MFP gave me a questionable calorie allowance!
saggynaggy65
Posts: 68 Member
Hi everyone! I plugged in my numbers on MFP and it said that I get 1270 calories a day to get where I want to be (150 pounds). I am female, 172 pounds, 5 ft, 7". I am not in a race to lose the weight, hell, if it takes a year I'm okay with that! I am thinking that number is kinda low, I am still pretty hungry only eating that amount. Any thoughts from the experts?
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Replies
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How many lbs per week did you tell it you want to lose? Try 0.5 to 1.015
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MFP works with the stats you put in. How many pounds per week did you select? What activity level did you select? Sedentary is basically for people who are comatose!! If you raise whatever you put up a notch, you'll get more calories. If you lower your weekly pounds to .5, you'll also get more calories.
Also, MFP is designed with the expectation that you will "eat back" any calories you expended on exercise--that will also give you more calories on the days that you exercise.4 -
Did you tell MFP you wanted to lose 2 pounds a week? If so, tell it you want to lose more slowly, 1 pound a week, or even half a pound a week. At 172 pounds, the maximum you ought to be trying to lose is maybe 1.5 pounds a week (if you want to minimize health risks), and slower than that is fine.
Also, keep in mind that your MFP goal (if you followed the setup instructions as indicated) is your calorie goal before any intentional exercise. If you exercise, you either log it manually, or you synch a fitness tracker (Fitbit, Garmin, etc.) to MFP, and it will reconcile the calories for you. Then you eat those extra calories, too. (Some people like to eat a percentage of them at first, maybe 50%, until they see whether the exercise calories turn out to be in the ballpark).
MFP's calorie goal doesn't depend on your goal weight at all. It depends on your current weight and other personal characteristics (age, sex, etc.), and the weight loss rate per week that you asked MFP to estimate for you. The goal weight you input is just used for some MFP motivational messages.7 -
Hi everyone! I plugged in my numbers on MFP and it said that I get 1270 calories a day to get where I want to be (150 pounds). I am female, 172 pounds, 5 ft, 7". I am not in a race to lose the weight, hell, if it takes a year I'm okay with that! I am thinking that number is kinda low, I am still pretty hungry only eating that amount. Any thoughts from the experts?
Did you choose a pace of more than 1 lb per week? With 22 lbs to lose, 1 lb per week is really the fastest you can expect. And you can change it to 0.5 lbs per week if you want, that will give you even more cals.
Did you say you were sedentary, and is that true? Do you pretty much sit all day? If not, you're not sedentary. Switching to lightly active (you get more than 4000 or so steps just in your normal day to day life) that will give you more calories.
And then whenever you exercise, you are expected to log it and eat at least some of the extra cals it gives you.
I'd bet once you go through those questions you'll get more than 1270 to eat
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It gave me 1100 calories - I'm happy with that43
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Thanks for all your wonderful feedback! I put sedentary because I don't work, I'm a stay at home. I do however walk an hour a day or more with my dog, mow the lawn, and other house chores. I also put in to lose 1 pound a week. Maybe I will check it again and see where I'm at!
I think I would starve if that's all I ate!It gave me 1100 calories - I'm happy with that
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Okay, I changed the activity level to lightly active and it bumped me up to 1400...Happy dance!!
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Okay, I changed the activity level to lightly active and it bumped me up to 1400...Happy dance!!
Yay!
Now the next step is to eat to this level (plus any extra exercise) for 4-6 weeks, and see if your real-world experience matches your target weight loss rate (or at least that you're losing at a rate you find adequate). All of these are just statistical estimates, so they'll be close for more people, further off for a few, and quite substantially off for a very, very few.
In the unlikely event you seem to be losing very fast after the first couple of weeks, and you simultaneously start feeling weak or fatigued for otherwise unexplained reasons, then eat a little more. (Too-slow weight loss can be frustrating, but too-fast weight loss can be a health risk!) Otherwise, stick it out for the 4-6 weeks to get an average, since loss can be quite nonlinear.
Best wishes!7 -
Thank you so much AnnPT77💕0
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Lillymoo01 wrote: »
Not true! I've just put in 1000 calories and its accepted it.18 -
Capyboppy2017 wrote: »Lillymoo01 wrote: »
Not true! I've just put in 1000 calories and its accepted it.
That's different from a goal that MFP calculates. The poster said that MFP "gave" her 1100, which is impossible unless a bug is occurring.19 -
Hmm when I run with your stats (unless I am missing something) and lightly active, it gives me 1480 calories as a daily goal. Not that it's a huge difference from 1400, but you'll appreciate those extra 80 calories some days 4 -
Capyboppy2017 wrote: »Lillymoo01 wrote: »
Not true! I've just put in 1000 calories and its accepted it.
You can customize it to a lower goal (even though MFP recommends against it), but if you use MFP to calculate a goal, it will never give a goal lower than 1200 for women and 1500 for men.19 -
Capyboppy2017 wrote: »Lillymoo01 wrote: »
Not true! I've just put in 1000 calories and its accepted it.
That wasn't MFP giving you a goal. That was you giving you a goal.20
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