Eating just under MFP given maintenance calories and it's predicting I'll put on weight!
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sefajane1
Posts: 322 Member
Just that really.
MFP gives me 1470 cal's/day to maintain. I've eaten 1458 calories and just closed my diary. It says I'll gain 1lb over 5 weeks. What?? 🤔
MFP gives me 1470 cal's/day to maintain. I've eaten 1458 calories and just closed my diary. It says I'll gain 1lb over 5 weeks. What?? 🤔
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Replies
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Sorry, I just checked again and it's a 1.4lbs gain, not 1lb.
How is that maintenance?1 -
And I've just done a "quick add" to make tomorrow's calories up to the 1470 calories and closed the diary - I'd gain 1.6lbs in 5 weeks. Something's not right 🤔 I want to maintain, not gain.1
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Ok so, jiggling about with tomorrow's calories I'd need to eat only 1317 of the 1470 maintenance calories that MFP has set me to actually maintain.
Any ideas as to why this would be?
That's a potential 153 calories/day I'd be overeating 🙄1 -
Ignore the MFP prediction it is worthless. Just eat what you think is your calories and check the results.12
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I get that, I just don't understand how they can get it so wrong?
I'm new to maintenance and quite frankly I'm scared now about trusting the daily calorie amount. I think I'll stick with the 1317 to be on the safe side.3 -
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I get that, I just don't understand how they can get it so wrong?
I'm new to maintenance and quite frankly I'm scared now about trusting the daily calorie amount. I think I'll stick with the 1317 to be on the safe side.
Have you logged any weight loss since MFP generated its maintenance prediction for you?5 -
I don't think being scared of calories is necessarily a good way to start maintenance but then I have no experience doing it. Seems like you would start with a number that makes sense and then check the results and then tweak as needed.7
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It will not just look into calories, but the quality of food, and in what proportions. For example, a pudding snack pack might raise the prediction up 1 pound (saying if you had an extra pudding cup every day for 5 weeks you may gain a pound), while an applesauce cup may raise the prediction 0.5 lbs. Try to make sure you also balance your macros and be careful of sugar and excessive carbs. If the protein and fat macros are left behind but carbs are exceeded, that is a known indication of weight gain. It is something that adds up over time.
Best of luck!!61 -
Um no, because the quality of food doesn’t impact weight loss, maintenance or gain. Only calories. If the pudding cup and the applesauce have equivalent calories then the impact on weight (and the prediction from MFP)would be the same.19
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hammondgirl wrote: »It will not just look into calories, but the quality of food, and in what proportions. For example, a pudding snack pack might raise the prediction up 1 pound (saying if you had an extra pudding cup every day for 5 weeks you may gain a pound), while an applesauce cup may raise the prediction 0.5 lbs. Try to make sure you also balance your macros and be careful of sugar and excessive carbs. If the protein and fat macros are left behind but carbs are exceeded, that is a known indication of weight gain. It is something that adds up over time.
Best of luck!!
There is not a word of truth in this statement.28 -
Transitioning into maintenance is scary and having the app throw out curveballs like this does not help the process.
Rather than relying on this gimmick though you are better off looking at your own data from the last month or so of losing. If you were losing at an average rate of about 1/2 pound a week over that time then it is a pretty safe bet that adding 250 extra calories a day will be pretty close to your maintenance calories.10 -
Have you logged a lower weight but not run through the goal setting yet? It doesn't auto-update.8
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Cough cough cough.
Hello there tigress!
You're getting sidetracked due to fear.
Assuming you're now at a comfortable weight? Wasn't it like yesterday when you were too low and heading for a vacation? Have you given your weight some time to settle after coming back?
How much of the unwanted loss have you managed to reclaim?
Anyway.
Plug your weigh ins into your weight trend app... which one are you using?
Eat the higher cals.
If your weight TREND increases by +2 lbs above maintenance, scale back by recent excess cals and an extra 50 till you're level where you want.
Until your trend increases while eating full maintenance calories... there is no reason to scale back.
Btw . Didn't you use to need 1600 to maintain and were losing at 1300? How are you now maintaining below. I definitely could be misremembering the numbers ...13 -
Ignore the pudding cup analogy. You could eat only pudding cups and as long as you stayed within your daily intake you’d be fine. I would eat the prescribed amount of maintenance calories and after two weeks if you’re gaining lower then.5
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hammondgirl wrote: »It will not just look into calories, but the quality of food, and in what proportions. For example, a pudding snack pack might raise the prediction up 1 pound (saying if you had an extra pudding cup every day for 5 weeks you may gain a pound), while an applesauce cup may raise the prediction 0.5 lbs. Try to make sure you also balance your macros and be careful of sugar and excessive carbs. If the protein and fat macros are left behind but carbs are exceeded, that is a known indication of weight gain. It is something that adds up over time.
Best of luck!!
I am not sure where you think you are or what software you are talking about but this is MFP. The predictor here was badly written but it wasn't that badly written.7 -
hammondgirl wrote: »It will not just look into calories, but the quality of food, and in what proportions. For example, a pudding snack pack might raise the prediction up 1 pound (saying if you had an extra pudding cup every day for 5 weeks you may gain a pound), while an applesauce cup may raise the prediction 0.5 lbs. Try to make sure you also balance your macros and be careful of sugar and excessive carbs. If the protein and fat macros are left behind but carbs are exceeded, that is a known indication of weight gain. It is something that adds up over time.
Best of luck!!
How would an algorithm know to look at the quality of food and then make that type of judgment?13 -
lynn_glenmont wrote: »I get that, I just don't understand how they can get it so wrong?
I'm new to maintenance and quite frankly I'm scared now about trusting the daily calorie amount. I think I'll stick with the 1317 to be on the safe side.
Have you logged any weight loss since MFP generated its maintenance prediction for you?
@sefajane1 probably there is a mismatch like this going on. Double check your entries in https://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/change_goals_guided0 -
hammondgirl wrote: »It will not just look into calories, but the quality of food, and in what proportions. For example, a pudding snack pack might raise the prediction up 1 pound (saying if you had an extra pudding cup every day for 5 weeks you may gain a pound), while an applesauce cup may raise the prediction 0.5 lbs. Try to make sure you also balance your macros and be careful of sugar and excessive carbs. If the protein and fat macros are left behind but carbs are exceeded, that is a known indication of weight gain. It is something that adds up over time.
Best of luck!!
Thank you for responding but I'm afraid that I completely disagree. MFP doesn't base it's calorie allowance on where the calories come from. A calorie is a calorie regardless of whether it comes from a pudding or fruit.10
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