Does this seem right?

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trixxxeee
trixxxeee Posts: 11 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
When I started MFP, I weighed 190 pounds (5'1" female, 44 years old). I put in a goal of 2 pounds per week, and it gave me 1200 calories. I am now down to 159 pounds so I figured I'd change my goal to 1.5 pounds per week (around 1% of body weight). And...it still gave me 1200 calories. So I tried 1 pound per week...STILL 1200 calories. I have my activity level as sedentary, since I work a desk job 8 hours a day (but I do have children and am active with them in the evenings after work). How can this be right? Is my TDEE really just that low? Is my only hope to increase my exercise?

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  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,108 Member
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    trixxxeee wrote: »
    When I started MFP, I weighed 190 pounds (5'1" female, 44 years old). I put in a goal of 2 pounds per week, and it gave me 1200 calories. I am now down to 159 pounds so I figured I'd change my goal to 1.5 pounds per week (around 1% of body weight). And...it still gave me 1200 calories. So I tried 1 pound per week...STILL 1200 calories. I have my activity level as sedentary, since I work a desk job 8 hours a day (but I do have children and am active with them in the evenings after work). How can this be right? Is my TDEE really just that low? Is my only hope to increase my exercise?

    1200 is the lowest calorie goal MFP gives for women. So your previous (2 pounds and 1.5 pounds) goals were more aggressive than your actual stats would recommend.

    At 5'1", 44, your TDEE is going to be low if you choose Sedentary.

    Get more exercise. :)

    I do agree with suzanne, you can likely use "Lightly Active" if you have a job and kids.
  • trixxxeee
    trixxxeee Posts: 11 Member
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    My bad, it actually say "not very active" as activity level, not "sedentary" would it be considered lightly active just with light household chores and caring for children for a few hours a day?
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,867 Member
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    trixxxeee wrote: »
    When I started MFP, I weighed 190 pounds (5'1" female, 44 years old). I put in a goal of 2 pounds per week, and it gave me 1200 calories. I am now down to 159 pounds so I figured I'd change my goal to 1.5 pounds per week (around 1% of body weight). And...it still gave me 1200 calories. So I tried 1 pound per week...STILL 1200 calories. I have my activity level as sedentary, since I work a desk job 8 hours a day (but I do have children and am active with them in the evenings after work). How can this be right? Is my TDEE really just that low? Is my only hope to increase my exercise?

    This means that your non-exercise maintenance calories are around 1700...

    Personally, while I have a desk job, I never really put myself to sedentary...when I get home I'm usually fixing this or that, making dinner, playing with the kids, etc...I don't usually sit down at home until about 8:30 for dinner. I also exercise regularly which increases TDEE.
  • JaydedMiss
    JaydedMiss Posts: 4,286 Member
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    Your short and relatively petite as far as weight loss goes, MFP wont allow you to eat under 1200 so if your goal is to agressive it will still give you 1200. Just keep at is, Just numbers. 1200 is just a minimum to be able to get atleast the very basic nutrition in so you dont like die, Dont try to eat below it just continue what your doing and let the numbers just be numbers.
  • tcunbeliever
    tcunbeliever Posts: 8,219 Member
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    MFP is just a calculator based on averages. If you want to customize it more for you, then just do the math yourself and override whatever MFP has calculated.

    At 1200 calories, were you really losing 2 pounds a week? If not, how much were you actually losing?

    If you want to slow that weight loss, add about 200 calories per day for 3 weeks or so and see if you still lose - and if so how much? Do you like losing at that pace? If so, keep it, if not alter calories up or down per the desired result.
  • Silentpadna
    Silentpadna Posts: 1,306 Member
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    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    trixxxeee wrote: »
    When I started MFP, I weighed 190 pounds (5'1" female, 44 years old). I put in a goal of 2 pounds per week, and it gave me 1200 calories. I am now down to 159 pounds so I figured I'd change my goal to 1.5 pounds per week (around 1% of body weight). And...it still gave me 1200 calories. So I tried 1 pound per week...STILL 1200 calories. I have my activity level as sedentary, since I work a desk job 8 hours a day (but I do have children and am active with them in the evenings after work). How can this be right? Is my TDEE really just that low? Is my only hope to increase my exercise?

    This means that your non-exercise maintenance calories are around 1700...

    Personally, while I have a desk job, I never really put myself to sedentary...when I get home I'm usually fixing this or that, making dinner, playing with the kids, etc...I don't usually sit down at home until about 8:30 for dinner. I also exercise regularly which increases TDEE.

    It could also mean that those numbers are under 1700, at which the 2, 1.5 and 1 pound per week goal would all spit out 1200.

    Running her numbers, I came up with a sedentary TDEE of 1700 currently, close to 1900 when OP was at 190. Any goal that takes her under 1200 would still spit out 1200. That means that when you input your goal and it spits out 1200, it may not mean that 1200 will get you your goal. That's one "bug" in MFP I would fix. They ought to add an explanatory statement so that when you hit their minimum, it'll tell you what the actual goal is and why.
  • Tacklewasher
    Tacklewasher Posts: 7,122 Member
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    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    trixxxeee wrote: »
    When I started MFP, I weighed 190 pounds (5'1" female, 44 years old). I put in a goal of 2 pounds per week, and it gave me 1200 calories. I am now down to 159 pounds so I figured I'd change my goal to 1.5 pounds per week (around 1% of body weight). And...it still gave me 1200 calories. So I tried 1 pound per week...STILL 1200 calories. I have my activity level as sedentary, since I work a desk job 8 hours a day (but I do have children and am active with them in the evenings after work). How can this be right? Is my TDEE really just that low? Is my only hope to increase my exercise?

    This means that your non-exercise maintenance calories are around 1700...

    Personally, while I have a desk job, I never really put myself to sedentary...when I get home I'm usually fixing this or that, making dinner, playing with the kids, etc...I don't usually sit down at home until about 8:30 for dinner. I also exercise regularly which increases TDEE.

    I have a desk job, but use a wrist tracker 24/7. What I find is I'm between sedentary and lightly active. So if I pick sedentary, my tracker gives me some extra calories from the base. If I set as lightly active, I get a higher base, but then it takes some away. The net is the same, but I don't like seeing them taken away so I set it back to sedentary and celebrate the victory of gaining a few :)

    Now I'm just eating ~2,000 and letting the weight loss fall where it may. Between exercising and doing some *kitten* around the house, I'm losing fine.
  • trixxxeee
    trixxxeee Posts: 11 Member
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    Ok I changed it to lightly active and at 1.5 pounds a week...STILL 1200 calories. If I change it to 1 pound a week I get an extra 140 calories though. So I guess I'll shoot for 1250-1350.

    As far as exercising more, I'd love to, but it's difficult to find the time. I do what I can on weekends and the odd half hour I can find during the week!
  • 4legsRbetterthan2
    4legsRbetterthan2 Posts: 19,590 MFP Moderator
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    with the sedentary level you put in it does sound correct.

    you may find this calculator useful:
    http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

    It calculates similarly to MFP, but it does a much better job of breaking down your calories so you understand what you are using a why. The only thing to note is that when you select a weight loss rate MFP uses a set # of lbs (0.5,1,1.5, or 2 lbs per week) whereas this calculator does a percentage of calories (5,10,15,20 percent calorie deficit) so the weight loss settings aren't perfectly comparable. But, I think this calculator is interesting to set to maintenance and see what your BMR and TDEE are, and you can see how it changes with activity.

    Using your info and sedentary scooby is estimating your TDEE at 1700 calories. For 1.5lbs of loss/ week you need a deficit of 750 calories per day (3500 calories/lb of fat * 1.5 lbs/week / 7 days a week). For one lb of loss a week you need a 500 calorie deficit each day. If you goals will give you a calories target below 1200 calories (as your 1.5 lbs/week does) then MFP will automatically give a goal of 1200 calories, since that is generally accepted as the lowest intake where proper nutrition can still be achieved.

    What you might consider, since you aren't real sure about your activity level. Back calculate, so what has been your calorie goal up till now, and what has been you average loss rate (lbs/week). You can use this to get an idea of what you actually burn on average, and set a goal based on that number.

    Hope that helped and didn't just confuse you further. Please ask questions if any of this is unclear!

  • trixxxeee
    trixxxeee Posts: 11 Member
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    tcunbeliever wrote: »
    MFP is just a calculator based on averages. If you want to customize it more for you, then just do the math yourself and override whatever MFP has calculated.

    At 1200 calories, were you really losing 2 pounds a week? If not, how much were you actually losing?

    If you want to slow that weight loss, add about 200 calories per day for 3 weeks or so and see if you still lose - and if so how much? Do you like losing at that pace? If so, keep it, if not alter calories up or down per the desired result.

    Actually yes I was losing around 2 pounds per week at 1200 calories. I don't want to lose too much muscle though and would like to slow it a bit. I'll add some calories and see what happens.

    Thanks everyone for your responses!

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