How close do you follow MFP's calorie needs

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runway12
runway12 Posts: 63 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I'm just wondering by a show of people how many of you go by what MFP states as your maintenance, losing, or gaining caloric needs. Have a lot of you made adjustments? I'm just no sure because I am trying to maintain my weight but MFP is telling me that my maintenance is higher than what I am already at which isn't right. : )

Replies

  • SugaryLynx
    SugaryLynx Posts: 2,640 Member
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    I haven't followed MFP for a long time. I've used TDEE calculators. Then, from there I upped by a 100 calories or so based on my weight over the week to determine if I should maintain it or not. Calculators tell me at my activity level I should maintain my weight at 1700 ish. I'm maintaining around 2300 ish. So, they're a good base but they're never going to be exact. Also depends on logging accuracy, as well as factors like metabolism, etc.
  • Chris_Pierce
    Chris_Pierce Posts: 267 Member
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    I follow mine pretty well. I have to lower the "calories burned" that it gives me when I do cardio, but otherwise it's been working. Sometimes I'll go over on my total calories but that's just me wanting to eat more than I should.
  • rawhidenadz
    rawhidenadz Posts: 254 Member
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    No. The calories are too low for me and the pre-set macros are weird (if I followed their suggestions for protein, I'd be getting half as much as I do now and I'd be hungry all the time. Doesn't work for me, so I changed them).

    I do TDEE minus 15-20%. i work out four or five times a week and my TDEE is 2500ish when i exercise that regularly. I have my daily calorie goal set to 1850 but i zig zag and some days I go a lot higher than that - my weekly average usually comes out to 2000-2100 and I lose 1-1.5 pounds a week when I hit those numbers.
  • The_Enginerd
    The_Enginerd Posts: 3,982 Member
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    It was pretty close for me. It calculated 2150/day for me, but I had to up it to at least 2200/day or I slowly lose over the long run. In the end, any calculator on the internet is based on population averages, and each individual's maintenance will be a bit different. It's always a bit of trial and error.

    Also realize that maintenance is really a range. When bulking, my weight gain stalled when I tried doing a slow bulk at 2400 calories.
  • MelodyandBarbells
    MelodyandBarbells Posts: 7,725 Member
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    I generally still can't hit daily calorie goals, but weekly , yes , I try to use MFP's numbers without any modifications. It took a while to get there but my weight loss does seem to align with MFP's predictions
  • samg135
    samg135 Posts: 14 Member
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    I tend to stick to the calories given as I am trying to loose weight amd it is working. I do have to adjust the number MFP gives for excersise though.
  • as124
    as124 Posts: 27
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    My calculated TDEE and MFP calories for losing are only different by a hundred or so calories, so I stick to MFP. If I'm really hungry, I'll let myself have those extra calories. But I've been meeting my goals just using MFP.

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