Calorie question, need answer.

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wendembaker
wendembaker Posts: 3 Member
in Getting Started
I'm confused. The app has allotted me 1410 calories a day to reach my goal. However, when I work out, extra calories get added to my allotment (lets say an additional 150 calories get added to the 1410). Therefore, I up my calorie consumption that day to 1410+150=1560. I'm wondering if I'm doing this wrong since I'm not losing any weight. Should I only be consuming the original 1410 calories allotted to me and ignore the exercise calories?

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  • jessiferrrb
    jessiferrrb Posts: 1,758 Member
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    you're doing it right as far as the math. if you're not losing there could be a bunch of reasons. a little bit more information would be helpful to determine where you *may* be going astray.

    what are your stats (height, starting weight, current weight, goal weight)?
    how long have you been eating at a deficit?
    how are you measuring your calories in/ calories out?
    have you started a new workout routine / eaten a lot of salt / are at the time of the month where you may be retaining water which can mask fat loss?

    if you want to, you can open your diary, that can often help people to help you as it enables someone to see where you may have inaccurate entries, etc.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,868 Member
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    wendembaker wrote: »
    I'm confused. The app has allotted me 1410 calories a day to reach my goal. However, when I work out, extra calories get added to my allotment (lets say an additional 150 calories get added to the 1410). Therefore, I up my calorie consumption that day to 1410+150=1560. I'm wondering if I'm doing this wrong since I'm not losing any weight. Should I only be consuming the original 1410 calories allotted to me and ignore the exercise calories?

    You're doing it right, but if you aren't losing any weight it means you have accuracy issues somewhere along the line...ie you're either underestimating your calories coming in or going out.
  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
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    How long have you not lost weight for?

    Do you weigh your food with scales?
  • Spliner1969
    Spliner1969 Posts: 3,233 Member
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    You're doing things right. MFP is designed to give you extra calories for working out because they aren't figured into it's original calculation. Having said that, if you are only talking about 150ish calories it wouldn't be a big deal to ignore them and not eat them back. If you're talking about much more than that, then I'd eat some of them back for sure. If you aren't losing weight then you're likely not accurately logging, or you're not logging everything. The usual things apply here. .use a food scale, weigh everything, be careful to only use confirmed entries in the diary, not everything in there is accurate. Choosing the lowest calorie option in the diary so you can eat more will sabotage your weight loss. Use your best judgement.
  • wendembaker
    wendembaker Posts: 3 Member
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    I started at 165 lbs June 1. My goal is 140. I lost 5 pounds in the first week. Then, the next four weeks-nothing. Week six I'm down one more pound. The only change I made was increasing water from 60 ounces to 80 ounces. Thanks for all your recommendations and advice. I think I will need to double check my accuracy on calorie entries and begin to measure every thing, every time.
  • ammo7
    ammo7 Posts: 188 Member
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    wendembaker wrote: »
    I lost 5 pounds in the first week. Then, the next four weeks-nothing. Week six I'm down one more pound.

    Congratulations on losing 6 pounds in 6 weeks. That is a great rate of weight loss.
    Keep in mind that averaging a 1 pound per week weight loss is great, and that it is not reasonable to expect every week to be like your first week.
    Also, don't be disappointed if you don't lose weight consistently every single week. You may see people on the forums rightly say that "weight loss is not linear" to describe the fact that our weight may not smoothly go downwards. Sometimes you will lose lots of weight one week, then barely any the next, and may put on a little weight the next week Your body will fluctuate. We need to focus on the big picture and make sure that overall, the number is trending downwards (rather than focusing on the day-to-day bumps here and there from bodily fluctuations and retained water)

  • wendembaker
    wendembaker Posts: 3 Member
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    "Congratulations on losing 6 pounds in 6 weeks. That is a great rate of weight loss.
    Keep in mind that averaging a 1 pound per week weight loss is great,"
    Well, when you put it that way, sounds like I'm not doing so bad! I'm not a patient person but I guess I need to be. My new mantra, "Weight loss in not linear."
  • Spliner1969
    Spliner1969 Posts: 3,233 Member
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    wendembaker wrote: »
    I started at 165 lbs June 1. My goal is 140. I lost 5 pounds in the first week. Then, the next four weeks-nothing. Week six I'm down one more pound. The only change I made was increasing water from 60 ounces to 80 ounces. Thanks for all your recommendations and advice. I think I will need to double check my accuracy on calorie entries and begin to measure every thing, every time.

    Overall your loss goal isn't as large as some people's, so you may need to adjust your goals more frequently. Basically just re-run the wizard with your current stats/weight and see what your daily goal comes out on MFP. The calorie goal it sets you will go down over time, sometimes it's not so good at doing that automatically. For instance, if you lost 5 lbs, go back, re-run the wizard with your new weight. You'll notice that the daily calories it gives you as a goal for losing say 1lb per week are a bit less. The more you weigh the more calories it takes for your body to do the same tasks. So as you lose weight you need less calories. I always re-rolled my calculations every 5 lbs lost.

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