Mfp is telling me to eat more!

If you go under 1000 MFP will give you a warning notice. Eat the amount it tells you. 1200 is okay if you are really tiny. How tall are you?

You should eat more! If you're under 1200 calories (let's generously say you eat 1100) and you burn 350 at the gym, your body is only working on 850 calories. That is NOT healthy and it is NOT sustainable. You may lose weight at first, but you will soon plateau resulting in a damaged metabolism that thinks it's in starvation mode. Remember, health is a journey, not a destination. You didn't gain all that weight in a week, so don't try losing that quickly either.

ysossi wrote: »

savarnabanana wrote: »

This happens to me too!! Idk what the problem is and when I put it on one of these forums everyone told me to seek professional help and eat more!

Eat more = gain weight

No. Eating at a surplus = gain. Eating at a deficit = loss. MFP will give you your deficit for weight loss.

Ready2Rock206 wrote: »

MFP doesn't support unhealthy eating. If you want to eat too few calories just don't click the complete entry button and you won't get the message. Or you could consider being healthy about the way you lose weight and eat enough to properly nourish your body.

Exactly.

This is actually one of my favorite things about MFP.. imagine you only ate 600 calories for a day, and the app would give you your indication for 5-week progress, which will display you having lost a LOT of weight. That would only encourage people to eat 600kcal a day which is NOT healthy and in the long run, will either lead to you gaining everything back and then some, or to permanent damage to your body. I like that MFP is ' responsible' enough to not encourage such behavior.

And as mentioned above: as long as you have a calorie deficit, you'll lose weight. Maintenance level for women is around 2000kcal on average, so if you eat about 1500kcal a day, you'll still end up losing weight, just at a different rate than you would with 1200kcal/day

ysossi wrote: »

Sometimes I'm not under 1000 but if I burn calories at the gym, they get added and I'd have something like 600 outstanding at the end of the day. MFP doesn't want to let me off.

@ysossi - That is how MFP is designed to work.

MFP bases your calorie goal off an estimate of what you would burn without exercise. When you exercise, your calorie burn for the day increases and you can safely eat a bit more to still lose the same amount of weight you would have without the exercise.

An example of the math breakdown for you:

My MFP calories burned at lightly active setting (exercise not included): 1870
Lose 1 lb per week: -500
Calorie goal BEFORE exercise: 1370

So on days I don't workout, I should eat 1370 to lose 1 lb per week.
Now lets look at what happens when I workout (I'll use my Sunday for this):

MFP calories burned at lightly active (exercise not included): 1870
Calories burned through exercise + extra daily activity (fitbit adjustment): 644
Total estimated calories burned for the day: 2514
Lose 1 lb per week: -500
Calorie goal WITH exercise: 2014 (or NET 1370)

So on Sunday to maintain my current weight, I would need to eat around 2514 calories and to lose 1 lb per week I would eat around 2014.

So no exercise/light active day, I maintain at a lower calorie level and have to eat less, but on a workout/high activity day, I need to eat more to properly full my body for the activity I do. Yesterday my adjustment was over 1000, but if I look at the break down of my day it was extremely active (12,607 steps during intentional exercise and 18,393 steps during normal daily activity) and I ate every one of my available calories.

ysossi wrote: »

Ok I get the picture. Makes sense I guess. But eating more after a workout feels like it defeats the purpose. I understand tho, so will try it. Thanks all :-)

You need to be eating back at least half of those exercise calories or you're not giving yourself enough energy to even workout.