App says to eat 1430cals...really?

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Adsy1983
Adsy1983 Posts: 6 Member
in Getting Started
So im a 32 yr old male. 5ft 7in and weigh 182llbs.

The app says I should eat 1430kcal..this feels terribly restrictive. Is this right?

Thanks everyone

Replies

  • upoffthemat
    upoffthemat Posts: 679 Member
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    How much weight are you trying to lose? What do you have your TDEE set at? Are you sure you have it set at male?
  • harieta
    harieta Posts: 135 Member
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    What is your weight loss goal? How much are you trying to lose/week? How active are you?
  • Adsy1983
    Adsy1983 Posts: 6 Member
    edited March 2016
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    Yup I have it set to male (despite what my wife says about me).

    Set to lightly active.

    Set to lose 30 pounds ish.

    Set to lose 2llbs per week.

    I plan to go to gym 3 times a week but left exercise empty so i can add it manually
  • DaddieCat
    DaddieCat Posts: 3,643 Member
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    No, that doesn't seem right. I'm pretty sure MFP has a limiting lower end cap for males that is set to 1500 kcal/day

    What are your current settings? as the person above said, what age, height, weight, and gender did you enter when filling it out?

    You might want to verify all of those settings.
  • Sabine_Stroehm
    Sabine_Stroehm Posts: 19,263 Member
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    Adsy1983 wrote: »
    Yup I have it set to male (despite what my wife says about me).

    Set to lightly active.

    Set to lose 30 pounds ish.

    Did you tell it 2 lbs a week?
  • Adsy1983
    Adsy1983 Posts: 6 Member
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    Yup. 2 per week.
  • MPryor80
    MPryor80 Posts: 3 Member
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    I had mine set for 1500 Calories, but I noticed it recently changed my to 1430 as well. Not sure why that changed, but my doctor did not recommend dropping calories below 1500. I end up having to go into my setting and set it to a goal of losing 1 pound a week, it changed mine to 1660. Or you can go into your goals and manually put in the calorie goal you want.
  • 6502programmer
    6502programmer Posts: 515 Member
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    Two pounds per week with thirty to goal is "optimistic", which is why it feels restrictive. Start with one pound per week and take it from there. Usual guideline is half a pound per week for every 25 pounds you are over goal.
  • Alyssa_Is_LosingIt
    Alyssa_Is_LosingIt Posts: 4,696 Member
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    6502programmer wrote: »
    Two pounds per week with thirty to goal is "optimistic", which is why it feels restrictive. Start with one pound per week and take it from there. Usual guideline is half a pound per week for every 25 pounds you are over goal.

    This.

    Two pounds per week is too aggressive for you. And as a male you shouldn't be eating less than 1500 calories.
  • aabean
    aabean Posts: 1 Member
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    Run your macros over at If It Fits Your Macros (http://www.iifym.com/iifym-calculator/#). I use this over the MFP calculator, then I set my custom nutrition macros from it.
  • rileysowner
    rileysowner Posts: 8,239 Member
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    Adsy1983 wrote: »
    So im a 32 yr old male. 5ft 7in and weigh 182llbs.

    The app says I should eat 1430kcal..this feels terribly restrictive. Is this right?

    Thanks everyone

    You likely have your weekly goal set too high. Two pounds a week is only appropriate for people with 80 or more pounds to lose. Drop it to one pound a week and you will have a much more realistic base goal. Also realize when you exercise you are supposed to eat those extra calories burned as MyFitnessPal does not include your intended exercise in it calculations of your calorie goal. Instead the goal you are given will give you the weight loss per week without any exercise. Exercise calories take that reasonable goal and make it too big resulting in excessive lean mass loss.
  • rileysowner
    rileysowner Posts: 8,239 Member
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    BecomingBane wrote: »
    No, that doesn't seem right. I'm pretty sure MFP has a limiting lower end cap for males that is set to 1500 kcal/day

    What are your current settings? as the person above said, what age, height, weight, and gender did you enter when filling it out?

    You might want to verify all of those settings.

    No they don't have a lower end cap specifically for males. I have been pushing for it for years as I constantly encounter males who are eating 1200 a day and not meeting that even.
  • samchez0
    samchez0 Posts: 364 Member
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    Adsy1983 wrote: »
    So im a 32 yr old male. 5ft 7in and weigh 182llbs.

    The app says I should eat 1430kcal..this feels terribly restrictive. Is this right?

    Thanks everyone

    Depends on what you put in for your amount to lose each week. I'm 5'7" 186 female and my cals are currently set to 1510 so yes, yours seems low to me. If change your goal to lose 1 or .5 lbs a week and see what that gives you.
  • OfficialDSXIII
    OfficialDSXIII Posts: 91 Member
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    It seems restrictive because you chose 2 pounds lost per week. Having it set that way means you'll be cutting out 1000 calories a day. It depends on you whether or not you could sustain that until you reach your goals. Personally, I couldn't feel satisfied with only 1400 calories, but you kind of have to try it and see for yourself.
  • 6502programmer
    6502programmer Posts: 515 Member
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    MPryor80 wrote: »
    I had mine set for 1500 Calories, but I noticed it recently changed my to 1430 as well.
    Your calorie allowance will drop as your weight goes down. It takes less calories to fuel and move you. This is why it's easier to support a 1000 calorie deficit at 100 pounds over goal versus 10.
  • rileysowner
    rileysowner Posts: 8,239 Member
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    I have a bit more time so I am going to write a longer explanation of why a 2 pound per week goal is excessive, and sometimes even 1 pound per week will be as well.

    The reality is that a person's body can only burn a certain maximum amount of fat per day regardless of calorie deficit. The amount an individual can burn is directly related to how much fat they have on their body so he more fat you have, the higher the maximum amount of fat you can burn in a day is. Keep this in mind because it is important to understanding what happens based on your calorie deficit. The more fat you have the more you can burn in a day. The less you have, the less you can burn in a day.

    So what does that have to do with calorie deficits and weekly weight loss goals? A great deal if you think about it. If the maximum amount of fat you can burn off in a day is limited, then what happens when you deficit is larger than that amount of fat, or to put it differently, what happens if you weight loss goal per week is greater than the maximum amount of fat you can burn off in in week?

    Quite obviously the energy to keep your body functioning needs to come from somewhere. The problem is your body cannot get it all from fat. To make up the difference it goes elsewhere, that is, it starts to burn off lean mass. This would mainly be from muscle mass, but can also come from organ mass as well. Instead of losing two pounds a week of mainly fat, what you achieve by too big a calorie deficit or too aggressive a weekly weight loss goal is a loss of some fat up to the maximum your body can burn off along with a chunk of lean mass. The more fat you lose without reducing your deficit or weight loss goal, the more that ratio swings away from mainly fat toward mainly lean mass.

    The take home from this is that the less you have to lose, the lower your weight loss goal per week should be. Unless a person has 80 or more pounds to lose, 2 pounds per week is too aggressive which is why 1 pound per week is the recommended weight loss goal. For people who have under 20 pounds to lose, even 1 pound per week is too aggressive, so half a pound per week would be a much better choice.

    It is for this reason based on the information you gave that I suggested that 2 pounds per week is too much. Depending on your body composition you may even want to go to .75 or .5 pound per week which will give you more calories. Also realize when you go to a smaller deficit you need to make sure you food logging is spot on. There is little room for error at that point. A digital kitchen scale measuring in grams for solids including those that are grated and ground, and fluid measures for liquids that you don't have grams amounts for.

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