Lost weight. More calories?

anicolemast · April 2020

So I’ve lost almost 60lbs since starting my diet at the end of January. I was eating 1800 calories or less a day plus exercising. I have my goals set up to lose a pound a week with little effort. (Even though I am on my feet 8-10 hours a day moving, plus I exercise after work.) I’m sure other people do the same thing. Anyway, I updated my weight today (and my goal, since I hit my previous goal) and now the app says I need 2000 calories? I’m not sure why. I still have a lot to lose, why does it indicate that I need more calories? Shouldn’t it be less?

harper16 · April 2020

Hopefully one of the mfp vets jumps in and offers a better explanation, but I was messing around with my own numbers and right now:
Sedentary lifestyle 2 lbs a week 210 lbs gives me 1200 calories.
If I put in maintain at my goal weight 140 it gives me 1700 calories.
So, maybe it's more the closer you get to your goal weight, for maintenance?

Congrats on the 60 lb loss that's amazing!

AnnPT77 · April 2020

I would double check your other profile settings. With weight loss, calorie goal would typically drop a little unless:

* activity level is set higher than previously (such as very active vs. just plain active)
* weight loss rate target is set less aggressively than previously (such as pound a week rather than 2 pounds a week)

It will not do anything to automatically slow your weight loss as you get closer to goal. It may or may not automagically re-evaluate your calories as you go, and reduce them as weight as lost, to keep the same loss rate (if you don't reset loss rate); but it will reset calorie goal if you go back through setup after recording a lower weight. The exception is that it won't drop women's goal below 1200.

Best wishes!

anicolemast · April 2020

I did double check those things and nothing was changed.. I don’t plan on eating more calories anyway. Very rarely made it to 1800, but I was curious as to what people thought. Thank you for your ideas!

deannalfisher · April 2020

if youv'e lost 60lbs since end of january - that is 5lbs a week which is def. on the high side of what is recommended - so its possible that your activity level wasn't right

when you started what was MFP telling you to eat daily? 1800? honestly that seems on the low end considering you are on your feet 8-10hrs and adding in additional purposeful workouts

alexmose · April 2020

Tbh I find the numbers MFP suggests painfully low

deannalfisher · April 2020

alexmose wrote: »

Tbh I find the numbers MFP suggests painfully low

normally when that is brought up the questions are:
1) is your activity level set correctly or did you default to sedentary
2) did you select an appropriate rate of weight loss or did it default to 2lbs a week
3) are you eating back exercise calories (MFP calorie recommendations do not include purposeful exercise)

i'm sure i'm preaching to the choir - but for others out there - also MFP is essentially a calculator - and while the majority of people will fall into a standard 2 deviation from the mean, there are outliers. I know that @AnnPT77 is one of them who burns 2-300 more calories that someone her age should based on MFP calculator

that is where monitoring trends etc become important

kam3190 · April 2020

For me I couldnt magine eating 1800 calories its just too low. As an obese woman who works 8 to 10 hours a day on her feet amd has 5 children I refuse to eat under 2000 calories . I dont want to be miserable . I eat between 2000 amd 2700 calories a day and lose 1 to 2 lbs a week.

LJRS2019 · April 2020

kam3190 wrote: »

For me I couldnt magine eating 1800 calories its just too low. As an obese woman who works 8 to 10 hours a day on her feet amd has 5 children I refuse to eat under 2000 calories . I dont want to be miserable . I eat between 2000 amd 2700 calories a day and lose 1 to 2 lbs a week.

I am similar. MFP put me on 1460. I have lost 10lb in 2 weeks and have actually ended up eating 1600 cals a day on average. Slowly working out my maximum over time.

Lost weight. More calories?

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