Completing Diary - incentive to see how much you lose over a 5 week period

Counsel74
Counsel74 Posts: 1 Member
in Getting Started
I am trying to get the App to allow me to complete my diary when my calories are under 1000. I am very small boned (when at my proper weight) and very petite at under 5ft. In conjunction with my doctor I am looking to lose weight and a dietician has advised that, to have necessary calorie deficit to lose half a pound a week - steady and not excessive - I should consume a maximum of 850 calories (due to my build and height). I need the incentive of knowing how much I will lose but it won't let me complete the diary! How do I change this. I have changed my net calories in My Goals and it still won't allow this. I know most people should not eat less than 1200 but that is my normal BMR so if I eat that much I will not lose weight and if I eat 1000 I will only lose weight if I NEVER EVER have a single meal - not even one in a month - which is a slight cheat. That is not sustainable. :(

Replies

  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    You can't change it. It's set this way to avoid supporting unhealthy eating behaviors. There are a minority of people who are on a VLCD on the recommendation of their doctor, but the majority of people who would be interested in using it in this way would be supporting their disordered eating. MFP doesn't want to support that so it's set that way for a reason.

    If it's any consolation, the 5 week projections aren't very accurate. If posts here are accurate, they frustrate people way more than they motivate them.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 33,715 Member
    Did your doctor and dietitian tell you how many calories it would take to maintain your weight? If 850 is correct for half a pound a week for you, I'm guessing it would be around 1100 calories.

    You can do the math yourself, for a loss estimate, then: Subtract the calories you actually ate from your maintenance calories. That's your deficit for the day. Multiply that number by 7, to get a deficit for the week. Divide that deficit for the week by 3500, to get estimated weight loss rate in pounds (or fractions of pounds) per week, "if every day were just like today". That's pretty much what MFP is doing to give you that number.

    The total number of calories you would burn in a day is your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure), BTW, not your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate). BMR is what you'd burn if you laid in bed all day, and I'll bet you don't. If your BMR is 1200, your TDEE is quite a bit higher, probably at least 1440.
  • brittanystebbins95
    brittanystebbins95 Posts: 567 Member
    edited May 2020
    I wonder if you maybe added more "fake" calories in the quick-add option, and then balanced them out by adding "fake" exercise to negate the fake calories, if it would give you an estimate for what your "net" calories were? You might have to play around with it and I'm not entirely sure it would even work.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,131 Member
    edited May 2020
    Your sedentary calories on MFP are 1.25x BMR, i.e. 1500

    Therefore a half lb per week loss would have you above the minimum 1200 Cal, at 1250.

    If you were active your caloric output would jump to 1.6x BMR which means 1920 Cal.

    At that level you would be able to afford -500 without falling below 1200

    As someone who views deficits that exceeds 25% of TDEE as potentially too aggressive I see MFP encouraging the general public to a more generally correct path than the one your health practitioners are suggesting to you; albeit they're doing so with the benefit of being able to consider your full health history.

    So an appropriate level for you, perhaps, but a general use app cannot fully cater to all edge cases.

    I can't remember how many years ago I stopped closing my diary. Sustainable levels of losses that required less motivation and effort to implement are what worked best for me



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