & to lose .5lb a week. MFP spit out 1580 and I'm silly and prefer a nice rounded number so I manually changed it to 1600. I am fairly active during the day even though I'm a stay at home mom. I also eat back my exercise caIories so on the days I do cardio it averages to about an additional 200 calories to eat. I also changed my Protein, Fat & Carbs to a 40/30/30 split.
  • USMCnetty90
    USMCnetty90 Posts: 277 Member
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    MFP has me at 1200 - I did calculate my TDEE which is 1550... I usually stay in the 1200 calorie range and sometimes eat back my workout calories - but if i go over 1200 i dont stress about it ... its only been three weeks for me and the numbers on the scale have not gone down but my clothes are looser and im feeling tighter
  • linsey0689
    linsey0689 Posts: 753 Member
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    I am a lot more overweight than you are I am sure of that by your photo and what your goal is. But I let MFP pick for the most part. And yes it lowers as your lose weight because you need to eat less the smaller you get. But because you don't have a lot to lose so I don't think a 2 pound good a week is good for you. When I get closer to my goal within 20 pounds or so I will have it guide me still but have it set to only about 1 pound or so a week. Just try not to rush it. Best of luck to you :)
  • MsEndomorph
    MsEndomorph Posts: 604 Member
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    I do allow MFP to rule my calories :) It seems to be accurate based on my TDEE so it's good enough for me. I eat back all of my exercise calories without adjusting for any error with my HRM/calorie counting and I don't shed a tear if I eat a few hundred extra kcals a couple times a week. If I go REALLY over (as in the 800cals I went over one day last week) I'll divide it out and subtract those extra calories for the rest of the week. Even if I can't stick to that low an amount, I'll at least have the motivation to get as close as possible without starving myself. I've been happy with my results so far, but I'm also willing to change things up if need be.
  • _KrisMarie_
    _KrisMarie_ Posts: 146
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    I set my own. I have a good idea of what I can eat each day and still lose weight at because I weigh myself on a daily basis. I sometimes still go over because I have a sweet tooth. :blushing: But if I let MFP set my calories, I'd be way over!! Besides, I don't want to eat so little that I lose muscle mass. I'd say go with the TDEE formula.
  • Katla49
    Katla49 Posts: 10,385 Member
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    I let MPF set the calorie goals and it is working out just fine.:bigsmile:
  • Lyadeia
    Lyadeia Posts: 4,603 Member
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    I went with MFP's settings in the beginning, starving off the 1200 calories a day it set. I was miserable! Then reading the forums, and seeing a lot of people losing doing TDEE - 20%, I manually changed my settings to that. It has helped and I'm much happier eating more :)

    This is me, 2.

    I started off with MFP's 1200 suggestion and was starving, feeling weak, etc. and not losing nearly as much weight as expected. Even with exercise, that's about 1500-1600 calories which still didn't seem to help, but it made me feel completely awful on non-exercise days.

    Using TDEE-20% which for me is around 1800 calories, I've been enjoying plenty of food daily and losing fat a lot faster than before (about 1/2-1 pound per week which is what MFP said I'd be losing by starving myself).

    I think the issue lies with the fact that most of us choose sedentary (according to their recommendations) and also choose the most amount of weight loss possible, neither of which is optimal for most of us. TDEE-20% takes these things into account (as long as you don't use a bad TDEE calculator).

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