WHY WAS MY CAL GOAL SET TO 1768
Premiumfaun72
Posts: 3 Member
Hi!
I am new here to mfp and I am a little consumed about my numbers. I am 180 lbs and put that I want to lost 1 lb per week with light activity. I am currently a full time student and mom so I walk around more than a sedentary lifestyle but not enough to consider it a workout, so I don't count my steps.
I am 5'8 at 180 and want to lose 30 pounds to reach 150
It says my calorie intake goal should be 1768 daily. Can someone explain to me why this is that number like is my height and weight considered? I'm just confused
Thank you!
I am new here to mfp and I am a little consumed about my numbers. I am 180 lbs and put that I want to lost 1 lb per week with light activity. I am currently a full time student and mom so I walk around more than a sedentary lifestyle but not enough to consider it a workout, so I don't count my steps.
I am 5'8 at 180 and want to lose 30 pounds to reach 150
It says my calorie intake goal should be 1768 daily. Can someone explain to me why this is that number like is my height and weight considered? I'm just confused
Thank you!
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Replies
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I'm sure someone else will be able to explain this better, but I'll give it a go as you haven't had any replies yet.
Basically, as you're quite tall and lightly active, in order to maintain the weight of 180lbs you'd have to eat 2268 calories a day (this is your TDEE). In order to lose 1lb a week, you have to eat -500 less calories a day from your TDEE, which is the number MFP has given you.
As you lose weight, you will need to consume less calories a day if you still want to lose 1lb as your TDEE will lower. So for example, maybe when you're 160lbs, you'll have to eat 1500 calories a day to lose 1lb.
Hope that made some sort of sense?..7 -
What is it that bothers you about the 1768?
It looks reasonable to me given your stats and weight loss goals.
MFP takes your height, weight, and inputted activity level and deficit goal into account when it assigns you your calories.
The number is an estimate, you may have to, after a full menstual cycle, tweak it up or down by 50-100 cals so you are losing at your entered rate.
Cheers, h.4 -
Yes, your height, weight, and daily activity level are taken into account (without exercise) and your number is calculated accordingly.
I'm 5'8" and about 170. For a half pound a week at sedentary, MFP gives me about 1550. I usually eat anywhere from 1800-2000, though, because I'm not really sedentary and my fitbit adjusts my calories. So, the number seems right for you.
Since you're new here, I'd suggest reading the stickies about logging and exercise calories and all that good stuff. Give yourself a chance to work through learning slowly. Once you understand how MFP works and how to navigate the database and log your food reasonably accurately, you'll trust the numbers. But, remember that the numbers are still estimates. Give yourself 4-6 weeks to see how your weight loss goes and then make adjustments if necessary.3 -
Thank you! Yeah I thought the number was a little high to lose 1 pound a week. But thank you for the advice! I will most likely tweak it in a month or so0
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Like others suggested, it sounds about right. But if you want further validation, the below thread might be helpful. Also, since you don't have a ton of weight to lose, a food scale and logging daily might be your best friend.
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/506349/women-who-eat-more-than-1800-calories-a-day/p12 -
Hey be excited! I'm 5'3, 188 & to lose 1/week it's 1400 something
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That's awesome. I love eating. I lose .5 pounds a week on 1900.1
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Man, I'm trying to lose a pound a week and when I started it was 1220 a week, then 1200...now I'm at 1120!1
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Yep another short girl here. I'm 5ft and 138lbs with a goal of 126lbs. To lose 0.5lb/week I need to eat 1400. be thankful you have so many calories.2
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I'm 5ft 2 (ish) and for sedentary I'm given 1390. Thankfully my job means I burn up to 3000 a day so can eat more.2
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Premiumfaun72 wrote: »Hi!
I am new here to mfp and I am a little consumed about my numbers. I am 180 lbs and put that I want to lost 1 lb per week with light activity. I am currently a full time student and mom so I walk around more than a sedentary lifestyle but not enough to consider it a workout, so I don't count my steps.
I am 5'8 at 180 and want to lose 30 pounds to reach 150
It says my calorie intake goal should be 1768 daily. Can someone explain to me why this is that number like is my height and weight considered? I'm just confused
Thank you!
Your stats (sex, height, weight, etc) as well as activity level dictate your calorie (energy) requirements. 1,768 to lose 1 Lb per week would assume a theoretical maintenance of 2,268 calories...which seems about right.1 -
zachbonner_ wrote: »they gave you a pretty sweet number of cals. I'd change it to 1776 but thats just me
'Murrica6 -
Sounds about right.
I'm 5'8.5", 158lbs. I've lost 4lbs in 6 weeks netting 2000 calories on average.1 -
Its simple math. Your BMR is ~1615, and when you said you were lightly active MFP assumes your lifestyle burns about 40% of your BMR. So MFP expects you to burn 2268 per day. You want to lose 1 pound per week, so consume 1768.Premiumfaun72 wrote: »Hi!
I am new here to mfp and I am a little consumed about my numbers. I am 180 lbs and put that I want to lost 1 lb per week with light activity. I am currently a full time student and mom so I walk around more than a sedentary lifestyle but not enough to consider it a workout, so I don't count my steps.
I am 5'8 at 180 and want to lose 30 pounds to reach 150
It says my calorie intake goal should be 1768 daily. Can someone explain to me why this is that number like is my height and weight considered? I'm just confused
Thank you!
1 -
Ok makes sense thank you everyone. Yeah like I don't exercise at all but I walk around a lot and am on my feet more than I am sitting. But it all makes sense to me now2
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I was at 1720 when I started. I'm also 5'3" with a starting weight of 254. 39 lbs later, I'm at 1520 and usually eating around 1700, since I'm exercising more. P.S. walking does count as exercise.0
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SparklyBubblyBabe wrote: »Man, I'm trying to lose a pound a week and when I started it was 1220 a week, then 1200...now I'm at 1120!
Why are you aiming below the recommended minimum calories for women (1200)? Do you exercise? Do you eat back some of those calories burned through exercise?
As you lose weight, your calorie needs will go down, but as you get closer to goal, you should also aim to slow down your weight loss. How much weight do you still have to lose? Is 1 lb/week the right goal for the amount you have to lose?
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Premiumfaun72 wrote: »Ok makes sense thank you everyone. Yeah like I don't exercise at all but I walk around a lot and am on my feet more than I am sitting. But it all makes sense to me now
Outside of being and athlete and/or training like one, exercise energy expenditure is typically relatively modest to the calories you burn merely existing and the calories you burn going about your day to day.1 -
Track everything. You eat more than you think - everyone does. Get a food scale and weigh everything to the gram for a while. It is a major pain but it will pay off. Don't count your walking around calories. Everything you are currently doing is what you have to do to be the weight you are now so to lose weight you have to do that and then cut calories. Don't let people freak you out with things like "starvation mode" or "plateau". If you eat less than your body needs to operate it will burn fat stores. Sometimes you might retain water but that will last days not weeks so if you are stalled you have to cut calories to get it moving. These things seem hard in the beginning but as time goes by you adjust. Everything is harder in the beginning but that doesn't mean it stays harder. I have been at this for 5yrs now. I lost all my weight in the first 10m (100lbs) and then as the years go by I watch the scale and when I notice that it is going up I pull out the food scale for a few weeks and re calibrate my diet. I am currently in the middle of one such re-calibration and it is hard but I know it will be easy by the end.0
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WinoGelato wrote: »SparklyBubblyBabe wrote: »Man, I'm trying to lose a pound a week and when I started it was 1220 a week, then 1200...now I'm at 1120!
Why are you aiming below the recommended minimum calories for women (1200)? Do you exercise? Do you eat back some of those calories burned through exercise?
As you lose weight, your calorie needs will go down, but as you get closer to goal, you should also aim to slow down your weight loss. How much weight do you still have to lose? Is 1 lb/week the right goal for the amount you have to lose?
Well, I'm 5' 2" and I personally think the recommended 1200 is more for average height women and doesn't work for everyone. I do exercise, but I eat the calories back ( I also don't use MFP's estimate, I use a calculator from shapsense that uses heart rate). I'm 140lbs right now and I want to get down to 110lbs so that's about 30lbs. MFP says to maintain I need 1700, but I've found an online calculator on calculator.net is more accurate. I think I'll be fine. I'm always over on my nutrients and I meet my macros. Once my maintenance gets below 1600 I'll slow down to .75 per week and so on and so forth. And if I find that I feel like I'm dying, I'll readjust.0 -
SparklyBubblyBabe wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »SparklyBubblyBabe wrote: »Man, I'm trying to lose a pound a week and when I started it was 1220 a week, then 1200...now I'm at 1120!
Why are you aiming below the recommended minimum calories for women (1200)? Do you exercise? Do you eat back some of those calories burned through exercise?
As you lose weight, your calorie needs will go down, but as you get closer to goal, you should also aim to slow down your weight loss. How much weight do you still have to lose? Is 1 lb/week the right goal for the amount you have to lose?
Well, I'm 5' 2" and I personally think the recommended 1200 is more for average height women and doesn't work for everyone. I do exercise, but I eat the calories back ( I also don't use MFP's estimate, I use a calculator from shapsense that uses heart rate). I'm 140lbs right now and I want to get down to 110lbs so that's about 30lbs. MFP says to maintain I need 1700, but I've found an online calculator on calculator.net is more accurate. I think I'll be fine. I'm always over on my nutrients and I meet my macros. Once my maintenance gets below 1600 I'll slow down to .75 per week and so on and so forth. And if I find that I feel like I'm dying, I'll readjust.
Actually 1200 is the minimum recommended in order to be able to get adequate nutrients on relatively low calories, it isn't just for average height women. Also, for what it's worth, I'm also 5'2. I started at 153 and lost about 35 lbs with my NET MFP goal of 1400-1500, such that I was usually eating b/w 1600-1800 calories while losing. My TDEE according to my FitBit is ~2200, so its definitely possible to be petite and lose weight eating more than the recommended minimum amount.
The suggestion is usually once you have less than 25 lbs to lose to lower your rate of loss to 0.5 lb/week, which you are getting close to now!1 -
WinoGelato wrote: »
Actually 1200 is the minimum recommended in order to be able to get adequate nutrients on relatively low calories, it isn't just for average height women. Also, for what it's worth, I'm also 5'2. I started at 153 and lost about 35 lbs with my NET MFP goal of 1400-1500, such that I was usually eating b/w 1600-1800 calories while losing. My TDEE according to my FitBit is ~2200, so its definitely possible to be petite and lose weight eating more than the recommended minimum amount.
The suggestion is usually once you have less than 25 lbs to lose to lower your rate of loss to 0.5 lb/week, which you are getting close to now!
My Fitbit also puts my TDEE at about 2,000, but I swear I started at 1400 a day (not net I wasn't exercising then) and I was only losing 1-2 lbs a month! Like I said, I just kind of go with what my body is telling me. I did 1100 last summer for a month and I didn't die. And yeah, I plan on dropping to .5 a week when I get to 135lbs. It's gonna take so long to get to 110 from there though
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SparklyBubblyBabe wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »
Actually 1200 is the minimum recommended in order to be able to get adequate nutrients on relatively low calories, it isn't just for average height women. Also, for what it's worth, I'm also 5'2. I started at 153 and lost about 35 lbs with my NET MFP goal of 1400-1500, such that I was usually eating b/w 1600-1800 calories while losing. My TDEE according to my FitBit is ~2200, so its definitely possible to be petite and lose weight eating more than the recommended minimum amount.
The suggestion is usually once you have less than 25 lbs to lose to lower your rate of loss to 0.5 lb/week, which you are getting close to now!
I Fitbit also puts mt TDEE at about 2,000, but I swear I started at 1400 a day (not net I wasn't exercising then) and I was only losing 1-2 lbs a month! Like I said, I just kind of go with what my body is telling me. I did 1100 last summer for a month and I didn't die. And yeah, I plan on dropping to .5 a week when I get to 135lbs. It's gonna take so long to get to 110 from there though
I find my FitBit to be very accurate but not everyone does. Are you logging accurately using a food scale? If not, that may be the reason you weren't losing more consistently when eating 1400. You may be eating more than you think now as well.
Aiming to "not die" is usually not the best goal when it comes to weight loss, and the negative impacts of cutting calories too low are often slow to show themselves. I prefer to lose at a pace that allows me to fuel my body, enjoy my food, and learn lifelong habits that will help me be successful in maintenance. It took me about a year to lose that 30+ lbs and I've been maintaining it for the last few years.3 -
WinoGelato wrote: »I find my FitBit to be very accurate but not everyone does. Are you logging accurately using a food scale? If not, that may be the reason you weren't losing more consistently when eating 1400. You may be eating more than you think now as well.
Aiming to "not die" is usually not the best goal when it comes to weight loss, and the negative impacts of cutting calories too low are often slow to show themselves. I prefer to lose at a pace that allows me to fuel my body, enjoy my food, and learn lifelong habits that will help me be successful in maintenance. It took me about a year to lose that 30+ lbs and I've been maintaining it for the last few years.
Oh, I log and weight everything. I even weight food I didn't finish so I can subtract it from how much it weighed before. I weigh lettuce on my sandwich for crying out loud! But yeah, I'm not surprised that my maintenance was only 1700. And I'm not surprised it's 1600 now. It's why I gotta exercise! And yeah I'm being a little facetious when I say "not die", but basically if I felt hungry on that low of calories, I'd eat. There were times I ate over 1200 because I just felt like I needed it.
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