Needing constructive criticism on my calorie intake plans please!
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JollyHodgers87
Posts: 165 Member
Don't be too mean about this! I'm 31 years old and just over 25 lbs to my goal weight and like 3 lbs from a healthy weight. I've been trying to reach this off and on for a few years now. This doesn't sound bad at all, but my annoyance is that it is taking me so long to lose. I have a healthy active muscle mass, but my bmi and body fat % are slightly high. I drink at least 8 cups of water per day as well and my water percentage in my body is lower than recommended. My fitness pal suggests on their calculator that I eat 1200 calories a day. I've been doing that for some time but not seeing any results. In fact, for the last couple of weeks, I've on average been working out 2-3 times a day (yoga and cardio) and eating 1200-1250 calories limiting sugar, carbs, and salt as much as possible. I've gained a pound and accoring to my new body composition scale lost .03% muscle lol. I think I'm not eating enough. What do you all think? Could that be it? I've been trying different calculators, but the one that seems most accurate to me would to be eating at least 1631 calories a day to accommodate for my basic metabolic rate (BMR) of around 1300-1400. I mean under 1200 calories ids starvation. Do you all think around 1631 is a more accurate calorie goal to set for me to lose a couple of pounds a week safely or am I way over/ under? This isn't a body shaming thing, I just felt so much more energy when I weighed 107 lbs when I was younger. I'm definitely not in the market to be that small as that is a bit tiny for my age, but 125 would be super cool.
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Replies
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First-you should be logging your exercise on mfp and then eating those calories. I’m guessing that will put you close to 1600 (matching the others).
But it you’re not losing now, adding more calories is nearly never going to make you start losing.
How are you measuring your intake? Are you weighing all your food? Measuring cups? Estimates?12 -
Smart scales can be sketchy with BF measurements, so don't lose too much sleep over minor changes like that!
How tall are you?
How accurate is your logging? Do you double check the entries you are choosing have the right calories? Do you use a food scale for everything? Do you do cheat meals where you don't log?5 -
If you open your diary, we may be able to better help you troubleshoot.4
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Duck_Puddle wrote: »First-you should be logging your exercise on mfp and then eating those calories. I’m guessing that will put you close to 1600 (matching the others).
But it you’re not losing now, adding more calories is nearly never going to make you start losing.
How are you measuring your intake? Are you weighing all your food? Measuring cups? Estimates?Duck_Puddle wrote: »First-you should be logging your exercise on mfp and then eating those calories. I’m guessing that will put you close to 1600 (matching the others).
But it you’re not losing now, adding more calories is nearly never going to make you start losing.
How are you measuring your intake? Are you weighing all your food? Measuring cups? Estimates?
I’m using measuring cups/ spoons etc and labels on food nutrition charts.
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Smart scales can be sketchy with BF measurements, so don't lose too much sleep over minor changes like that!
How tall are you?
How accurate is your logging? Do you double check the entries you are choosing have the right calories? Do you use a food scale for everything? Do you do cheat meals where you don't log?
I’m 5 foot 4 and I log it all. I feel I’m pretty accurate.3 -
wstephens87 wrote: »Smart scales can be sketchy with BF measurements, so don't lose too much sleep over minor changes like that!
How tall are you?
How accurate is your logging? Do you double check the entries you are choosing have the right calories? Do you use a food scale for everything? Do you do cheat meals where you don't log?
I’m 5 foot 4 and I log it all. I feel I’m pretty accurate.
Weigh your food with scales, cups aren't accurate.14 -
Duck_Puddle wrote: »First-you should be logging your exercise on mfp and then eating those calories. I’m guessing that will put you close to 1600 (matching the others).
But it you’re not losing now, adding more calories is nearly never going to make you start losing.
How are you measuring your intake? Are you weighing all your food? Measuring cups? Estimates?
I’ve always hear the more you exercise you do the more you can eat but the more in the green the better ( leftover calories). I usually eat under 1300 and have anywhere from around 100 to 1500 in the green. I eat them how will I lose hem?
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wstephens87 wrote: »Duck_Puddle wrote: »First-you should be logging your exercise on mfp and then eating those calories. I’m guessing that will put you close to 1600 (matching the others).
But it you’re not losing now, adding more calories is nearly never going to make you start losing.
How are you measuring your intake? Are you weighing all your food? Measuring cups? Estimates?Duck_Puddle wrote: »First-you should be logging your exercise on mfp and then eating those calories. I’m guessing that will put you close to 1600 (matching the others).
But it you’re not losing now, adding more calories is nearly never going to make you start losing.
How are you measuring your intake? Are you weighing all your food? Measuring cups? Estimates?
I’m using measuring cups/ spoons etc and labels on food nutrition charts.
Op, you've answered your own question. Get a food scale and start measuring out portion sizes-you'll be shocked lol
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wstephens87 wrote: »Duck_Puddle wrote: »First-you should be logging your exercise on mfp and then eating those calories. I’m guessing that will put you close to 1600 (matching the others).
But it you’re not losing now, adding more calories is nearly never going to make you start losing.
How are you measuring your intake? Are you weighing all your food? Measuring cups? Estimates?
I’ve always hear the more you exercise you do the more you can eat but the more in the green the better ( leftover calories). I usually eat under 1300 and have anywhere from around 100 to 1500 in the green. I eat them how will I lose hem?
It's not true that it's necessarily better to have calories left over. Your MFP calorie goal already includes a deficit, and you're intended to eat the full number of calories MFP gives you. Exercise is for other health and fitness goals, not to create a bigger deficit. Sometimes people recommend eating half the exercise calories because exercise calorie burn estimates are often too high. If you could track your exercise calorie burn exactly, you would eat all your exercise calories.
If you are only 3 pounds over your optimal BMI range, then your weight loss is going to be very slow. Aim for 0.5 lb/week; don't be surprised if you don't see the scale go down every single week.
As other posters have said, get a food scale and weigh your food. Use measuring cups and spoons for liquids only, not solid foods.4 -
wstephens87 wrote: »Duck_Puddle wrote: »First-you should be logging your exercise on mfp and then eating those calories. I’m guessing that will put you close to 1600 (matching the others).
But it you’re not losing now, adding more calories is nearly never going to make you start losing.
How are you measuring your intake? Are you weighing all your food? Measuring cups? Estimates?
I’ve always hear the more you exercise you do the more you can eat but the more in the green the better ( leftover calories). I usually eat under 1300 and have anywhere from around 100 to 1500 in the green. I eat them how will I lose hem?
Your original post asked if you should be eating 1600 based on what other calculators say. If you were eating as mfp expects (until 0 calories remaining), you’d be closer to the 1600 of other calculators.
If you’re not losing now, eating more is not going to fix that.
Couple things based on followups:
1. Weigh your food. On a food scale. Make sure you’re using accurate entires (don’t log “lasagna-1 piece” or “turkey sandwich” unless it’s from your own Recipe). When I use measuring cups, my 1200 logged calories is really 1600.
2. 107 is likely an unrealistic goal if you are 5’4”. You are already a healthy weight and loss will be very, very slow.
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wstephens87 wrote: »Duck_Puddle wrote: »First-you should be logging your exercise on mfp and then eating those calories. I’m guessing that will put you close to 1600 (matching the others).
But it you’re not losing now, adding more calories is nearly never going to make you start losing.
How are you measuring your intake? Are you weighing all your food? Measuring cups? Estimates?
I’ve always hear the more you exercise you do the more you can eat but the more in the green the better ( leftover calories). I usually eat under 1300 and have anywhere from around 100 to 1500 in the green. I eat them how will I lose hem?
More in the green is *not* better. You CERTAINLY should not have 1500 remaining calories. That's a recipe for undereating, with malnutrition coming down the road. Even if you're not concerned about that now, I can assure you that losing your hair, having splitting nails, and getting stress injuries from exercise is not something you want. And it WILL happen.
Fuel your workouts. But also make sure that you are weighing your food, and not underestimating.7 -
MFP was designed for you to eat back either a portion or all of your exericse calories back. Your deficit was created prior to any exercise. Not eating them back can lead to under-eating, and over a prolonged period of time is not healthy.
I would also concur with the advice above from the others. Getting a food scale and weighing everything will really be helpful more than you think. It's a very eye-opening experience to some, and also a bit disheartening
when it comes to some calorie dense foods which are thoroughly enjoyable and you realize the portion is much smaller than originally thought.
Best of luck to you!3 -
wstephens87 wrote: »Smart scales can be sketchy with BF measurements, so don't lose too much sleep over minor changes like that!
How tall are you?
How accurate is your logging? Do you double check the entries you are choosing have the right calories? Do you use a food scale for everything? Do you do cheat meals where you don't log?
I’m 5 foot 4 and I log it all. I feel I’m pretty accurate.
Considering your height, I think your goal weight is perfectly acceptable.
I'm 5'4 (and 1/2!)" and went from 145 to 125. It took me well over a year
Anyway, I would've sworn on a Bible I was eating 1400 cals and not losing weight. Then I started doing these two things like it was my damn job:- I double checked every entry I used in the database to the package or the USDA values for whole foods, even if I was scanning the item. Found I was using lots of bad entries.
- I started using a food scale for every single non-liquid thing I either prepared at home or ate at home - whole foods, packaged foods, single serve containers, fruits & veggies, condiments, cooking oils, snacks, nibbles - everything.
After 2 or 3 weeks, I could see that I had actually been eating closer to 1700 cals per day, and there was my half lb per week. More accuracy basically changed everything for me.
Chances are that your numbers are slightly off and you are eating just enough more than you think you are to cancel out the slow weight loss that you should probably be expecting. Just something to think about, obviously you need to determine how detail oriented you want to be and are capable of.14 -
Food scale x100. if you are not loosing you are eating more than you think you are. or you have an underlying health issue.
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10634517/you-dont-use-a-food-scale/p1
set MFP to nore more than 1lb/week loss being so close to goal and health weight, and once the logging is on track with the food scale, make sure to eat back the exercise calories. 2lbs/week is too aggressive.
the last 15 are sloooww and should be more at 0.5lbs. i'm at about .5/week (about 2lbs a month) being well in my healthy weight category. (5'1, 119 now). and at this stage it isn't something is actually SEE every week. I can be up 1 lb as water weight fluctuations mask any loss at this stage. I have to trust the system and look at the trend over 2-4 weeks and THAT is when I see I actually did go down 1-2lbs.4 -
wstephens87 wrote: »Duck_Puddle wrote: »First-you should be logging your exercise on mfp and then eating those calories. I’m guessing that will put you close to 1600 (matching the others).
But it you’re not losing now, adding more calories is nearly never going to make you start losing.
How are you measuring your intake? Are you weighing all your food? Measuring cups? Estimates?Duck_Puddle wrote: »First-you should be logging your exercise on mfp and then eating those calories. I’m guessing that will put you close to 1600 (matching the others).
But it you’re not losing now, adding more calories is nearly never going to make you start losing.
How are you measuring your intake? Are you weighing all your food? Measuring cups? Estimates?
I’m using measuring cups/ spoons etc and labels on food nutrition charts.
You are eating more than you think. Buy a $12 food scale and test it out. You might be surprised!7 -
Thank you guys so much. I feel shocked to read that I've been using the app wrong for all this time but glad to know so that I can change it but also now feel like I've been working so hard and trying so hard and have only been hindering my process when I really wanted to eat more! I changed my calorie goal back to 1200 and will try your advice of eating as much of my deficit as I can. I never felt like I was starving myself so I didn't think I was. I may even consider buying a food scale. I just found this article to back you up: https://healthyeater.com/eat-to-lose-weight . Gosh this has probably been effecting my immune system and everything. This makes me sad. I thought I was being super healthy! It worked out for me at first and I've maintained an average weight for a while but I've been using MFP for a long time and had no idea I was doing it all wrong.2
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If you eat back all of your exercise calories just make sure that you are super confident that you haven’t over-estimated otherwise that combined with inaccurate logging is enough to erase your deficit and thus you will not lose weight. E.g.
If you go to the gym for 1hr but actually truly only spend 40mins exercising then make sure it’s the 40mins that get logged, not the hour. Ditto if you’re using calorie burn data from gym equipment - be aware that these notoriously over-estimate your calorie burn. This is why many people choose to eat back only 50% of their exercise calories.
Eating more will not make you lose weight.
Weighing & logging accurately and correctly entering your exercise will enable you to lose weight if you remain within your goal calories.
If you have a cheat meal, cheat day or night out drinking, make sure you log this too, as best you can, then you’ll see the impact on your loss and it may explain if you’ve not lost as much as you hoped one week.2
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