Daily calories are too much!! HELP!

kimny72 wrote: »

I don't understand why all these first time posters are coming in here to post all this Youtube/fitness magazine woo in this thread? Did someone put a link to it in another forum or something?

OP said she would see what she could tighten up on her logging back on page 2. Since she hasn't been back to tell us her logging was perfect and it must be something else, I'd hazard a guess that was the issue.

Pro tip: When you hear hoof beats, think horses, not unicorns. Logging accurately is a skill that requires practice, and for most of us our food log when we started was a hot mess. Most folks would find their calorie needs are pretty typical if they really nailed down their logging, and were more patient. Not starvation mode, not a dead metabolism, not a medical condition, not their body needing to be confused, not sugar hiding in their salt.

Yes! Especially the bolded! I used these all of these excuses like nobody's business before I knew better, but at the time I made myself genuinely believe them so they really did not feel like excuses! Hindsight is a *kitten* sometimes!

It's the additional calories doing workouts that gets me. Depending on what your doing, it gives you additional calories that you can use? starting calories is 1500, by the end of the day my calorie count shows 2100 calories. What's going on? I don't need the extra calories.

Actually you do. The calorie goal MFP gives you includes a deficit already. When you exercise, you increase that deficit, possibly running one that's too aggressive. Plus you need more calories to fuel those workouts.

Frankly, as a short woman, I'm on 1360 calories to lose 1/2lb per week and that isn't much. A 2-hour walk, some strength training, eat back half the calories and save the rest as a cushion against logging errors and I can eat around 1700. BIG difference.

kimny72 wrote: »

I don't understand why all these first time posters are coming in here to post all this Youtube/fitness magazine woo in this thread? Did someone put a link to it in another forum or something?

OP said she would see what she could tighten up on her logging back on page 2. Since she hasn't been back to tell us her logging was perfect and it must be something else, I'd hazard a guess that was the issue.

Pro tip: When you hear hoof beats, think horses, not unicorns. Logging accurately is a skill that requires practice, and for most of us our food log when we started was a hot mess. Most folks would find their calorie needs are pretty typical if they really nailed down their logging, and were more patient. Not starvation mode, not a dead metabolism, not a medical condition, not their body needing to be confused, not sugar hiding in their salt.

yep... it's pretty much always simply that most people couldn't visually recognize a single portion if it bit them in the *kitten* (myself included for most things). I think there are probably hundreds of forum posts by now along the lines of "I can't possibly eat 1200 calories - it's too much food" or "I'm only eating 1200 calories - why am I not losing?").

estherdragonbat wrote: »

Actually you do. The calorie goal MFP gives you includes a deficit already. When you exercise, you increase that deficit, possibly running one that's too aggressive. Plus you need more calories to fuel those workouts.

Frankly, as a short woman, I'm on 1360 calories to lose 1/2lb per week and that isn't much. A 2-hour walk, some strength training, eat back half the calories and save the rest as a cushion against logging errors and I can eat around 1700. BIG difference.

I think a lot of the "don't eat exercise calories" people must be larger or just don't do much exercise (like a 30 minute walk, or "vigorous" [not!] aerobics with the majority actually being rest breaks) to be able to get away with that. Any athletic petite female who tried such stupidity would wind up in the hospital. (my maintenance estimate is 1400 net calories → as if 1400 total calories combined with 2 hours of cycling hills or a long run is anything but insanely stupid).

ritzvin wrote: »

kimny72 wrote: »

I don't understand why all these first time posters are coming in here to post all this Youtube/fitness magazine woo in this thread? Did someone put a link to it in another forum or something?

OP said she would see what she could tighten up on her logging back on page 2. Since she hasn't been back to tell us her logging was perfect and it must be something else, I'd hazard a guess that was the issue.

Pro tip: When you hear hoof beats, think horses, not unicorns. Logging accurately is a skill that requires practice, and for most of us our food log when we started was a hot mess. Most folks would find their calorie needs are pretty typical if they really nailed down their logging, and were more patient. Not starvation mode, not a dead metabolism, not a medical condition, not their body needing to be confused, not sugar hiding in their salt.

yep... it's pretty much always simply that most people couldn't visually recognize a single portion if it bit them in the *kitten* (myself included for most things). I think there are probably hundreds of forum posts by now along the lines of "I can't possibly eat 1200 calories - it's too much food" or "I'm only eating 1200 calories - why am I not losing?").

estherdragonbat wrote: »

Actually you do. The calorie goal MFP gives you includes a deficit already. When you exercise, you increase that deficit, possibly running one that's too aggressive. Plus you need more calories to fuel those workouts.

Frankly, as a short woman, I'm on 1360 calories to lose 1/2lb per week and that isn't much. A 2-hour walk, some strength training, eat back half the calories and save the rest as a cushion against logging errors and I can eat around 1700. BIG difference.

I think a lot of the "don't eat exercise calories" people must be larger or just don't do much exercise (like a 30 minute walk, or "vigorous" [not!] aerobics with the majority actually being rest breaks) to be able to get away with that. Any athletic petite female who tried such stupidity would wind up in the hospital. (my maintenance estimate is 1400 net calories → as if 1400 total calories combined with 2 hours of cycling hills or a long run is anything but insanely stupid).

I think part of the “i don’t eat exercise calories” contingent also comes from people who don’t meticulously weigh their food (and likely are eating them anyway by nature of underestimating food intake). and/or are in the early weeks/months of the process so the cumulative effects haven’t caught up yet.

My eyeballing food logging is about 500 calories low, my measuring cups method is about 300-400 calories low. Both of which aren’t too far off from my average exercise calories (400-ish normally).

@magdilinab, I'm wondering if it's your setting regarding how active you are. The app's setup is unclear as to how to determine your baseline activity level. However, it seems to me, because it gives extra calories when one logs exercises, that the baseline activity level needs to start with how active you are without intentionally adding exercise. So, for example, a person who intentionally exercises every day but has no kids to run after, has a sedentary desk job, and watches a lot of TV would still put "sedentary" or "minimal activity" (or whatever that option was) as their activity level. Therefore, if you think it may help, you might try decreasing your input of how active you are by a level. That will adjust the calculated calorie goals.

Or it really could be that you're just not eating enough. If you input a weight loss goal, then the app already includes a calorie reduction for you. Are you trying to cut more yourself?

Also, regarding some other comments, calories input by eating and spent by exercise are not the only things that affect our weight. Hormones, blood sugar level (which affects our hormones), and medications each affect how our body deals with calories. Therefore, a person with thyroid issues (and the resulting out-of-whack hormone levels) can eat a moderate amount, exercise a lot, and still gain weight. It's a lot easier to control caloric intake and exercise, though, which is why apps like this are so great. Of course, this has nothing to do with the calorie goals in the app and @magdilinab's original calorie calculation problem.

Fear_The_Turtle wrote: »

The OP is never coming back, is she?

She pretty much thanked everyone on pg 2 and said she would figure out where her logging went wrong. Possibly it became clear to her at that point and she can see most of the posts since then have been missing the mark.