Calorie intake

1200 is pretty low, however I don't know your stats nor your goal.

MFP figures out how many calories you should eat a day in order to lose how many ever pounds you set it at a week. Calories buned - outside of this is not accounted for unless you took that into account when setting your everyday activities.

Good luck

It means eat that amount to lose whatever amount you told it you wanted to lose. That's your goal amount to eat.

What are your stats: height, current weight, goal weight, age? What activity level did you select, and what rate of loss did you select?

1200 is the minimum amount of calories that MFP will recommend for women. Additionally, it is a NEAT goal, meaning it was calculated without any estimates of exercise incorporated. As such, if you do exercise, you are meant to log and eat back at least a portion of those calories so that you should be NETTING 1200 calories.

There is great information in the Stickied Most Helpful Forum Posts at the top of each section. This one, in Getting Started, is particularly helpful to understand how to use the system and optimize results.

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1080242/a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants/p1

Hello 1200kcal a day is not a lot at all. The recommended for women is 2000kcal a day and men is 2500kcal a day. If you eat less than 1000kcal then MFP will tell you that you are not eating enough and may harm your body if you don't eat enough. You could try changing your goals so that MFP gives you more calories a day to eat or you could do enough cardio (running, walking, cycling, swimming) whereby you can have more calories but still lose weight. If you do this, ensure that you don't replace the calories lost with food with same amount of calories, otherwise you won't lose any weight. If you need extra help then feel free to add me and ask

Sarah

That 1200 was based on YOUR selection of weight loss speed - smart or foolish, and YOUR selection of non-exercise daily activity level - truthful or dishonest.

And that eating goal is ONLY when the day matches that. No exercise.

Life lesson.
You do more - you eat more.
You do less - you eat less.

So MFP works if you exercise - you eat more because it never counted on exercise when figuring your eating goal.

On exercise where the database is specific and you really did that pace or speed - eat them back, like walking or running.
Where the exercise has no levels of intensity (Spin bike) - change the calorie burn to 75-50% of suggested.

Now your eating goal just went up - because you did more.

Now reach your new goal.

As mentioned above - what is a goal?

If willing to miss your eating goal by a huge amount - are you willing to miss your goal weight by a huge amount and say that's good enough?

As to your activity level - are you truly a bump on a log outside of any exercise, no family, no pets, no active weekends, ect?
Then that would be sedentary, less than 4000 steps each and every day if no exercise.

touchsosoftlyrch wrote: »

What I mean by goal is it states it in my diary. It says goal, food, exercise = remaining. The goal says 1200

We all know what you meant by goal.

The question was more fundamental than that.

What is a goal?

Because you asked should you go no less or more?

Basically, you eat that when you do no exercise, 50 above is better than 100 below.

sarahmclean405 wrote: »

Hello 1200kcal a day is not a lot at all. The recommended for women is 2000kcal a day and men is 2500kcal a day. If you eat less than 1000kcal then MFP will tell you that you are not eating enough and may harm your body if you don't eat enough. You could try changing your goals so that MFP gives you more calories a day to eat or you could do enough cardio (running, walking, cycling, swimming) whereby you can have more calories but still lose weight. If you do this, ensure that you don't replace the calories lost with food with same amount of calories, otherwise you won't lose any weight. If you need extra help then feel free to add me and ask

Sarah

Not for everyone. My maintenance calories are about 1780 at 5'6". Even plugging in a goal of losing one pound per week I get 1200 suggested from MFP. 1200 calories a day is perfectly ok for some women, especially if they are on the shorter side.

touchsosoftlyrch wrote: »

I figured mine said 1200 cause I am around 5'2 . I'm not real tall.

So yes, even if you picked a reasonable 1lb weekly, or 500 cal deficit daily goal, that would likely be around 1200.

But the starting figure - is it honest?

Are you truly sedentary outside of exercise?

I've found vast majority that get activity trackers discover they were NOT, and that is before they get inspired to move more.

4000 steps or less is basically walking to car to drive to a sit down desk job where you don't get up, back to car, maybe short stop at grocery store, back home, sit watching TV or doing computer all night - no household chores.
That's sedentary.

Is that truly your daily activity - including weekends?

If not, then be honest and select Lightly Active.

And be honest when you do log exercise.
Like just because you finally got the treadmill up to say 5 mph walking doesn't mean you log that, if the total distance was 4 miles in an hour.
Did you do Circuit training on machines with maybe 1-2 min rest between, then great, log that 40 min. But don't count time you stood around and talked or lost track of time on phone doing something.
That sort of stuff.

Then just reach your goal for long term success.

If only 10 lbs or less to lose - a 250 cal deficit would be more reasonable too.