Confused about the calorie recommendation on my app
David6248
Posts: 8 Member
So I have the my fitness pal calorie tracker app tool (whatever you want to call it). I put in that I'm 18, weigh 156 and want to weigh 130 by losing 1 pound per week. Then it recommends me a net calories of 1870. I feel like this is a little high considering my RMR is in the 1700's(the net I would need to maintain current weight, although I'm not sure how reliable RMR is). So can anyone make sense of my net calories recommendation because I feel like it's a bit high. I thought it would be 500 lower than my RMR so that I would be able to lose 1 pound per week.
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Replies
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your RMR is what it would take for you to stay alive in a coma, not what you would eat to maintain your current weight. It is the absolute minimum your body needs. You are thinking it is you maintenance rate, which you can see if you switch your goal to "maintain" instead of "lose 1lbs a week". I'd give the 1870 a solid two week try before deciding it is too much0
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Not RMR or BMR. It would 500 less off your approximate TDEE. So if you essentially burn 2200 calories a day then the 500 calorie deficit would bring you to 1800 a day to loose 1 pound a week.
OP you should read the stickies. Particularly this link. It explains it very well so that I do not have re-write a full explanation.
http://fit101.org/the-step-by-step-guide-to-losing-weight-with-myfitnesspal/
This explains exercise calories
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/818082/exercise-calories-again-wtf/p1
I will add that since I do not have your height I cannot run your numbers. You can run them using this link. You can enter your stats and it will give you estimations according to your goals, activity level, etc.
http://scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/0 -
Not RMR or BMR. It would 500 less off your approximate TDEE. So if you essentially burn 2200 calories a day then the 500 calorie deficit would bring you to 1800 a day to loose 1 pound a week.
OP you should read the stickies. Particularly this link. It explains it very well so that I do not have re-write a full explanation.
http://fit101.org/the-step-by-step-guide-to-losing-weight-with-myfitnesspal/
I will add that since I do not have your height I cannot run your numbers. You can run them using this link. You can enter your stats and it will give you estimations according to your goals, activity level, etc.
http://scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/
This^
The links are helpful. Use the calculators to find your TDEE......not your RMR or BMR.0 -
Not RMR or BMR. It would 500 less off your approximate TDEE. So if you essentially burn 2200 calories a day then the 500 calorie deficit would bring you to 1800 a day to loose 1 pound a week.
OP you should read the stickies. Particularly this link. It explains it very well so that I do not have re-write a full explanation.
http://fit101.org/the-step-by-step-guide-to-losing-weight-with-myfitnesspal/
This explains exercise calories
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/818082/exercise-calories-again-wtf/p1
I will add that since I do not have your height I cannot run your numbers. You can run them using this link. You can enter your stats and it will give you estimations according to your goals, activity level, etc.
http://scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/
Wow thanks for all of these links! Yah I didn't know about TDEE but the nice thing was is it that's it's actually pretty close to what the mfp app recommends for maintaining weight. 1870 is actually a correct estimate on how much it should take for me to lose 1 lb per week.
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I'm confused about 1 other thing though. Why is it that for that TDEE calculator you sent me, and for the mfp app, they both make you enter your approximate weekly exercise amount? Why do they need to know that? If I'm sedentary and I need to be at 1500 at the end of a day to lose weight, then I all of a sudden start exercising, I'm still going to need to be at a net calories of 1500 by the end of the day right? Being an avid exerciser doesn't increase my calories burned when I'm not exercising.0
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I'm confused about 1 other thing though. Why is it that for that TDEE calculator you sent me, and for the mfp app, they both make you enter your approximate weekly exercise amount? Why do they need to know that? If I'm sedentary and I need to be at 1500 at the end of a day to lose weight, then I all of a sudden start exercising, I'm still going to need to be at a net calories of 1500 by the end of the day right? Being an avid exerciser doesn't increase my calories burned when I'm not exercising.
MFP doesn't account for exercise until you log it. When it asks how much you are going to exercise it is asking you to set a goal to aim for. So on days you don't workout you will eat the base goal and on days you do you will want your food intake - exercise burn to equal your goal (aka net your goal).
The other calculator takes how often you say you will exercise and gives you a few extra calories to account for that exercise. With this one you eat the same everyday.
With everything set approximately the same the high/low calorie days with MFP's method will average out to be right around the calorie goal the other calculator gives you.0 -
shadow2soul wrote: »I'm confused about 1 other thing though. Why is it that for that TDEE calculator you sent me, and for the mfp app, they both make you enter your approximate weekly exercise amount? Why do they need to know that? If I'm sedentary and I need to be at 1500 at the end of a day to lose weight, then I all of a sudden start exercising, I'm still going to need to be at a net calories of 1500 by the end of the day right? Being an avid exerciser doesn't increase my calories burned when I'm not exercising.
MFP doesn't account for exercise until you log it. When it asks how much you are going to exercise it is asking you to set a goal to aim for. So on days you don't workout you will eat the base goal and on days you do you will want your food intake - exercise burn to equal your goal (aka net your goal).
The other calculator takes how often you say you will exercise and gives you a few extra calories to account for that exercise. With this one you eat the same everyday.
With everything set approximately the same the high/low calorie days with MFP's method will average out to be right around the calorie goal the other calculator gives you.
Oh ok so mfp gives me a net goal while that other calculator isn't net, just same amount every day. That's weird because then I would think that calculator you linked would recommend me around 1870 per day to lose 1 lb a week if I said I was sedentary, since that's what the mfp set my net goal to. But instead the calculator you linked me says I should only be eating 1400 a day if I don't exercise just to lose 1 pound per week lol.0 -
How tall are you?0
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So I have the my fitness pal calorie tracker app tool (whatever you want to call it). I put in that I'm 18, weigh 156 and want to weigh 130 by losing 1 pound per week. Then it recommends me a net calories of 1870. I feel like this is a little high considering my RMR is in the 1700's(the net I would need to maintain current weight, although I'm not sure how reliable RMR is). So can anyone make sense of my net calories recommendation because I feel like it's a bit high. I thought it would be 500 lower than my RMR so that I would be able to lose 1 pound per week.
Did you put your activity level in? That makes a huge difference in calories. I put mine at not active even though im pretty darn active it says 1200 cal for me but since i am active i change it to 1350 which you can do in your settings. You can change it to whatever you want. So if you think its too high try putting in a different amount.0 -
OP keep in mind that MFP calculation is NEAT and not TDEE. MFP expects you to eat back a portion of your exercise.
I thought I provided a link that explained that.. I will double check that link again.
Here:
You used the calculators to get your TDEE for references only when setting up MFP but:
If you are using most other online calculation tools to determine an intake estimate, that estimate is going to already include EAT as part of the suggested intake. For example, it will ask you an activity factor that includes an average of your exercise, and with this it increases your TDEE to account for the fact that you are exercising.
Your are using MFP so: MFP to going to tell you how much to eat, but that estimate is NOT going to include EAT as part of the intake estimate (which is your exercise). The activity factor in MFP is not the same as for TDEE. MFP uses it own ways to determine your deficit calories using the activity factor it provides in the app.0 -
OP I ran your numbers using your stats and used sedentary and 1 -3/times per week exercise (on the TDEE calculator) calculator and double checked the calorie range and that number is within the number MFP gave you to eat to loose weight.
I can see a young 18 year old male at your height and weight needing this amount of calories to loose 1 pound a week at your current weight.
If something changes in your life like not being able to work out, or you become completely sedentary etc. you can always tweak the goals (you can do a custom setup) in event the estimations are off some. Just watch your intake, if you can buy a food scale to weigh your food to make sure that the calories are not over or under and if you do not loose weight in about 3 - 4 weeks then tweak them by a 100 or so. Give this several weeks especially if this is your first time dieting and or working with MFP.
But I think that with weighing food, eating the MFP recommendation for calorie intake to loose weight, you will be fairly surprised at how the process works to success.0 -
OP I ran your numbers using your stats and used sedentary and 1 -3/times per week exercise (on the TDEE calculator) calculator and double checked the calorie range and that number is within the number MFP gave you to eat to loose weight.
I can see a young 18 year old male at your height and weight needing this amount of calories to loose 1 pound a week at your current weight.
If something changes in your life like not being able to work out, or you become completely sedentary etc. you can always tweak the goals (you can do a custom setup) in event the estimations are off some. Just watch your intake, if you can buy a food scale to weigh your food to make sure that the calories are not over or under and if you do not loose weight in about 3 - 4 weeks then tweak them by a 100 or so. Give this several weeks especially if this is your first time dieting and or working with MFP.
But I think that with weighing food, eating the MFP recommendation for calorie intake to loose weight, you will be fairly surprised at how the process works to success.
I do believe I will lose weight with these calorie amounts, I'm just still a bit confused as to why mfp wants to know my general weekly exercise, and why that tweaks how many net calories I'm allowed to have, because every day when I exercise I log that exercise into the app, and then the app shows that I have now burned x amount of calories and can therefore consume x amount extra calories that day and still hit the deficit I'm going for. So since the exercise is all accounted for when I'm logging, shouldn't my net calories goal never change no matter how active I tell the app I am in general?
By telling the app that I am lightly active, does that mean that I shouldn't log any exercise, since the app already is taking into account that I'm exercising a little bit?
And if I want to be able to log all of my exercise, should I set my activity level to sedentary?
Currently I'm eating around 2300 cal. per day and burning around 500 cal. through running. Some days I don't exercise, but on those days I only eat 1800. If 1800 is my net goal isn't this the correct way to go about it?0 -
OP I ran your numbers using your stats and used sedentary and 1 -3/times per week exercise (on the TDEE calculator) calculator and double checked the calorie range and that number is within the number MFP gave you to eat to loose weight.
I can see a young 18 year old male at your height and weight needing this amount of calories to loose 1 pound a week at your current weight.
If something changes in your life like not being able to work out, or you become completely sedentary etc. you can always tweak the goals (you can do a custom setup) in event the estimations are off some. Just watch your intake, if you can buy a food scale to weigh your food to make sure that the calories are not over or under and if you do not loose weight in about 3 - 4 weeks then tweak them by a 100 or so. Give this several weeks especially if this is your first time dieting and or working with MFP.
But I think that with weighing food, eating the MFP recommendation for calorie intake to loose weight, you will be fairly surprised at how the process works to success.
I do believe I will lose weight with these calorie amounts, I'm just still a bit confused as to why mfp wants to know my general weekly exercise, and why that tweaks how many net calories I'm allowed to have, because every day when I exercise I log that exercise into the app, and then the app shows that I have now burned x amount of calories and can therefore consume x amount extra calories that day and still hit the deficit I'm going for. So since the exercise is all accounted for when I'm logging, shouldn't my net calories goal never change no matter how active I tell the app I am in general?
By telling the app that I am lightly active, does that mean that I shouldn't log any exercise, since the app already is taking into account that I'm exercising a little bit?
And if I want to be able to log all of my exercise, should I set my activity level to sedentary?
Currently I'm eating around 2400 cal. per day and burning around 500 cal. through running. Some days I don't exercise, but on those days I only eat 1800. If 1800 is my net goal isn't this the correct way to go about it?
If you tell MFP you are "lightly active," that refers to your regular activity level before exercise (like at your job and daily life). You log exercise as this is not accounted for in your initial calorie goal. Your activity level is meant to be independent of the exercise.
If your life *is* sedentary other than your exercise, that would be the appropriate activity level for you.0 -
janejellyroll wrote: »OP I ran your numbers using your stats and used sedentary and 1 -3/times per week exercise (on the TDEE calculator) calculator and double checked the calorie range and that number is within the number MFP gave you to eat to loose weight.
I can see a young 18 year old male at your height and weight needing this amount of calories to loose 1 pound a week at your current weight.
If something changes in your life like not being able to work out, or you become completely sedentary etc. you can always tweak the goals (you can do a custom setup) in event the estimations are off some. Just watch your intake, if you can buy a food scale to weigh your food to make sure that the calories are not over or under and if you do not loose weight in about 3 - 4 weeks then tweak them by a 100 or so. Give this several weeks especially if this is your first time dieting and or working with MFP.
But I think that with weighing food, eating the MFP recommendation for calorie intake to loose weight, you will be fairly surprised at how the process works to success.
I do believe I will lose weight with these calorie amounts, I'm just still a bit confused as to why mfp wants to know my general weekly exercise, and why that tweaks how many net calories I'm allowed to have, because every day when I exercise I log that exercise into the app, and then the app shows that I have now burned x amount of calories and can therefore consume x amount extra calories that day and still hit the deficit I'm going for. So since the exercise is all accounted for when I'm logging, shouldn't my net calories goal never change no matter how active I tell the app I am in general?
By telling the app that I am lightly active, does that mean that I shouldn't log any exercise, since the app already is taking into account that I'm exercising a little bit?
And if I want to be able to log all of my exercise, should I set my activity level to sedentary?
Currently I'm eating around 2400 cal. per day and burning around 500 cal. through running. Some days I don't exercise, but on those days I only eat 1800. If 1800 is my net goal isn't this the correct way to go about it?
If you tell MFP you are "lightly active," that refers to your regular activity level before exercise (like at your job and daily life). You log exercise as this is not accounted for in your initial calorie goal. Your activity level is meant to be independent of the exercise.
If your life *is* sedentary other than your exercise, that would be the appropriate activity level for you.
That makes SOO much more sense now!!!0
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