Changing MFP calories and raising maintenance calories

RosieRose7673
RosieRose7673 Posts: 438 Member
edited November 14 in Goal: Maintaining Weight
Hello everyone!

I'm new to posting here but I've been lurking for a few months all around the board.

I just have a question. So... I've recently gone into maintenance. I'm 5'5 and approx. 133 lb. i started maintenance a week ago. So far so good. Thing is.... MFP tells me to eat 1680 to maintain my weight IF I'm sedentary. I would definitely classify myself as lightly active (walk around a ton... Live in a very walkable city). Anyways, I work out 6-7 days a week (1 hour of weight training 3-4 days a week and 30 min to an hour of cardio most days). I know it seems like a lot of cardio but running is good stress relief for me.

So I'm going by tdee instead... I used scoobys TDEE calculator and it is saying to eat around 2400 calories to maintain. I wanted to start out a little lower and have it set to about 2100 calories. So it's all good and dandy. I've been eating around there. Thing is... When I complete my diary MFP keeps telling me I'm going to gain weight. I know this is not true because of TDEE and not logging exercise. I just hate seeing it keep telling me that. Is there a way to change it so it doesn't? Also, MFP will keep changing my calories everytime I log my weight (I'm a daily weigher, I want to see a trend). I had it set to maintain 133 and my weight dropped to 132.2 yesterday and i logged it. MFP reset itself and told me to eat 1900ish calories to gain .5 lb a week. Am I missing something when I did this and is there a way to stop it from happening?

Sorry... Kind of long winded!

Ooh! One more question! I know I've only been eating maintenance for a week... But I heard that when you go back to eating normal amounts of food... Your weight would temporarily jump up. When I did last Monday... My weight got to 133.8 then went down again to 132.2 yesterday and 132.6 today. I'm wondering since my weight didn't go up much at all... Should I try increasing my calories already or is it too soon?

Thanks for reading through all that!

(Edited for weird auto correct)

Replies

  • Ulwaz
    Ulwaz Posts: 380 Member
    log all your exercie calories you burn :) slowly increase it weekly, until you find the position where you start gaining weight and then lower it, youll find your maintance calories but it takes time
  • RosieRose7673
    RosieRose7673 Posts: 438 Member
    I was doing that but I don't have a HRM so I don't want to pick a random number out of the MFP database. I was literally just assuming 400 calories for an hour worth of cardio. So I just picked any type of cardio out of MFP and put in the amount of minutes for the cardio to log 400 calories. I never logged my weight training as it doesn't burn that many calories. That's why I was trying TDEE. I'll switch back to the way I was doing it before if I get to frustrated with TDEE.

    I was thinking I'd just remain at around 2100 for another week and see what else my weight decides to do.

    Thank you!
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    You basically have two options...you can adjust your activity level with MFP to more accurately reflect your TDEE so that when you complete your diary it's going to be more accurate in terms of telling you that you'll more or less maintain or whatever...or you can just ignore it.

    In terms of your weight fluctuations, you're going to see that in maintenance...you're never going to weight exactly XXX Lbs. If you want to bump it up this week go for it and see what happens and track the trends, that's how you get it dialed in.

    What you will ultimately find is that you basically have a range of maintenance calories rather than one specific number. I stopped logging when I was in maintenance and did just fine for 1.5 years...I always just kind of kept a rough tally in my head and ate pretty healthfully. I'm currently logging as I did a deliberate cycle to put on some muscle over the fall and early winter and inevitably that comes with a little fat as well so I have to cut it...can't wait to get back to maintenance though; I found it very easy to maintain.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    Some people get a water/glycogen weight bounce when they come out of deficit but it's by no means universal. A lot will depend if you low carbed or had a large deficit right down to maintenance.
    If you get a sudden weight jump that's out of all proportion to your increased calories just try and ignore it, don't react by changing your goal - trust the numbers and give it time to settle down.

    You may well have to play around with your calorie goal but think trends over weeks not days otherwise you will go mad chasing normal daily fluctuations. Give yourself a weight range not a single point for the same reasons.

    And congratulations - be happy!
    :smiley:
  • RosieRose7673
    RosieRose7673 Posts: 438 Member
    edited March 2015
    Cool. Thank you! Yeah I figured I'd have to just ignore it. I haven't been hitting that complete button because I don't want to see it. Haha! I'll just continue doing that.

    I figured I'd give myself maybe 133 the middle point and +/- 3 lb. I just thought the very small amount of fluctuations that I experienced were a little strange. Just thought I'd retain water from the increase in food! Who knows.

    That's awesome that you quit logging! I used to always keep a calorie tally (roughly) in my head. I lost my initial 50 pounds doing that. Then joined MFP and started using the tracker to keep an eye on my protein and what not. I never had a problem maintaining before my weight gain. But I ended up gaining 80 lb in a year due to serious alcohol abuse and eating in a blackout stupor and being to hungover constantly to do any sort of physical activity. Not pretty. I quit drinking for good now. So I'm hoping I can return to that in due time. I just want to figure out my maintenance calories so I can go back to mentally tracking again.

    Edit: to be clear in the last paragraph... I meant that I want to return to mentally tracking my calories in due time.... Not drinking!!
  • ndj1979
    ndj1979 Posts: 29,136 Member
    Ulwaz wrote: »
    log all your exercie calories you burn :) slowly increase it weekly, until you find the position where you start gaining weight and then lower it, youll find your maintance calories but it takes time

    op is doing TDEE method...you don't log exercise burns because they are already built in...
  • ewartluft
    ewartluft Posts: 79 Member
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    You basically have two options...you can adjust your activity level with MFP to more accurately reflect your TDEE so that when you complete your diary it's going to be more accurate in terms of telling you that you'll more or less maintain or whatever...

    I do this. I would consider myself "lightly active" but have mfp set to "active" so that it's closer to my TDEE and I don't have to worry about eating different amounts on different days.

  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,342 Member
    congrats :smile: and as others say, adjust mfp to set yourself as 'lightly active' or active. I have mine set to active as that more accurate for my TDEE/Fitbit. I wouldn't like to be told I'd gain either when I complete my diary!
  • RosieRose7673
    RosieRose7673 Posts: 438 Member
    edited March 2015
    Oh! Voila! I finally changed it from my custom setting and just set it as active. It gave me 2150. Perfect! So far... My weight has been chilling just slightly below where I initially started maintaining. It has only been 8 days. I'll reevaluate in a week or two. If it seems to be trending towards losing again... I'll bump them up! Thanks everyone!
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