Confused about MFP target calories

IanG186 · June 2014

The more I read on here the more confused I am getting. MFP has set me 1440 calories as a target. From what I have read as I lose weight this should change? to reflect that I am lighter and don't need as many calories anymore or is that wrong?

A little bit of background may help. I started this journey about a year ago when I was 258lb (18stone 6lb for us Brits

) and it went well up until Christmas when I put 10lb back on. So a bit of yoyoing going on. Anyway I got MFP on my phone to check why I wasn't losing weight as I suspected correctly I was eating too much again. Since 1st week in April I have gone from 239lb to 225lb (hey I lost a stone and didn't realise it) so things are working again and you may be asking why are you posting it's working.

The problem is when I read the sites linked to on here they all recommend 20% below your maintenance calories, which for me appears to work out at about 2400 calories and the 1440 calories MFP has set is 40% lower than that. So you read the sites and learn about the starvation myth but then also learn that there is a starvation response which could be making this all much harder as again 20% is recommended,

Then I am logging the calories I eat for my meals and eating 1440 calories is easy. I can hit the target most days +/- 20 to 40 calories which I figure is good enough and it's working. It's much easier than I though it would be and if someone says I should be eating 1920 calories then that's going to be hard.

What I am not doing is logging the extras I eat to account for the exercise I am doing. Mainly because I feel I am cheating and my bad I am hiding it so that has to stop. The other problem is I ride a very heavy mountain bike slowly at first but it's got to the stage where MFP is now reporting the workouts it is collecting from MapMyRide as vigorous which I was quite surprised at, didn't realise I was getting that much fitter.

The other problem is I am not convinced MapMyRide has the first clue what it's doing calorie wise as it claims I am burning 1300 calories or so when I do 15 miles at an average of 14mph. Maybe it's right but it feels wrong as an example I did two 15 mile rides at 14mph yesterday and today (4 in total) and if it is to be believed I should eat 1440 + 1300 + 1300 = 4040 calories today and I must admit I sure am hungry enough to do it and have eaten 1500 extra calories.

So is 1440 to little? Am I causing myself problems with some sort of starvation response? Anyone know what sort of calories it takes to propel a 225lb guy at 14mph for 15 miles or a site that can help me estimate it to check the figures MapMyRide is giving me?

I have to say if I am burning 2600 calories doing those 30 miles then so be it but it just feels wrong eating the extra calories you do for exercise and when I try to I don't lose weight which I guess is proof that the reported calories might be wrong. I have been trying to do the exercise and stick to the 1440 (admittedly this weekend has been exceptional I normally only do 10 miles per day) figuring I will lose weight faster. Which is true but then I binge a little and put some of it back on but the trend is still downward and I am 2 lb away from my first mini target of being 223lbs (15 stone 13lb not been that for 11 years).

Anyone got any help for the above questions or any other suggestions?

yarwell · June 2014

you have to recalculate your goals manually if you want a new target, it isn't automatic.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/change_goals

If you're fat enough you can run a higher deficit - each lb of fat store can yield about 30 cals/day so 40 lbs of excess can give 1200 a day from reserves. The two "Hairy Dieters" were put on ~1400 calories by Prof Taylor @ Newcastle Uni.

I'm not aerobically fit enough to burn more than 600 cals an hour at full tilt, and I cycle at less than that so I would say 400 cals an hour over your sedentary level might be somewhere near.

If there's no wind on a good bike on the flat you don't need a whole lot of power.

paulkillen1 · June 2014

HI ya
The best and accurate way to check how many calories youre burning while cycling is to wear a heart monitor and record the ave heart rate and duration. Theres a very accurate formula used by sports scientists to tell you exactly how many calories youre burning while exercising. the formula is = ((0.6309x ave heart rate) + (0.0904x weight) + (0.2017x age) ) -55.0969) / (4.184x duration of exercise)

It provides an excellent way to cross reference mapmy ride against something more specifc to you.

sijomial · June 2014

That's an incredibly low goal for a big guy! Do you really need to lose weight that fast and feel dreadfully restricted?
Set a less aggressive weekly weight loss goal if it seems unsustainable.

But remember you are supposed to be eating goal plus exercise calories so don't compare to TDEE calculator sites without taking that into account.

Those MapMyRide calories seem very high to me - unless you are using a penny farthing off road.....
I use a HRM for my cycling calorie burns but find Runkeeper (free app) gives a fairly similar number (+10% compared to HRM) so maybe try that as a comparison?
An hour cycling flat out to exhaustion would be about 800 cals for me.

MscGray · June 2014

I believe that as you lose weight and you "check in", MFP automatically decreases your recommended calories, at least that has been my expierence (but I was messing with and customizing the goals around the same time that cals dropped down). I think that you may have been reading about people who use other sites to calculate their TDEE, then subtract 20% and eat at that rate for a loss.....those people dont document their work outs because its already been taken into account when calculating their TDEE.
I think I am a little confused by a portion of your post. You said you log all your cals, but don't log the extra food you eat due to exercise....why? if you are going with what MFP recommended to you on start up (the 1400 cals) then you should be documenting exercise and eating back at least 50% of those cals...other wise you dont know how much your eating to compensate for your burns and you could throw everything out of wack! Hope that helps
And yes, as others stated a HRM is going to give you a much more accurate idea of your burns...and then you can choose to eat back 100% of those more realistic burn numbers.

Abi198111 · June 2014

I believe that as you lose weight and you "check in", MFP automatically decreases your recommended calories, at least that has been my expierence

Yes, this has been my experience too. As I lose weight and adjust it on my MFP profile, MFP will decrease my calorie goal by 20 or so cals per day

SezxyStef · June 2014

The problem is when I read the sites linked to on here they all recommend 20% below your maintenance calories, which for me appears to work out at about 2400 calories and the 1440 calories MFP has set is 40% lower than that. So you read the sites and learn about the starvation myth but then also learn that there is a starvation response which could be making this all much harder as again 20% is recommended,

Then I am logging the calories I eat for my meals and eating 1440 calories is easy. I can hit the target most days +/- 20 to 40 calories which I figure is good enough and it's working. It's much easier than I though it would be and if someone says I should be eating 1920 calories then that's going to be hard.

So is 1440 to little? Am I causing myself problems with some sort of starvation response? Anyone know what sort of calories it takes to propel a 225lb guy at 14mph for 15 miles or a site that can help me estimate it to check the figures MapMyRide is giving me?

first off the other sites include exercise...mfp does not. They are two different methods...NEAT and TDEE. When you went to the other sites did you choose sedentary? or add in your exercise?

MFP is designed for you to eat back your exercise calories...so if you gross 1400...exercise 900..you are netting 500...that is too low.

As for what you are given on MFP it is all dependent on the data you enter...if your weight loss goal is too agressive If you have 75+ lbs to lose 2 lbs/week is ideal
If you have 40-75 lbs to lose 1.5 lbs/week is ideal
If you have 25-40 lbs to lose 1 lbs/week is ideal
If you have 15 -25 lbs to lose 0.5 to 1.0 lbs/week is ideal
If you have less than 15 lbs to lose 0.5 lbs/week is ideal

It will give you agressive calorie goals...

At 225lbs and a guy you should be netting at minimum 1800 calories...change your weekly weight loss goal to something more appropriate based on above and eat back 50-75% of your exercise calories regardless of where you get the burns.

IanG186 · June 2014

HI ya
The best and accurate way to check how many calories youre burning while cycling is to wear a heart monitor and record the ave heart rate and duration. Theres a very accurate formula used by sports scientists to tell you exactly how many calories youre burning while exercising. the formula is = ((0.6309x ave heart rate) + (0.0904x weight) + (0.2017x age) ) -55.0969) / (4.184x duration of exercise)

It provides an excellent way to cross reference mapmy ride against something more specifc to you.

Thanks Paul that was wonderfully helpful. I put the figures into the equation as I do use a HRM and Cyclemeter to monitor it and based on the calculation I recon Cyclemeter is using that equation as the figures it gives me are within 7 of each other.

At least I know what to trust now and will adjust the calories on here.

MrsMarLis · June 2014

I know on mapmyrun, (what i also use for bikeriding) you can choose what you are doing as exersize. I once had run selceted instead of bike ride and it gave me a HUGE number. Though if I have bike ride selected it gives me a rather accourat calorie count. just somthing to cheek. Maybe you have the wrong type of exerise selected?

Faye_Anderson · June 2014

The problem is when I read the sites linked to on here they all recommend 20% below your maintenance calories, which for me appears to work out at about 2400 calories and the 1440 calories MFP has set is 40% lower than that. So you read the sites and learn about the starvation myth but then also learn that there is a starvation response which could be making this all much harder as again 20% is recommended,

Then I am logging the calories I eat for my meals and eating 1440 calories is easy. I can hit the target most days +/- 20 to 40 calories which I figure is good enough and it's working. It's much easier than I though it would be and if someone says I should be eating 1920 calories then that's going to be hard.

So is 1440 to little? Am I causing myself problems with some sort of starvation response? Anyone know what sort of calories it takes to propel a 225lb guy at 14mph for 15 miles or a site that can help me estimate it to check the figures MapMyRide is giving me?

first off the other sites include exercise...mfp does not. They are two different methods...NEAT and TDEE. When you went to the other sites did you choose sedentary? or add in your exercise?

MFP is designed for you to eat back your exercise calories...so if you gross 1400...exercise 900..you are netting 500...that is too low.

As for what you are given on MFP it is all dependent on the data you enter...if your weight loss goal is too agressive If you have 75+ lbs to lose 2 lbs/week is ideal
If you have 40-75 lbs to lose 1.5 lbs/week is ideal
If you have 25-40 lbs to lose 1 lbs/week is ideal
If you have 15 -25 lbs to lose 0.5 to 1.0 lbs/week is ideal
If you have less than 15 lbs to lose 0.5 lbs/week is ideal

It will give you agressive calorie goals...

At 225lbs and a guy you should be netting at minimum 1800 calories...change your weekly weight loss goal to something more appropriate based on above and eat back 50-75% of your exercise calories regardless of where you get the burns.

Hi Ian

THIS is the post you should be reading and taking notice of :flowerforyou:

IanG186 · June 2014

As for what you are given on MFP it is all dependent on the data you enter...if your weight loss goal is too agressive If you have 75+ lbs to lose 2 lbs/week is ideal
If you have 40-75 lbs to lose 1.5 lbs/week is ideal
If you have 25-40 lbs to lose 1 lbs/week is ideal
If you have 15 -25 lbs to lose 0.5 to 1.0 lbs/week is ideal
If you have less than 15 lbs to lose 0.5 lbs/week is ideal

It will give you agressive calorie goals...

At 225lbs and a guy you should be netting at minimum 1800 calories...change your weekly weight loss goal to something more appropriate based on above and eat back 50-75% of your exercise calories regardless of where you get the burns.

Thanks Stef. I just had a play with the goals settings as you suggest and the amount you want to lose does appear to be the key factor. When I started I had 78lns to lose to get to my goal and 2lb per week was the ideal. I guess I just stuck to that and haven't been adjusting things. It's now at 1.5lb per week and things look much better

IanG186 · June 2014

Hi Ian

THIS is the post you should be reading and taking notice of :flowerforyou:

Thanks Faye. Just got to that one and it has helped with the confusion no end.

IanG186 · June 2014

Thanks to everyone else who has given advice. I am glad I asked here now as it has helped a lot. I have adjusted things and it seems a lot better on the net calories front and I just need to make sure I eat more on exercise days and log everything.

I will monitor what MFP does from now on but it doesn't seem to be changing my net on a daily basis when I check-in but can't swear to that as I haven't really paid attention properly but I will now.

And once again thanks everyone I am glad I asked.:happy:

segovm · June 2014

So I'm in EXACTLY the same boat you are (well, I do my 20-30 miles a day a bit slower than you is all) and honestly I don't eat back the calories even though everyone insists that at least some should be eaten back.

My rule is to simply eat when I am hungry but to make sure those calories come from meals (I like turkey burgers and veggies right now, hard to binge on that stuff!).

Right now I am doing about 1700-1900 calories most days and I don't seem to be hungry ever even with long rides in there. If I factored in the bike rides, I could eat an extra pound of bacon every day and despite the temptation I just don't see that helping with my long term goals.

I think the biggest thing for me is to just make sure I continue to get stronger and have more energy. I don't want to be malnourished and I use fitness objectives as a means of determining my overall health. I keep tweaking the types of food and times I eat to make sure I'm never running on empty as I go through my day.

A month from now I might find I have to bump up my calories to keep going out and making improvements in my rides and other exercise and I'm fine with that. People hate the idea of listening to your body because they think an eating disorder or starvation will ensue but for a few million years most mammals have been pretty successful at self regulation especially when we take out a lot of the unnaturally calorically dense foods that led us into being chubby.

Anyway, best of luck to you and I hope you get where you are going!

Confused about MFP target calories

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