"You will weigh x in 5 weeks" a q

Hi! I am currently using a calorie goal of 1550 to lose about 1 lb a week (147 lbs currently). With my exercise level, my tdee is 2050 so this goal is in line with losing 1lb a week. Today I went over by 190 cal (Mother's Day!) and after I completed the entry it said "if every day bla bla bla , in 5 weeks you will weight 148." How would I gain weight at a deficit? Is the tool messed up?
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Replies

  • bendyourkneekatie
    bendyourkneekatie Posts: 696 Member
    Did you do any exercise? Just a guess, but if no exercise was entered on this particular day, your tdee would be calculated as lower for that day.
  • DawnieB1977
    DawnieB1977 Posts: 4,248 Member
    To be honest, I ignore it. I eat at a deficit, and I exercise a lot, and don't eat back exercise calories. Sometimes it tells me I'll lose 15lbs+ in 5 weeks. Rubbish. I'm lucky if I lose 2lbs in 5 weeks!
  • TripZeros
    TripZeros Posts: 144 Member
    Last week the app said I had over 2 million calories left for the day! It was funny. I would bet it's just something funky with the tool.
  • markiend
    markiend Posts: 461 Member
    Today you were over your calories ? So if every day was like today.... you wouldn't be in a deficit.

    Ignoring the message seems best
  • Alatariel75
    Alatariel75 Posts: 17,956 Member
    markie166 wrote: »
    Today you were over your calories ? So if every day was like today.... you wouldn't be in a deficit.

    Ignoring the message seems best

    But you can be over your calories, and still in a deficit. If you're at a 500 cal a day deficit and you're over by 190, you're still 310 under your maintenance. You would still lose on that deficit, just not as fast.
  • Merkavar
    Merkavar Posts: 3,082 Member
    markie166 wrote: »
    Today you were over your calories ? So if every day was like today.... you wouldn't be in a deficit.

    Ignoring the message seems best

    But you can be over your calories, and still in a deficit. If you're at a 500 cal a day deficit and you're over by 190, you're still 310 under your maintenance. You would still lose on that deficit, just not as fast.

    Wouldn't mfp be calculated on neat not tdee so you might be in a deficit for tdee but if no exercise was entered could you be over according to mfp and neat?
  • Nony_Mouse
    Nony_Mouse Posts: 5,646 Member
    Merkavar wrote: »
    markie166 wrote: »
    Today you were over your calories ? So if every day was like today.... you wouldn't be in a deficit.

    Ignoring the message seems best

    But you can be over your calories, and still in a deficit. If you're at a 500 cal a day deficit and you're over by 190, you're still 310 under your maintenance. You would still lose on that deficit, just not as fast.

    Wouldn't mfp be calculated on neat not tdee so you might be in a deficit for tdee but if no exercise was entered could you be over according to mfp and neat?

    Yeah that would be my guess, but then who knows with this buggy critter sometimes!!

    OP, that 5 week prediction thing is about as reliable as a Magic 8 Ball at the best of times. Just ignore it.
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    cldmolly wrote: »
    Hi! I am currently using a calorie goal of 1550 to lose about 1 lb a week (147 lbs currently). With my exercise level, my tdee is 2050 so this goal is in line with losing 1lb a week. Today I went over by 190 cal (Mother's Day!) and after I completed the entry it said "if every day bla bla bla , in 5 weeks you will weight 148." How would I gain weight at a deficit? Is the tool messed up?

    MFP is based on NEAT, if you didn't add your purposeful exercise on that day that gives you your TDEE of 2050 then you could easily have been over your NEAT target for that specific day

    best to ignore the message - if you want to track it, jot the numbers in your diary 5 weeks in the future then when you get there compare on average against where you actually are
  • wizzybeth
    wizzybeth Posts: 3,573 Member
    I have found that if I stay on target every day then the estimate is usually pretty close! I haven't dared to test the over-days target lol

    Maybe its a scare tactic like when our mothers used to tell us handling toads would give us warts or certain activities would make us go blind lok
  • cldmolly
    cldmolly Posts: 66 Member
    Thanks everyone... I didn't do any exercise yesterday so that must be what it means. I don't get though how it's not picking up the info I inputted originally, even if I go by tdee. 1550 by mfp standards still is a deficit. They need to get rid of that!
  • try2again
    try2again Posts: 3,562 Member
    I thought that message was cool the first week, now it ticks me off- gets your hopes up one day, dashes them the next! Very fickle! It's the general trend that counts. A better message would be "if every week/month were like this one".
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    Here's something that I didn't realise for the first month or so

    You don't need to complete

    The only thing it does is give you that pop up and post on your feed, makes no difference to anything else

    So if you don't want to see it don't complete
  • atypicalsmith
    atypicalsmith Posts: 2,742 Member
    I complete and ignore it. Silly app!
  • atypicalsmith
    atypicalsmith Posts: 2,742 Member
    Merkavar wrote: »
    markie166 wrote: »
    Today you were over your calories ? So if every day was like today.... you wouldn't be in a deficit.

    Ignoring the message seems best

    But you can be over your calories, and still in a deficit. If you're at a 500 cal a day deficit and you're over by 190, you're still 310 under your maintenance. You would still lose on that deficit, just not as fast.

    Wouldn't mfp be calculated on neat not tdee so you might be in a deficit for tdee but if no exercise was entered could you be over according to mfp and neat?

    Glad you know all about this. It's been quite an education. Thanks, Merkavar!
  • Aresnouveau
    Aresnouveau Posts: 2 Member
    Ignore it. I find the MFP calorie "suggestions" for weight loss to be totally crazy. When I've looked at what MFP suggests versus many other TDEE and BMR online, the MFP suggested calories are way low. A year ago I started at 235 lbs and lost 25 lbs over the course of a few months eating at 2,000 calories a day, with modest (not vigorous) exercise thrown in a few days a week. Had I followed MFP they told me I would gain at that amount of calories. Now I have gained some back, am currently at 220, and MFP is still telling me I need 1200-ish cals a day to see decent loss. I know this isn't true. I set my own custom targets and ignore their little messages.

    My other secret that I use? At the end of the day I do NOT hit the "finished logging" button....if I don't hit the "finished" button no message comes up telling me that I'll be a hippo by the end of the week LOL, and I go about my slow and steady weight loss free of that annoyance. :)
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    Ignore it. I find the MFP calorie "suggestions" for weight loss to be totally crazy. When I've looked at what MFP suggests versus many other TDEE and BMR online, the MFP suggested calories are way low. A year ago I started at 235 lbs and lost 25 lbs over the course of a few months eating at 2,000 calories a day, with modest (not vigorous) exercise thrown in a few days a week. Had I followed MFP they told me I would gain at that amount of calories. Now I have gained some back, am currently at 220, and MFP is still telling me I need 1200-ish cals a day to see decent loss. I know this isn't true. I set my own custom targets and ignore their little messages.

    My other secret that I use? At the end of the day I do NOT hit the "finished logging" button....if I don't hit the "finished" button no message comes up telling me that I'll be a hippo by the end of the week LOL, and I go about my slow and steady weight loss free of that annoyance. :)

    MFP is NEAT not TDEE, of course it's lower

    You're supposed to add and eat exercise calories on top
  • harpsdesire
    harpsdesire Posts: 190 Member
    I ignore that message. No day is ever exactly the same as any other day, which renders that 'If every day was like today..." totally meaningless.
  • shinisize
    shinisize Posts: 105 Member
    Last year, when I was first being really good about logging and was trying to be super good/drinking a lot more MFP Kool aid, I started writing down my weight and what MFP claimed I would weigh in five weeks. After eight weeks I stopped hitting the complete button because there was no point. Since weight loss isn't linear, their number was really just a random, ballpark number being thrown out there that just confused things.
  • manicautumn
    manicautumn Posts: 224 Member
    I don't trust MFP for that. It's fun to think about (like horoscopes), but nothing I take as fact. Especially when I have my FitBit set to lose 1lb/week and I make that calorie goal and MFP tells me that I'll only lose 2.5lbs in 5 weeks.

    I've "beat" the 5 week average and "failed" it eating the same amounts last summer. It isn't something I would take too seriously.
  • wizzybeth
    wizzybeth Posts: 3,573 Member
    Ignore it. I find the MFP calorie "suggestions" for weight loss to be totally crazy. When I've looked at what MFP suggests versus many other TDEE and BMR online, the MFP suggested calories are way low. A year ago I started at 235 lbs and lost 25 lbs over the course of a few months eating at 2,000 calories a day, with modest (not vigorous) exercise thrown in a few days a week. Had I followed MFP they told me I would gain at that amount of calories. Now I have gained some back, am currently at 220, and MFP is still telling me I need 1200-ish cals a day to see decent loss. I know this isn't true. I set my own custom targets and ignore their little messages.

    My other secret that I use? At the end of the day I do NOT hit the "finished logging" button....if I don't hit the "finished" button no message comes up telling me that I'll be a hippo by the end of the week LOL, and I go about my slow and steady weight loss free of that annoyance. :)

    The MFP calculation if you set it at sedentary assumes you will be adding exercise calories on top of it.

    When I did my calculations based on TDEE with light exercise included, I come out to roughly the same amount of calories on MFP when I include my 1200 base calories plus my exercise calories.

    That said I set my daily goal to 1350 cause I wanna.