Will calorie goal change when goal weight is reached

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cmperry79
cmperry79 Posts: 3 Member
in Goal: Maintaining Weight
Hi all.

Just a quick question.

I hit my goal weight of 66kg 3 weeks ago (WHOO HOO) and adjusted my weight loss goals to lose 0.2kg per week rather than 0.5kg per week manually. This increased my calorie goal from 1500 per day to 1700 per day which seemed to make sense.

Yesterday I weighed myself and I'm now 66.1kg (still not too bad) and MFP appears to have adjusted my goal back to 1500 calories a day.

I didn't expect it to adjust automatically. Is this correct behaviour from the app and will it automatically readjust itself back to 1700 calories per day when I've re-lost the weight?

Chris

Replies

  • cmperry79
    cmperry79 Posts: 3 Member
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    Not that it should make any difference but the reason the weight has increased is because my old scales were rubbish so I replaced them with new ones.
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,342 Member
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    Why not set your mfp goal to lose 0kg per week and see what cals it give you then...
  • smp6185
    smp6185 Posts: 2 Member
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    Using a calorie calculator, I have discovered that for every pound I lose, I have to decrease my daily calories by three calories. Now,this would be something to take into account if I were doing no exercise at all. If you are doing an exercise program, the routines become more demanding as you progress, meaning you are burning more calories as you lose weight and exercise. So as I see it, you may even need to increase your calorie intake to make sure you don't fall below your daily caloric need. That's one of the reasons I love MFP so much! Being able to input your daily exercise and the resultant calories burned, makes it very easy to keep an eye on this!
  • cmperry79
    cmperry79 Posts: 3 Member
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    Thanks for the replies. if I manually change my weight loss goal it does adjust the calorie goal down.
    What I'm not sure about is whether it will automatically change the goal once I reach my target weight.
    I also add all my exercise in which works really well. I have my activity level set as sedentary and then have my steps and exercise updated through my vivoactive.

    Does anyone know if it will auto calculate my calorie goal once I hit my target weight?
  • RoxieDawn
    RoxieDawn Posts: 15,488 Member
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    Actually if you increase intensity of your exercise you will burn more calories, if you stay the same in your routine you will more than likely not burn as many as you did before.

    It should not automatically reset your goal. It used to give you a notification after 10 pounds to change goal, but I have not been in that mode for quite a while.

    I think you should go back into the program and make sure your "starting weight" or updated weight is right and go into your settings and change the lose from .5 to .2. But you said you made your goal weight so why not just use 0 or set it to maintain.

    I am confused by this question, really.

  • lkizzat
    lkizzat Posts: 5 Member
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    Congrats!
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,891 Member
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    smp6185 wrote: »
    Using a calorie calculator, I have discovered that for every pound I lose, I have to decrease my daily calories by three calories. Now,this would be something to take into account if I were doing no exercise at all. If you are doing an exercise program, the routines become more demanding as you progress, meaning you are burning more calories as you lose weight and exercise. So as I see it, you may even need to increase your calorie intake to make sure you don't fall below your daily caloric need. That's one of the reasons I love MFP so much! Being able to input your daily exercise and the resultant calories burned, makes it very easy to keep an eye on this!

    To the bolded point: I wouldn't count on that.
    • If the exercise becomes more challenging/intensive, all other things being equal, you will burn more calories.
    • As you lose weight, any given exercise (same activity, intensity, duration, etc.) will burn fewer calories (because you're moving less body around, basically).
    • As you become fitter, any given exercise may burn very slightly fewer calories because you become more efficient at it. (This effect is likely to be small.)

    So, in an exercise session of the same duration, if you do a more demanding exercise than you used to do, but you weigh less than you used to, you could be burning fewer calories or more, depending on whether the extra calories burned (from the more demanding exercise) exceed the reduced calories (from being smaller and more efficient while you do the exercise), or vice-versa. That is, the relative size of each effect matters.

    It seems grossly unfair to me (speaking with tongue slightly in cheek) that the more weight I lose, the fewer calories I burn in a spin class, rowing machine session, on-water row, walk, or bike ride, even while working very hard . . . but it's true. For example, a spin class that used to earn me 350+ calories, is now only good for something in the mid-200s, because I'm 2/3 my previous body weight. Sad, huh? ;-)

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