A bit of a problem

Hi. Did you set up your goals through here? If not, go to my home-goals-guided setup. You can say what you want to weigh, how much weight you want to lose, and how active you are. MFP will give you a calorie amount to eat at. Just trust it. When you exercise, you will earn additional calories you can eat. I eat some to all of mine back depending on how hungry I feel. Most people will eat back a portion of exercise calories under the assumption they aren't going to eat them all because calorie burns are estimates. When you weigh in, go to my home, check-in and enter your weight. It will show everyone your loss.

It looks slightly different on the app depending on what kind of phone you use but all those functions are there. My best advice is don't over complicate it. Eat to your calorie limit. Be honest with your exercise and log everything you consume.

Good luck.

First, congratulations on starting to take control of your weight and, ultimately, health! I waited until i was approaching my forties.... you will have good years ahead of you, starting at 19!

You should use the MFP calculator to figure out how many calories you should eat in a day. It will use your height, weight, gender, and activity level to estimate how many calories you need to eat daily to maintain your current weight (TDEE). Then, depending on your planned weight loss, will subtract a number from the TDEE to give you a daily goal. A common practice it to start by aiming for 1 lbs of loss per week, by eating 500 calories below your TDEE each day (this means 500x7days - 3500 per week; approximately 3500 calories per pound).

1. If your goal reflects your TDEE minus X calories, i recommend eating your full goal. You need enough to survive on; more importantly, you need enough to feel good, and to stay motivated to stick to this. As you lose weight and update your goal, your total daily calories will slowly reduce. Don't rush it!
2. You can eat your calories any time. What matters is that you are within goal. Because it is hard to accurately estimate calories burned during exercise, i'd suggest only eating back half of them for about six weeks, and then gauge how accurate you are estimating calories burned and calories consumed.
3. I lost a bunch of weight quickly when i started getting healthy. I learned that most of it was water weight - when i was eating a bunch of garbage, my body retained a lot of water. After the first few weeks, my rapid loss tapered off, and now it is consistent with my estimates.
3a. also, don't trust daily weigh-in. Your weight will go up and down several pounds each day. Weight yourself regularly (i.e. at a specific time. i weigh in most mornings, after using the restroom and before showering). While i check my weight daily, i only record it about once a week. This keeps me from fixating on daily changes, and helps me focus on trends of several weeks. What you want to see is that over a period of about six weeks, you lose your goal.

Good luck!

I'm surprised that a young male would feel ok eating 1200-1500 cals?! I'm a 5'1 female and I feel famished on 1200 some days. Are you weighing your food on a digital food scale? That ensures that your portion sizes, and calorie counts are accurate when you log them in MFP.

bluthss wrote: »

Thank you all so much. It made everything clearer! I did set a goal of 2lbs per week it gives me 1610 calories goal but mind if I ask a couple of more questions?

• So MFP doesn't actually calculate how much lbs I lose since I will check in my weight?
• I burn an average of 330 calories through exercise (its small I know but I'm still building myself up for it) and I eat all of it back on dinner and with excess, is that good? Also, sometimes MFP won't let me publish my diary because I ate below 1,200-1,500 but I feel good and energized.

Besides weight loss, what do you want to achieve? At some point, do you want to be lean and fit? Do you want to be strong? Or do you just want skinny?

I can tell you, rarely are people happy with their bodies, when they have had very aggressive weight loss goals.. mainly due to the fact it becomes increasingly difficult to get adequate nutrients to sustain muscle mass or metabolism. So if you are like most guys and will eventually like to have some good muscle definition, it may be a good time to reassess your plan.

bluthss wrote: »

I honestly just want to be skinny. Eventually I want to get lean and fit but first I just want to be skinny and focus on my muscles next.

Keep in mind, that it's much easier to sustain your muscle mass, than grow new muscle. Growing new muscle and achieving your ideal results can take years (because you generally have to cycle between bulks/cuts).

Personally, I would hit your goal, get adequate protein (.6-.8g per lb of weight) and a combination of resistance training (body or weights) and some cardio.

Overall, fat loss > weight loss. The more muscle you retain, the less weight you will need to lose and the more lean you will be.