Calorie defecite on MFP

Yes, but are you weighing your intake? Without the accuracy of weighing everything you eat, you will be off by up to about 20% in volume in your logs.

From Help at the top of every page: How does MyFitnessPal calculate my initial goals?


and...https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1080242/a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants/p1

cameronanthony2017 wrote: »

Tinkerbellang83- 44yrs old, 5'10 and 15st 4lbs. Weight has been stuck since about May this year. I have taken several years off from TRI's and I weigh about 18kgs too much. I logged all my food, apart from the odd veg/fruit. I do enjoy cheat days (not over indulging), but maybe your right and I need to increase my food/energy in take to give it more burn. Thank you.

Was it May when you started your Tri training again?

with a goal of 18kg to lose - your goal should be only 1lb a week; and with the way MFP works you should eat back your calories

alternately, you could use a TDEE calculator that factors in your workout (which i find much better if you have a set workout schedule like most triathlon plans)

thatbeing said 2000 to me seems too low (i'm female, 5'3", 160lbs and training for an upcoming Ironman triathlon) - and during training you don't want to cut calories too low because it will inhibit recovery and performance improvement

cameronanthony2017 wrote: »

Thank you, is it fair to say then I should change the goal to 1lb per week and ensure that I eat the additional amount of calories that I burn when I exercise?

Yes, also buy a digital food scale and start weighing your food, all of it. This will give you better data to make adjustments, right now you have no way of knowing how many calories you are eating.

Cheers, h.

cameronanthony2017 wrote: »

Thank you, is it fair to say then I should change the goal to 1lb per week and ensure that I eat the additional amount of calories that I burn when I exercise?

Yes. But if you haven’t lost weight since May, you’re eating at maintenance and eating more calories will lead to weight gain.

The most likely reason for this is inconsistent and/or inaccurate food logging. Meaning-you’re not logging your cheat days at all, you’re looking at a lump of chicken and logging it as 100g (when it might be 50g or 500g) or using database entries that say 1 cup of peanuts is 50 calories, or not logging fruits/vegetable because they are “healthy” (although I eat several hundred calories worth of these a day) or a combination of the above.

So an appropriate calorie goal is 1 pound a week and you should be logging your exercise and eating those calories. Since whatever you’re eating now is maintenance, you’ll want to take steps to make sure you’re logging absolutely everything you eat (cheat days included), and weighing your food so you can log it accurately, and making sure the database entries you choose are accurate.

If you just raise your calorie goal and start eating your exercise calories now-without changing your logging-you’re going to gain.

How long have you been training? How active were you before you began training? How often do you eat without a calorie goal? Do you log it? If not, and you want to make progress you may need to change that habit. Instead of having a free day perhaps eat 2350 calories each day and plan to eat 3400 one day a week. That is your new goal of 2500 less 150 for 6 days to bank 900 calories then added back to 2500 on the 7th day. All of it should be carefully logged.

If you make your diary public people can help you spot logging issues.
As it stands your numbers don't add up, you should be losing fairly rapidly.

Yes your calorie goal on here is plus exercise calories but you need to work from good data and at the moment I'm not seeing good data.