Entering your own calorie allowable or using MFP negative adjustments

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vivakatie
vivakatie Posts: 10 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
So I am currently letting MFP adjust my daily calories with the info is receives from my FitBit throughout the day and in doing this it 'takes away' calories once it sees that I am less active throughout the day - I have a desk job, sigh. I have my calories set at 1200 and it adjusts and gives me more or less depending on how active I am, this is considerably less than my normal daily calories of around 1800-2000, I cant remember if I or MFP set the 1200 but I honestly am having a hard time keeping below/at that amount and I am eating healthy as possible, lots of veggies, only egg whites, turkey bacon, etc and adding in the extras like mayo, coffee creamer, etc. I am also being honest and adding in the little serving of candy when I indulge but its the 100 calorie things like oatmeal and 'thin slice' bread that are dragging me over the line. I exercise 30-45mins every morning, weights and cardio and my clothes fit better but staying at or under 1200 is very hard and I'm starting to feel like I should just set my own calories and stick to around 1500. Thoughts? What has worked for you guys as far as how many daily calories you allow yourself?

Replies

  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,565 Member
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    What are your stats? How much did you choose to lose a week? If you feel 1200 is too low for you (and you should be at it, not below), definitely change your calories, either by lowering your deficit or setting the 1500.
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
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    Redo your stats and weight loss goals, the calories you're given depends how much you chose to lose per week and your starting weight. A 2lb pw goal usually gives women 1200 calories.

    I agree that 1200 calories is too low, and i would absolutely NOT eat so little unless i was forced too, eg if i was an older, sedentary shorter lady.
  • pearso21123
    pearso21123 Posts: 351 Member
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    I started out using MFP's numbers and it was fine until I tried transitioning to maintenance. Once I switched to maintenance, still using MFP's numbers, I kept losing weight. So, I manually adjusted my calories up by 100 and ate at that level for a month. Still lost weight. Adjusted up by another 100 calories and ate at that for another month. Still lost weight. I was just about to adjust up again when I decided to see if I could live like a "normal" person and not count calories anymore. So far, so good...

    I never synched anything with a Fitbit, though, I just set myself to Sedentary, ate back half of my exercise calories(I manually entered my exercise), and went from there. I started out set to lose 2 lb/wk (I was obese) and lowered that rate as my weight dropped. 1200 is pretty low, unless you're short or obese. I currently eat around 1800 - 2000 (maintenance) and am 5' 4", 120 lbs. I average about 15,000 steps per day, and also work a desk job.

    Are you losing at the rate predicted by MFP using your current calories, or faster/slower? If faster, you can either adjust your loss per week down or up your calories a little. If you're not already eating back all of your exercise calories, you could start by just eating back 100% instead of 50% (or whatever you're doing right now).
  • Jules_farmgirl
    Jules_farmgirl Posts: 225 Member
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    I have mine set to 1lb/week, 5'1", 164lbs. It set me to 1200, I upped that too 1400 right away.

    I also have it set to lightly active as I didn't know how my days would be since transitioning to my new job. But having negative calorie adjustments enabled helped if my Fitbit showed I wasn't lightly active.... I seem to be far beyond that as my calorie adjustment daily have been +1000
  • VintageFeline
    VintageFeline Posts: 6,771 Member
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    To answer why MFP is giving you extra calories from your Fitbit. Your goal on MFP EXCLUDES exercise. Your net should be 1200 (though this is likely unnecessarily low and clearly an unsustainable goal for you). But if you exercise you need to use some or all of those calories (adjusted for real world results as to how many you can eat) in order to fuel your workouts. If you don't you'll be netting under 1200 and that's just a bad time all round.

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