General Calorie Confusion

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cmccann4394
cmccann4394 Posts: 6 Member
edited August 2016 in Health and Weight Loss
I am on day 2 of using this site/app and it has been extremely eye opening. I was very surprised to see how little amount of calories I had been taking in over the last few weeks. I put my game plan together yesterday and have continued tracking my food. The thing that is currently hard to wrap my head around is the high amount of calories this site is telling me to eat. Currently my daily goal is 2010 a day, but when I add in a workout and say, burn 500 calories, then that gets added onto my calorie goal for the day raising it to 2510. That just seems like a lot of calories for someone who is trying to cut fat. Again, definitely a noob when it comes to all of this, so anyone who wants to check my diary out and give me any pointers and thoughts, it would be much appreciated.

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  • thatdesertgirl777
    thatdesertgirl777 Posts: 269 Member
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    You've got to set your diary to public before anyone can look at it..
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    Depending on your activity level, 2,510 isn't really that much. I'm a woman who weighs 108 pounds and I maintain on about 2,200 a day (due to my activity level). If you set your diary to public, people will be happy to take a look and give you any tips.

  • xvolution
    xvolution Posts: 721 Member
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    MFP tends to overestimate exercise calories, so it's recommended to only eat back half of the calories back from any exercise done (so in this case, eat 2260 calories instead of the suggested 2510).
  • farbyaj
    farbyaj Posts: 4 Member
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    You can change your calorie goal if you think it's too high. I've talked to people who try not to include the reduction of exercise calories. I'd recommend follow it for a week see if you lose. If not, adjust your calorie goal until you see the results you want. Remember too that you will eventually plateau and need to adjust. Good luck!
  • cmccann4394
    cmccann4394 Posts: 6 Member
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    Thanks for the tip! lol Unfortunately, I keep getting an error message from the site every time I try and change the setting to public. I'll keep trying. My biggest worry with the large amount of calories I am being told to intake is doing what I did last night and trying to "catch up" by eating a less than healthy dinner and having 4 coors lights. Even tracking all of that, the app still shows I was about 500 calories below my goal, but that if I kept eating and exercising like I did yesterday, I would be down 10lbs in 5 weeks.
  • StaciMarie1974
    StaciMarie1974 Posts: 4,138 Member
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    It may help you to wrap your mind around things if you learn a little about why you arrive at a certain calorie goal.

    The human body needs energy to live. Your body burns calories just to handle bodily functions that keep you alive: organ functions like heart & lungs circulating blood/oxygen, food digestion, maintaining your body temp, etc. The amount is estimated from a couple of established scientific formulas but is dependent on your height/weight/age/gender. Google BMR, put in your stats. My BMR is about 1250, but as a guy with weight to lose: your BMR will be higher as I'm a gal at maintenance.

    Then you also use energy to move thru your normal day. To carry your body around, handle your normal routines/hobbies/errands. This is a factor based on an 'activity level' and your BMR.

    MFP uses those two calorie burn functions to help you generate an intake goal. If your BMR is 2000 and your activity calories are estimated at 500/day, then MFP says: your body will use 2500 in a normal day. You say you want to lose 1 pound a week? A deficit of 500/day means you should eat 2000.

    Then when you do cardio, you burn EXTRA calories beyond 'activity' that is already accounted for because you're moving multiple major muscle groups for an extended period of time. That is why you 'earn' extra calories - because your deficit is already taken out of BMR and normal daily activity.
  • cgvet37
    cgvet37 Posts: 1,189 Member
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    cmccann4394 wrote: »
    I am on day 2 of using this site/app and it has been extremely eye opening. I was very surprised to see how little amount of calories I had been taking in over the last few weeks. I put my game plan together yesterday and have continued tracking my food. The thing that is currently hard to wrap my head around is the high amount of calories this site is telling me to eat. Currently my daily goal is 2010 a day, but when I add in a workout and say, burn 500 calories, then that gets added onto my calorie goal for the day raising it to 2510. That just seems like a lot of calories for someone who is trying to cut fat. Again, definitely a noob when it comes to all of this, so anyone who wants to check my diary out and give me any pointers and thoughts, it would be much appreciated.

    If you burn 500 calories, you would be in a 500 calorie deficit for the day. So, you would have to eat another 500 calories to reach your goal of 2,010 calories. So, don't log your exercise, or set your exercise calorie burn to 0. Some people will eat some, if not all of their exercise calories back. That is up to the individual.
  • cmccann4394
    cmccann4394 Posts: 6 Member
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    Thanks for all of the responses. Definitely know how to make a guy feel welcome!
  • AliceDark
    AliceDark Posts: 3,886 Member
    edited August 2016
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    cmccann4394 wrote: »
    Thanks for the tip! lol Unfortunately, I keep getting an error message from the site every time I try and change the setting to public. I'll keep trying. My biggest worry with the large amount of calories I am being told to intake is doing what I did last night and trying to "catch up" by eating a less than healthy dinner and having 4 coors lights. Even tracking all of that, the app still shows I was about 500 calories below my goal, but that if I kept eating and exercising like I did yesterday, I would be down 10lbs in 5 weeks.

    It's hard to tell without being able to see your diary, but I suspect some of this is due to inaccurate logging. Unless you ate very little during the day, there's no reason you should've had to eat a "less than healthy" dinner and 4 Coors Lights just to reach 2500 calories. That's still a reasonable goal, and you would have to have been eating more than that on a regular basis in order to gain excess weight in the first place. Are you using a food scale, entering each item individually (i.e., not picking entries like "1 hamburger" or "PB&J sandwich), and remembering to log all cooking oils?
  • cmccann4394
    cmccann4394 Posts: 6 Member
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    Not sure if this link will work until they fix the settings issue. The majority of the things that I have logged I either searched for and found(verified the info matched as well) or used the bar code scanner. The only thing I am off on would be the "Chinese platter" for dinner as it was homemade. I just picked what I thought might be an accurate comparison.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/diary/cmccann4394?date=2016-08-04

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