Are calorie intake too low?
FernandoAnguiano
Posts: 9 Member
Hello everyone! I've just opened up my account a few days ago and MFP shows that my goal calorie intake should be just under 1400 cals a day. As a 37 male who weighs 220 lbs and is 5'9" tall, should my daily calorie intake be that low? I don't know much about this, but seems a bit low. My goal is to lose 40 lbs. I'm not worried about how long that could take, I'm just a bit concerned about the calories being too low. Or is that more or less a normal range?
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Did you set it up properly? The minimum for men is 1500.0
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What activity level did you enter? I started at 245 (44 year old male, 5'10) with a "lightly activity" level and it gave me a similar calorie level. I am now "active" level and it gives me ~1900 calories per day for 2lbs per week at 200lbs.
I am losing around 1-2 lbs per week with around 2 hrs per day of exercise (bike commuting) on the weekdays and occasional exercise on the weekends. FWIW I have been at this since beginning of March and have lost 45lbs.0 -
You are better off calculating your TDEE and then subtracting 500 calories to start.
1400 is too for an adult male.0 -
I'm pretty sure I did set all the specs right. Age, sex, height, weight set to lose 2 lbs per week. The only thing was that I did set my activity level at 'sedentary'. Would that have anything to do with it?0
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FernandoAnguiano wrote: »I'm pretty sure I did set all the specs right. Age, sex, height, weight set to lose 2 lbs per week. The only thing was that I did set my activity level at 'sedentary'. Would that have anything to do with it?
Are you sedentary? I am except for the 4-5 day workouts. You have to decide if you are sedentary or not. With higher activity levels your calorie levels would be higher.
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Actually I do workout. When I'm motivated, I do it 4-5 days a week, but I have gone weeks at a time where I just don't do anything, other than yoga. Which is why I chose sedentary.0
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FernandoAnguiano wrote: »Actually I do workout. When I'm motivated, I do it 4-5 days a week, but I have gone weeks at a time where I just don't do anything, other than yoga. Which is why I chose sedentary.
Fair enough. I still think 1400 is too low for a grown man. Just go to scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/ and find out your TDEE. Subtract 500 calories or if you want a bigger deficit 1000 calories.
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Ok, I'll give that a try. Thanks.0
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Activity level isn't based on exercise, but how active you are in your day to day life.
How much weight do you have to lose? Aiming for two pounds a week may be too aggressive.0 -
Activity level isn't based on exercise, but how active you are in your day to day life.
How much weight do you have to lose? Aiming for two pounds a week may be too aggressive.
I want to lose 40 lbs. I'm not very active through out the day then. Just when it I get to my workouts. This can be very confusing.0 -
FernandoAnguiano wrote: »Actually I do workout. When I'm motivated, I do it 4-5 days a week, but I have gone weeks at a time where I just don't do anything, other than yoga. Which is why I chose sedentary.
Fair enough. I still think 1400 is too low for a grown man. Just go to scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/ and find out your TDEE. Subtract 500 calories or if you want a bigger deficit 1000 calories.
So that calculator shows I should consume 1952 cals a day. If I subtract 500 cals, I end up with 1452 cals to consume.0 -
If you put everything into the TDEE calculator correctly and it shows 1952 then yes to lose 1 lb/week you would need to eat 1450 calories.FernandoAnguiano wrote: »FernandoAnguiano wrote: »Actually I do workout. When I'm motivated, I do it 4-5 days a week, but I have gone weeks at a time where I just don't do anything, other than yoga. Which is why I chose sedentary.
Fair enough. I still think 1400 is too low for a grown man. Just go to scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/ and find out your TDEE. Subtract 500 calories or if you want a bigger deficit 1000 calories.
So that calculator shows I should consume 1952 cals a day. If I subtract 500 cals, I end up with 1452 cals to consume.
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http://iifym.com/tdee-calculator/ gives me 2500 for you as maintenance.0
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Every pound you want to loose a week is 500 less calories you eat a day or 500 more calories you burn a day. MFP subtracts 1000 calories from your daily maintenance quota if you set your goal as 2 pounds a week of weight loss. If you exercise and log it, you will gain additional calories you can eat. If your calorie quota is 1452 for a weight loss of 2 pounds a week, you should probably scale back your goal to 1 to 1.5 pounds a week, unless you plan on raising your activity level. Eating less than 1800 calories a day is probably not a good idea, though 1500 is probably manageable as a minimum.
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Lower the aggressiveness of your goal.0
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As far as I'm aware 1400 is too low, impossibly low as in you set something up wrong.
Sounds like your new to this stuff, maybe check your settings in mfp before looking at tdee and othe calculators.
If I set my weight loss to max the lowest it goes is 6276 kj which is 1500 calories.
Also check your goal. If you have 40 pounds to lose 1 pound a week I think is about right, 2 pounds it's probably too aggressive.0 -
Yep. Like @merkavar says, recheck your setting and change your goal to one pound a week.
He who eats the most food but still loses is the winner.0 -
Is it possible you've had the app for a long time but haven't updated it? Months ago there was a bug giving people lower than the limit (1500 for men and 1200 for women) goals.0
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FernandoAnguiano wrote: »FernandoAnguiano wrote: »Actually I do workout. When I'm motivated, I do it 4-5 days a week, but I have gone weeks at a time where I just don't do anything, other than yoga. Which is why I chose sedentary.
Fair enough. I still think 1400 is too low for a grown man. Just go to scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/ and find out your TDEE. Subtract 500 calories or if you want a bigger deficit 1000 calories.
So that calculator shows I should consume 1952 cals a day. If I subtract 500 cals, I end up with 1452 cals to consume.
If scooby gave you 1952 EAT 1952. I plugged in your info and got 2473 to MAINTAIN and 1972 to Lose.0 -
Thanks guys! I've tweaked it a bit. I've changed my settings to 'Lightly Active' rather than 'Sedentary' and moved it down to 1.5 lbs a week. Gave me just a bit under 2000 cals. I hope I don't get any glitches. I just opened this account 3 days ago and I'm using it on a laptop. Hopefully it'll work properly as my 'Your Daily Goal' on my food diary has changed in the past 3 days that I've recorded my food intake. Two out of those three days have the same result of about 15 lbs in 5 weeks. I'm ok with that.0
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FernandoAnguiano wrote: »Thanks guys! I've tweaked it a bit. I've changed my settings to 'Lightly Active' rather than 'Sedentary' and moved it down to 1.5 lbs a week. Gave me just a bit under 2000 cals. I hope I don't get any glitches. I just opened this account 3 days ago and I'm using it on a laptop. Hopefully it'll work properly as my 'Your Daily Goal' on my food diary has changed in the past 3 days that I've recorded my food intake. Two out of those three days have the same result of about 15 lbs in 5 weeks. I'm ok with that.
You will be fine!! Welcome to MFP!!0 -
After 6 months holding close to Maintenance. Mine is now set to Sedetary and 1.5 lbs a week which gives me a calorie goal of 1500 a day. This really isn't difficult to achieve, you just have to make the right choices of filling food that are not too calorie dense. Doing cardio exercise and burning extra calories will enable you to eat more anyways (Today I ran 5K and added 21 minutes of eleptical which gave me an extra 771 calories.......yes the steak was awesome. If you really are "sedetary" and set to "light active" you may not get the results you are looking for. I like to think of myself as having defeated obesity and trust me if I did it, anyone else can too. Its a long road ahead but one worth travelling.0
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FernandoAnguiano wrote: »Thanks guys! I've tweaked it a bit. I've changed my settings to 'Lightly Active' rather than 'Sedentary' and moved it down to 1.5 lbs a week. Gave me just a bit under 2000 cals. I hope I don't get any glitches. I just opened this account 3 days ago and I'm using it on a laptop. Hopefully it'll work properly as my 'Your Daily Goal' on my food diary has changed in the past 3 days that I've recorded my food intake. Two out of those three days have the same result of about 15 lbs in 5 weeks. I'm ok with that.
Wonderful! Welcome, by the way.
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FernandoAnguiano wrote: »Thanks guys! I've tweaked it a bit. I've changed my settings to 'Lightly Active' rather than 'Sedentary' and moved it down to 1.5 lbs a week. Gave me just a bit under 2000 cals. I hope I don't get any glitches. I just opened this account 3 days ago and I'm using it on a laptop. Hopefully it'll work properly as my 'Your Daily Goal' on my food diary has changed in the past 3 days that I've recorded my food intake. Two out of those three days have the same result of about 15 lbs in 5 weeks. I'm ok with that.
I'm no maths genius here but if you have it set to 1.5 or 2 pounds per week, but mfp is saying 15 pounds in 5 weeks, doesn't that mean you are under eating?
1.5/2 pounds a week is 7.5/10 pounds in 5 weeks not 15.
Or is there some other factor I am missing? Make sure your eating over 1500 calories, getting enough protein etc but probably best to eat as close to the number you were given, 1900-2000.0 -
Stay above 1200, you be good.0
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FernandoAnguiano wrote: »Hello everyone! I've just opened up my account a few days ago and MFP shows that my goal calorie intake should be just under 1400 cals a day. As a 37 male who weighs 220 lbs and is 5'9" tall, should my daily calorie intake be that low? I don't know much about this, but seems a bit low. My goal is to lose 40 lbs. I'm not worried about how long that could take, I'm just a bit concerned about the calories being too low. Or is that more or less a normal range?
According to MFP and the stats you listed, your BMR is 1,898kcal/day. If you are sedentary, then maintenance is 2277kcal/day. If you want to lose 1.5lb/week, that is ~1530kcal/day. If you set it to lightly active, it would be ~1880kcal/day to lose 1.5lb/week. MFP will not suggest lower than 1500 calories for a guy, if it did, you entered something wrong (like saying you are a female).
You then have to log and eat back your exercise calories. If MFP is saying you will lose 3lb/week, then you are under-eating your goal either by not eating back exercise calories or not even eating what you were originally given.0 -
This is the info I've put in when I first started. The only difference was that in the beginning I had it set up at 'Sedentary' with 2 lbs a week to lose. It was giving me 1390 cals a day to eat. Now sure why some of you guys got different results.
Now that I've changed it up to 'Lightly Avtive' with 1.5 lbs to lose, this is my result.
I'm pretty stoked about all this and I really appreciate everyone's help. Glad to know there's a whole lot of you guys willing to help.
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thebrandnewdiva wrote: »No such thing as "too low calories" for weight loss, no.such.thing
There is too such a thing.0 -
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This discussion has been closed.
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