How accurate was calorie MFP's estimate for you? Was it low or high if inaccurate?
CarvedTones
Posts: 2,340 Member
I set mine to 0 and I have a sedentary (office) job. I am 5'8", 59 and weigh 162. It is giving me 1910. I am also starting to log my walking. I walk a lot; averaging near 5000 per day for the year, but over 10000 per day last week as I have been ramping up and we have more daylight. I am only logging about 2/3 of the actual time from my watch (Asian knock off, so I can't connect it automatically) as walking at 3 mph (about right).
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MFP was lower for me than reality, despite me having a desk job I had to change my level from sedentary to lightly active to come close to the right number for me (lightly active = 1610 cals to maintain, I'm 5ft 2/48yrs/125lbs). I don't even walk that much, but I probably average 6-7k steps. I log other exercise other than walking manually. So my actual TDEE averages 1950-2000 cals.
If you are doing above 5k steps a day it means you are not sedentary but lightly active.0 -
I have MFP set to sedentary. (Tho I’m certainly more than mildly active). It’s estimate is about 400 to 500 calories higher than my maintenance calories actually are.
Apple Watch is the same. I use an app that does a weekly calculation of the actual calories Apple Watch determined from my activity and the actual calories logged in MFP. I have to have about a 3000 calorie deficit a week in that program to keep my weight steady - If I don’t keep that ‘deficit’ I gain.
So for me MFP is VERY inaccurate estimate and on the high end. e - but is close to other methods of estimating so the problem appears to be on my end, not MFP’s end.1 -
7000 steps is about 3.5 miles. For me, that is the little bit of walking around at work (parking lot, bathroom, break room, etc) plus about an hour of 3 mph (which is a decent clip) walking. The reason I am leaning toward logging is that over the weekend my steps were 13000 and 17000, but on some weekdays may only be 4000. Even that requires a dedicated walk. On days I don't take a dedicated walk, I generally get less than 1000 steps. People with real FitBits tell me they get a lot more steps from around the house/office than I do on my knock off.0
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I have MFP set to lightly active (I'm actually sedentary but too lazy to log my workouts every day so I thought it would balance out) and to lose .5lbs a week which gives me 1800 cals a day. I'm actually losing 1lbs a week so I think MFP is underestimating for me.0
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It underestimates for me by about 500 per day.
Just keep good records and adjust accordingly.6 -
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I am still tracking. I tried to be a natural eater the last time I lost a lot of weight. That didn't work out very well. this time I am more committed to it. I lost down to a lower weight, actually below 25 on the BMI scale (by just a little) and will not allow myself to go over 25. I weigh every other day. I seem to still be trending down slowly now, which makes sense when I look at the numbers. I am okay with that for a little more cushion, but I am making my first attempt at real stabilization.0
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The vast majority of MPF's numbers have worked really well for me when I've been disciplined enough to follow them. Clearly there's lots of margin for error with all this, and maybe I error in just such a way that it balances out MFP's error, but regardless, when I do what MFP tells me to do, I generally succeed.0
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All calorie calculators (MFP or otherwise) give estimates that are too high for me.
It's a starting point for people who have not calorie counted b4 (or for awhile) but it is "trial and error" and personal experience which is the best guide.
For example, my TDEE is currently estimated at an ave of 2100 on sailrabbit (which uses 6 different algorthims) but I have been maintaining at 156# for the past 2 months on just 1550 net cals/day.
If I ate 2100 net cals daily, I'd gain weight and get fat again very quickly.1 -
mfp is figuring 1910 for me at sedentary, which my job is. It's an office job and even though I get up and around fairly often, it's maybe a half mile of walking (around 1000 steps; that's what I get on nasty weather days). I like the idea of logging the extra steps since they can vary so widely. But all that assumes the base is right. I was losing at 1700 and averaging 4000 steps without logging the extra 3000 and the rate was more than a half pound a week. I was losing close to a pound a week at 1500 before I starting putting the brakes on, increasing to 1600, then 1700, then only in the last few days I went to 1800 + exercise and now 1910. Scale has been pretty steady except this morning it dropped only 0.2 pounds but to a new low, so I am not sure I have stopped losing yet.0
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When I started I asked my doctor and trainer how many calories to eat for my height/weight etc. Doctor said 2200 and trainer suggested 2800 taking into account how active I am for my workouts and general daily activity level so I fooled with the settings to get it to around 2,500 initially which I felt was a safe compromise. That accurately had me losing around a pound per week. Later on I adjusted it down to 2,150 when I began to mostly eat clean foods and lost about 1.5 pounds per week. The better play long term may be a BMI/Fat/Muscle ration scale to show progress over time while using MFP more as a guide to keep yourself accountable and verify the proper nutrients carbs, fat, protein etc. Technology can really only use an estimate since everyone is different. Here is a good one: My Samsung watch yesterday told me I burned 1,800 calories in a 2 hour Yoga training class. Yeah...sure I did: I sat doing nothing for an hour of it and just listening to instruction.2
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All calorie calculators (MFP or otherwise) give estimates that are too high for me.
It's a starting point for people who have not calorie counted b4 (or for awhile) but it is "trial and error" and personal experience which is the best guide.
For example, my TDEE is currently estimated at an ave of 2100 on sailrabbit (which uses 6 different algorthims) but I have been maintaining at 156# for the past 2 months on just 1550 net cals/day.
If I ate 2100 net cals daily, I'd gain weight and get fat again very quickly.
Sailrabbit's 2100 is gross tdee including activity and exercise.
Net 1550 can easily be 1550, 2000, 2100 or even 3100, depending on activity! Especially if the starting point is net 1550 at sedentary2 -
All calorie calculators (MFP or otherwise) give estimates that are too high for me.
It's a starting point for people who have not calorie counted b4 (or for awhile) but it is "trial and error" and personal experience which is the best guide.
For example, my TDEE is currently estimated at an ave of 2100 on sailrabbit (which uses 6 different algorthims) but I have been maintaining at 156# for the past 2 months on just 1550 net cals/day.
If I ate 2100 net cals daily, I'd gain weight and get fat again very quickly.
Sailrabbit's 2100 is gross tdee including activity and exercise.
Net 1550 can easily be 1550, 2000, 2100 or even 3100, depending on activity! Especially if the starting point is net 1550 at sedentary
I always use the sedentary activity estimate which presumes minimal activity and no additional exercise.
In determining my net cals, I subtract any "extra" exercise cals (w/o regard for normal activity) from my total daily food intake.
I have been doing it this way for over 22 months and the statistical correlation (as measured by Excel) between the variations in my weight and food intake (measured daily) is almost a perfect +1.
Over the past 2 months, I have maintained my weight at 156 +/- 1# eating an ave of 1550 cals/day, usually as a result of eating 2100 cals and burning ( 550 cals a day (only erg rowing).
So, if I didn't exercise at all, my daily intake would equal sailrabbit's 2100 cal estimate and I would gain about 1#/wk.
The fact that I haven't gained any weight at 1550 cals/day is proof that the sailrabbit estimate in my case was just plain wrong.1 -
Given that we usually both have a fairly good grasp of what's going on, I am uncertain where exactly we're talking past each other.
I hear you say:
MFP BMR x 1.25 MFP activity setting for sedentary + 550 Cal a day rowing exercise = 2100 Cal a day eaten and maintaining at 1550 net.
Simultaneously you're saying:
Sailrabbit BMR x UNSTATED Sailrabbit activity setting = 2100 Cal a day, and if I ate at that I would gain weight.
My answer was that your unstated sairabbit activity setting is at an estimate of about 1.425 in order for you to get 2100 Cal a day, in other words higher than MFP's default sedentary of 1.25 and higher than Sailrabbit's sedentary setting of 1.2
As such it already includes the allowance for your rowing exercise. And you don't get to add the 550 Cal separately. Thus you would eat 2100... and you wouldn't gain weight because that's exactly what you're eating anyway!
What am I missing?!
(Given that MFP uses the Mifflin formula for BMR which is one of the six used by Sailrabbit, the expectation would be that differences will be fairly small if the same activity settings are used, yet you are discussing a 500 Cal difference)1 -
MFP doesn't understand short women either. LOL, It has this thing called 1200, and it won't ever go below that for CI base. So if I set it to maintain at my preferred weight or even 5 pounds higher it gives me 1200. So, I think it has some built in safety features. It did the same when I was losing. 1200. Lose 1 pound per week 1200. Lose 1.5 etc same deal So, I used a TDEE spreadsheet and go with the results there. I would LOVE to be able to just go with what it says and eat back exercise cals totally but because of it's algarythms I can't. (edited for speeling corections LOL)
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My calories were a bit high. I'm tall - 5'11" and was lightly active. I lost faster than anticipated when it was just diet alone and also just cardio. When I added in strength training, burns were harder to calculate and I had more dramatic water weight fluctuations and things slowed down a bit. I think if I had been able to stick to lower calories it would have been easier, but determining my CICO was a little harder and otoh I was okay with taking time at that point.1
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Given that we usually both have a fairly good grasp of what's going on, I am uncertain where exactly we're talking past each other.
<snip>
What am I missing?!
You're missing that the sailrabbit TDEE at 2100 for me presumes NO additional exercise because it is based on a sedentary activity level.
If it were accurate for me, the estimate would be1550 (not 2100) which is what I'd need to eat w/o any additional exercise in order to maintain my current weight, as proven by my food/exercise log for the past 2 months.
If I were to just eat 2100 w/o rowing and burning 550 cals for a net of 1550 daily, I would gain about 1#/wk based on the theory that 1#/wk in weight gain is equal to a surplus of 500 caks/day or 3500 cal/wk.
Can't make it any clearer than that. If you need to discuss it further, feel free to PM me rather than take up space off topic here.
Ciao!
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I'm doing a ketogenic diet so I set my own macros. I figured my macros by using a calculator on www.ruled.me
I just use MFP to track and be sure I stay under calories, fat, carbs and get enough protein. I log exercise (walking) but I don't eat back those calories. I rarely come within 100-200 calories of my limit b/c I try to keep my fat relatively low...get between 60-80g daily...some days more. I've been doing this for 6 weeks and have lost 17 pounds with only about 1.4 miles per day walking to/from city bus stop.0 -
5' 7" F. Their calculator is about right, but I did my calculations using the iifym calculator since I don't want to have my food "allotment" go up and down so dramatically (my typical workout burns 400-700 calories, and that's been proven to be pretty accurate over the past couple months). I also have a couple days a week where I'm on my feet all day, doing retail sales or riding at the track, neither of which is sedentary!
I prefer to eat about the same amount every day, so actually use another site to do my actual tracking where I can set my own calorie goals.0 -
May I ask if you've seen results having worked out your own calories? The iiyfm calculator varies slightly from MFP for me.
Yes, it's been pretty darn accurate for me. I give myself a range from losing 1 lb/week at my current weight to maintenance at my goal weight. Over the course of this year so far (actually since November), I was tending to eat at the maintenance goal (occasionally a little over) and my weight held pretty steady with a very slight decrease (about 1 lb/month), which would be about spot on. I was mostly focused on building my fitness back up, and found that easier to do at the higher end of my range.
Now that the fitness is where I need it for the time being, I'm going to start cutting a little bit and work on losing the extra weight and just maintaining my fitness. Since I just started that this week, I can't really report on how it's going, but the past 3 months have been accurate so I don't see there being an issue.
That being said, I did a weird calculation. I used the IIFYM calculator, and calculated my calories for weight loss with my workouts at my current weight, maintenance at my goal weight with my workouts (all sedentary activity since my M-F is a desk job), but then also did the same calculations with moderate activity since 2 days a week I'm on my feet walking around and/or riding at the track all day. Took the difference, divided by 7, and added 2 "days" worth of that to my base calorie goals. Those were then used to give me my "range."
No idea if that makes any sense, but gives me a little extra each day and kept me from the hangries.1 -
All calorie calculators (MFP or otherwise) give estimates that are too high for me.
It's a starting point for people who have not calorie counted b4 (or for awhile) but it is "trial and error" and personal experience which is the best guide.
For example, my TDEE is currently estimated at an ave of 2100 on sailrabbit (which uses 6 different algorthims) but I have been maintaining at 156# for the past 2 months on just 1550 net cals/day.
If I ate 2100 net cals daily, I'd gain weight and get fat again very quickly.
Holy Moly Batman! I am a 4'11 female and only weigh 95 pounds and my maintenance calories at sedentary are 1550.6 -
underestimates for me. I only set mine to sedentary because i have it synced to fitbit to give me more calories for fitness level0
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In 2 days of the calculated maintenance with about 2/3 of exercise calories eate, the scale went up 1.4 pounds. I know that's too small to mean much on one weigh in, but I am going to drop back a little for a few weeks to give me more of a cushion to try again. I am still below goal, but popping up over a pound on the first weigh in makes me nervous. So I will try again with a bigger cushion...2
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CarvedTones wrote: »In 2 days of the calculated maintenance with about 2/3 of exercise calories eate, the scale went up 1.4 pounds. I know that's too small to mean much on one weigh in, but I am going to drop back a little for a few weeks to give me more of a cushion to try again. I am still below goal, but popping up over a pound on the first weigh in makes me nervous. So I will try again with a bigger cushion...
Think you need to be a bit more disciplined in sticking with each adjustment for a decent amount of time if you want to get more accurate data. Remember it's the trend you want to react to - not the fluctuations.6 -
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CarvedTones wrote: »In 2 days of the calculated maintenance with about 2/3 of exercise calories eate, the scale went up 1.4 pounds. I know that's too small to mean much on one weigh in, but I am going to drop back a little for a few weeks to give me more of a cushion to try again. I am still below goal, but popping up over a pound on the first weigh in makes me nervous. So I will try again with a bigger cushion...
Think you need to be a bit more disciplined in sticking with each adjustment for a decent amount of time if you want to get more accurate data. Remember it's the trend you want to react to - not the fluctuations.
Yeah, I know. I mentioned in my post that I know it's too small to mean much on one weigh in, but I decided to give myself a bigger cushion just to avoid going back over goal even if it is just a spike. It's purely a mental thing - a personal hangup - but it is a thing. So I will drop another 4 pounds or so and then try the maintenance level and stick to it longer.5 -
MFP underestimates my calories. I'm older (61) and mostly sedentary. In maintenance, I was given 1470. I kept losing, so I increased it to 1600. I don't weigh or measure anything and I rarely include things like oil in the saute pan or milk in my coffee. I eat back all my exercise calories. I frequently eat over my calories. I have maintained a stable weight for over a year. However, I do exercise a couple of hours every day, mostly running and walking. Since I run in a hilly area, I think I probably burn more calories than the app gives me. Whatever the reason, it is nice to be able to eat mostly whatever I want and not gain weight. Just logging what I eat provides enough restraint so I don't go way over on calories since I have to think twice about what I'm eating and whether it fits my calorie goal - loose as that is.1
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I turn 60 late this year and I wish I could still run. Knees can't handle it. I tore them up pretty bad one year when I went from not being a runner to running a half marathon. I thought I was going to be one of those skinny old guys you see out running until I started pulling up lame. Surgeon who did my arthroscopic told me if I kept running, I would probably be back to see him. I walk a fair amount. According to my fitness app, I am at 195 miles so far this year.3
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I'm 62, 5'5", weight around 130, sedentary outside of intentional exercise. MFP thinks I'd maintain somewhere around 1400-1500 net. It's really more like 2000 or so net. I don't know why.3
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