Do you stick with the 1200 cals/per day suggested by MFP?

Hi. I've been doing 1200 cal/day for about a month now....losing about a pound/week. It's gotten easier. I do a protein drink in the mornings to keep me full 'till lunch and it's only 160 cal....so that helps. I can't exercise because of an injury, and losing weight will help healing, so I'm super motivated to stay at 1200. Good luck with your journey.

1200 is your base and you earn more through exercise. That 1200 is based on what you inputed as your goals, so lowering the aggressiveness, will give you more calories and be more sustainable.
You can go in and change your macros from the default setting. Good luck!

ShirleyVJ wrote: »

Yes. I may have to adjust. And good for you justmisstracy, you have no trouble dieting and you're already quite small... Funny.

Sorry..I didn't mean dieting...I meant staying within my calorie goal..I don't call it dieting...and I'm small, but still could lose a pound or two, I meant my frame..As info..I did start this at 178 lbs...am now at approx 128......but ya, I can see where you would find it funny..!

"Do you stick with the 1200 cals/per day suggested by MFP?"
When I started, I gave MFP my stats, activity level and said I wanted to lose 1 lb per week. My starting calorie goal was 1330. It was fine. I stuck to it and lost at the rate I wanted. As I lost weight my goal lowered to 1270. I did not want to lower it to 1200 as MFP eventually recommended. I decided I wanted a slower more comfortable loss. For awhile I raised my goal to 1440 but currently I have it set at 1340. I try to eat between 1200-1500. I eat a portion of my exercise calories. I look at my calories for the whole week.

ShirleyVJ wrote: »

I'm thinking that 1200 cals per day is too low for me and my weight, even if I want to lose 2lbs per week. IIFYM gave me 1900 per day and 160 grams of protein versus like 60 grams of protein from MFP?

I think 1200 is a hard place to start out because you can't really go any lower. If you have 100 lbs to lose you can probably do 2 lbs a week for awhile but you might be better off setting your goal to 1 lb a week. You could eat more than 1200 calories and lose weight.

When I started with MFP it suggested 1460 not 1200 but that was based on my goals of 1lb a week....now that I have lost most of my weight (actually more than my initial goal) it gives me 1460 for 1/2lb a week. I eat anywhere between 1500-1800 to lose 1/2lb a week.

I use an activity tracker and eat most of my adjustment back typically.

At maintenance I could eat anywhere between 2k and 2400.

I have to go down to 1240 for 1 lb per week but am much more comfortable eating 1490 for 0.5 lb per week! The way I see it, I'm learning portion control which I'll use for the rest of my life - I don't want to have to learn a whole new way of eating once I reach my goal and go into maintenance. If I had to adjust from 1200 diet to 1650 maintenance all of a sudden I think I'd be more prone to messing up, so if I can eat closer to the way I'll eat for the rest of my life and still lose weight then I'm happy to go slow and steady!

PinkPixiexox wrote: »

MFP gave me 1200 calories per day. With respect to the MFP way, I find this whole method totally over complicates things for me (having to eat back 50-75% exercise calories etc). I use the TDEE method which includes me exercise - I'm on recomp now but I ate around 1400-1500 to lose weight and was successful

but that is due to your stats, weekly weight loss goal etc.

MFP does not default to 1200 calories.

As for the eating back all exercise calories I did for the first 60 days here and lost the weight as planned. The exercise calories aren't off for all people...

I too switched to TDEE when I started weight lifting but that was only because it's hard to define calorie burns with that...and low and behold my TDEE -20% was the same as MFP + exercise calories.

Can someone confirm. I eat 1200 a day. Then enter my exercise should I eat the exercise calories back or just 50% of them or none?

I eat 1200 cal and exercise 6 days a week burning about 2500cal per week (don't eat them back). I have about 20-25kg to lose. Am losing about 1kg per week or less. Am planning on sticking to 1200 for the remaining 8 weeks of my 12 week program. Not sure after that, I don't have a prob sticking to 1200 most days but I kinda agree long term 1200 is too low long term. At my goal weight 1700 is maintenance so I guess I will slowly work my way towards that.