How Accurate Are The Calorie Counts?

The calorie counts are as accurate as you choose to make them.

1. If you aren't already, be sure that you're logging everything. Sometimes people forget about things like veggies, drinks, cooking oils, and condiments. For some people these can add up to enough to halt your weight loss progress.

2. Consider buying a food scale if you don't already have one. They're about $10-$20 dollars in the US and easily found at places like Amazon, Target, and Walmart. Measuring cups and spoons are great, but they do come with some degree of inaccuracy. A food scale will be more accurate, and for some people it makes a big difference.

3. Logging accurately also means choosing accurate entries in the database. There are a lot of user-entered entries that are off. Double-check that you're using good entries and/or using the recipe builder instead of someone else's homemade entries.

4. Recalculate your goals if you haven't lately. As you lose weight your body requires fewer calories to run. Be sure you update your goals every ten pounds or so.

5. If you're eating back your exercise calories and you're relying on gym machine readouts or MFP's estimates, it might be best to eat back just 50-75% of those. Certain activities tend to be overestimated. If you're using an HRM or activity tracker, it might be a good idea to look into their accuracy and be sure that yours is calibrated properly.

6. If you're taking any cheat days that go over your calorie limits, it might be best to cut them out for a few weeks and see what happens. Some people go way over their calorie needs without realizing it when they don't track.

7. If you weigh yourself frequently, consider using a program like trendweight to even out the fluctuations. You could be losing weight but just don't see it because of the daily ups and downs.

8. Some people just burn fewer calories than the calculators predict. If you continue to have problems after 4-6 weeks, then it might be worth a trip to the doctor or a registered dietitian who can give you more specific advice.

Also what is your height and weight?

They're as accurate as the person who inputs them into the database makes them. Always double check against the food label or USDA's own database. That said, how are you measuring your intake (food scale, measuring cups, eyeballing portions)? Also, you should be taking off of your TDEE and not your BMR.

lynnethomas_218 wrote: »

My BMR is approximately 2100 calories taking my activity into account. I am 5'3" and weigh 175. My "resting" BMR is about 1400 calories. MFP has me on 1200 calories a day. It tells me I burn 500 calories with my workout and I'm concerned that number is wrong.

What you're calling "resting BMR" is what most people mean when they say BMR (base metabolic rate).

What you're calling "BMR" is what most people call TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) or just "daily calorie burn".

Welcome to MFP! Just wanted to clarify some terms that get thrown around a lot here.

I will second the suggestion that weighing food is helpful to see exactly how much a portion ought to look like. You can cram a *lot* of rice into a measuring cup, for example.

It's also very likely that MFP is slightly overestimating your workout calorie burn. Try only eating back 50-75% of those calories.

I am 49, perimenopausal, hypothyroid, 5'1" and 162 pounds. I have never (since my heaviest weight, 212) been able to eat back all the exercise calories MFP alots me and still lose, even with conservative (very conservative) input of this exercise (for example, if my walk is hilly and rocky and sweaty I still only count it as a slow/leisurely walk which assumes flat terrain, and I tend to round my total time down) and concise measurements of food using a food scale. What I am am starting from calorie-wise is a setting of sedentary. Usually I can eat back about half my exercise calories; my loss is slow this way but it's still a loss. But a few times I have just stopped losing and had to not count any of my exercise toward allowable calories for a few weeks. Then the loss resumed.

lynnethomas_218 wrote: »

Some great advice here. THANKS. I was worried I was in a calorie deficit and my body was in conservation mode, since my net calories (after my workouts are figured in) are often under 1000. (However my actual count is over 1200). Keeping that in mind is a deficit also possible?

How long have you been tracking? Do you use a food scale? Can you open your food diary?

Settings > Diary Settings > Public