Maintenence level calories too low?

Kodekai1988 · August 2020

Hi,

I recently lost weight, and my goal was 63kg (I’m female, 178cm). I weighed myself this AM and am 61.6 - this is too low for me. Never thought I’d have this problem!

MFP calculates my maintenance calories at 63kg as 1990, and I’ve put myself as lightly active. I’m a daily runner but I input my calorie burn from running and eat those calories back - I run 5-10k p/day.

I’m still losing weight overall - very slowly, but I’m conscious that if it continues on this trend, I’ll end up far too low. Something is clearly not right with what I’m doing and I wondered if anyone would be kind enough to give their thoughts:

1) I’m not actually lightly active, I am active? I know that activity level shouldn’t be based on formal exercise you do so, apart from running, I walk between 10-12,000 steps p/day. This isn’t fast walking, more just living life: shops, errands etc. Should I be active, by MFP’s standards, based on this alone? This is the ockham’s razor solution, I think.

2) I’m burning more calories than I think with running? I’ve used different calculators and am pretty sure I’m in the right range but if anyone has a calculator that they totally trust that would be helpful.

3) I need to amend my settings to ‘gaining weight’? I’d rather not do this as it doesn’t fix my overall problem, which is that my maintenance calculation isn’t working for me.

So as you can see I’m leaning towards 1). Amending to ‘active’ would give me 2,250 calories p/day, and then exercise calories on top. This takes me to around 2,600-2,900 calories p/day depending on exercise level. Which seems really high - but sort of makes sense?

Any thoughts most welcome - thank you for reading!

Kodekai1988 · August 2020

I forgot to mention, and for full disclosure: I eat Keto. I’ve done this for 5 years though and have previously not had issues with maintaining.

Lietchi · August 2020

10000 to 12000 steps per day is certainly more than lightly active from what I've read on these forums. Start by changing that setting and see what happens?

In the end, not everyone conforms to the averages used to calculate our calorie burn, be it exercise or BMR, so it would be interesting to use a weight trending app which will smooth out weight fluctuations. If you can determine your rate of loss, it's just a matter of doing the math: 7700 calories for 1kg of fat loss, divided by the number of days. And then adapting your daily calorie intake and seeing what happens.
Think of it as an experiment 🙂

sijomial · August 2020

Your estimated maintenance calories are just that - an estimate.
They are also a population average for someone your size - it will be a good estimate for many, for some too low, for some too high.

Yes you need to adjust your calorie balance and Active would seem to be a better match for the number of non-exercise steps you average.

An alternative is to manually adjust your calorie goal. You didn't mention how slowly you are losing but if it's half a kilo a month then an adjustment of around 100cals/day should get you closer to finding your calorie balance.

Don't fall into the trap of comparing yourself to others - "This takes me to around 2,600-2,900 calories p/day depending on exercise level. Which seems really high..."
Most people aren't as active as you, very few people exercise every day. Your calorie balance is unique to you - comparisons are only useful for initial starting points but not for fine tuning.

Should I eat what other elderly, average height men eat (2,500cals?) or should I eat the 3,500 - 4,000cals that I actually need to maintain?

Geneveremfp · August 2020

It sounds like you're more active even when not running than lightly active. I know I fall in the active not lightly active + eating back exercise because I'm not very good at sitting still. Change to active and monitor.

Also congratulations!

cmriverside · August 2020

I eat a full 500 calories per day more than any online calculator says I *should* be able to eat.

If you recently lost weight you have some idea of your Maintenance calories based on your past weight loss.

Those are the numbers for you to use.

No online calculator is perfect and you have to run your own experiment.

It's pretty simple: If you are losing weight eat more. If you are gaining weight eat less.

Early Maintenance is tricky and you may have to adjust many times in the next year. Adjust, use the numbers for 4-6 weeks and reassess. The thing you don't want to do is jump all over the place. You lost weight, you know your own numbers. Don't rely on an online calculator, they are just general starting numbers and we all have to find our own actual numbers based on our lifestyle, exercise and logging methods.

Kodekai1988 · August 2020

Thank you everyone for your thoughts! Without writing a very long post in response, it’s really helped clarify my thinking:

1) probably more active than I had previously assumed, according to what MFP thinks is ‘active’. I’ve now set my activity level as active - today was a fairly typical day - I’ve done a 5k run (hilly) and 11k walking so far. Thinking about it objectively I think most people would class that as active.
2) Experiment and trust myself a bit more: I do know the numbers, I know how much I move around.
3) don’t compare myself to the average! This is a really good point - I think of 2,600-2,900 calories per day as a lot, but I went through my teens in the heyday of 1,200 calories p/day being lauded in the press. Losing weight on 2,200-2,300 calories p/day is a weird concept to me as it is - I’m going to have to let go of that idea.

Thank you all! As I say, I’ve amended my activity level to Active and will eat to that. More calories to play with which is always welcome, though I haven’t been hungry at my current level so will need to think about getting these in as healthy fats and slightly larger servings of proteins most probably. A good problem to have I guess.

AnnPT77 · August 2020

Keep in mind that in MFP (even free MFP) you can set your base calorie goal manually to any value you wish . . . such as the value that your average weight loss rate over a period of weeks tells you is the correct number to maintain your weight. (You'll still want to monitor the scale, of course - things can change.) You don't have to let it estimate for you, unless you want to.

With correct settings, MFP thinks I'd maintain around 1500 net calories (i.e., eating all exercise calories). If I *completely inaccurately* set my activity level to "active" (full active, not "lightly active"), its estimate is still a little too low. (I'm getting around 4000 steps daily - sedentary is probably the closest accurate setting.) I haven't any clear idea why this is so, but 5 years of logging says it is. 🤷‍♀️

I just set the calorie value manually where I need/want it to be. (If I ate the same every day, that'd be around 2000-2100 net. I calorie bank, so I set at 1850, and will lose slowly if I don't spend my calorie bank balance periodically).

If you know your numbers, setting base calories manually can be a reasonable choice, just FTR.

Kodekai1988 · August 2020

Thank you! I hadn’t thought about setting it manually - I’m going to do a couple of weeks minimum set as “active” and then see how that trends but setting manually sounds like a good idea if it doesn’t work out.

I’ve never been an outlier in terms of calories/weight loss - very standard I think, so my suspicion is that it was “user error” in terms of setting my activity rather than my body if you see what I mean.

AnnPT77 · August 2020

Kodekai1988 wrote: »

Thank you! I hadn’t thought about setting it manually - I’m going to do a couple of weeks minimum set as “active” and then see how that trends but setting manually sounds like a good idea if it doesn’t work out.

I’ve never been an outlier in terms of calories/weight loss - very standard I think, so my suspicion is that it was “user error” in terms of setting my activity rather than my body if you see what I mean.

It's maybe not so much being an outlier as possibly a couple of other things.

For one, the calorie estimates are a little bit of a blunt instrument - I mean, that's not many activity level settings, to cover a huge range (continuum) of human activity scenarios, is it?

During weight loss, if someone's set up to lose a pound a week, and actually loses 0.9lb or 1.1lb on average, they may not even notice, amongst the noise of daily fluctuations (unless they're one of the really serious data geeks who keeps a very detailed spreadsheet in the background, or something). Even a weight trending app might not reveal it over the common time horizons of most people's attention. Losing approximately the targeted amount is NBD.

Once that person gets to maintenance, though, that small difference eventually is going to matter. If their maintenance calorie estimate is a mere 100 too low, they're going to lose a pound every 35 days, and eventually they'll notice that!

For two, purely anecdotally, it seems like some people's NEAT is especially responsive to calorie deficits - not necessarily big numbers, but small numbers matter in maintenance for the same reasons as in the previous scenario. So, maybe they were losing weight spot on with their MFP estimate. Then they go to (near-)maintenance calories, up a few hundred from deficit, and they get a little spring in their step, feel more energetic, tackle that remodeling project, fidget more, dig a new vegetable bed - whatever. Daily life calories out go up, so they need more calories to actually maintain, vs. what was expected from loss rate.

So, our numbers can take some tweaking, and - unlike loss - it maybe requires more of a fine-tune setting. You can lose or gain a little slower/faster, NBD. You really can't maintain a little faster/slower - you need to hit the calorie number pretty close, on average.

helen_goldthorpe · August 2020

I'm struggling with this a bit too. I adjusted my calories to maintenance level a month or so back, maybe longer, but my loss doesn't really seem to have slowed down at all. I'm planning to play around with the numbers a bit so no answers yet but I wanted to let you know you're not alone!

Chieflrg · August 2020

So don't overthink this, it's really not that complicated.

MFP is a estimate to get you in the ballpark. As we add exercise or calorie burning activities thing can become less in the ballpark.

We don't have to get everything perfect on a individual basis, just consistent.

So if we are eating 500 calories more daily than the MVP suggestion because we are off on our exercise burn, yet we are more active in our general life our MFP current setting..it could even out.

Bottom line, if you are losing weight on average over a 2-3 week period then it is reasonable to say you are in fact in a caloric deficit. Simply just add calories to your diet manually or perhaps stop logging exercise if that is comprimable.

Also in order for a Keto diet to work it needs the exact same recipe to lose weight as any other diet to lose weight...a caloric deficit.

Keto diet is just one way for some people to adhere to their calorie goals better compared to other diets.

It isn't any more efficient at producing weight loss other than the initial flush of water once glycogen levels start to deplete. In fact I'd argue it is less efficient on average as it is less efficient at producing energy.

GBO323 · August 2020

One option that hasn't been mentioned in your post is using a tracker that's connected to show you activity and balance. Maybe you're still losing because there is a calorie deficit still in play? The MFP maintenance number is a calculation based on a broad spectrum of people data, so you will need to tweak it for you specifically.

I've found having a a tracker (Apple Watch, specifically for me) has helped to show me my balance of CICO so I can determine where the maintenance calorie goal needs to be.

helen_goldthorpe · August 2020

For me, even a tracker isn't necessarily the answer - I use one but I'm still finding that I'm dropping weight while eating pretty close to what it's telling me to eat.

AnnPT77 · August 2020

GBO323 wrote: »

One option that hasn't been mentioned in your post is using a tracker that's connected to show you activity and balance. Maybe you're still losing because there is a calorie deficit still in play? The MFP maintenance number is a calculation based on a broad spectrum of people data, so you will need to tweak it for you specifically.

I've found having a a tracker (Apple Watch, specifically for me) has helped to show me my balance of CICO so I can determine where the maintenance calorie goal needs to be.

Trackers are also using a research-based statistical estimation method, it's just a slightly more personalized one that includes some person-specific measurements and settings in the mix. None of those *measurements* are calorie burn.

Depends on the model, but measurements can include things like heart rate, impact, arm movements, GPS readings, altitude, and more. The best (most expensive 😉) ones measure a lot of things, and use them in sophisticated ways, to *estimate* calorie burn. They couple that with more personalized settings (or discovery processes), potentially including resting heart rate, stride length, max heart rate or VO2max (for people who know their true one, as most don't), and much, much more. Some let you tell them what exercise you're doing, so they have a better idea of how to use the measurements to estimate calories. Good stuff.

Still potentially inaccurate, because the base assumptions (about things like BMR) are founded on the same basic research that the rougher online "calculators" (like MFP's) use.

For most people they'll be accurate or close, for a few a meaningful bit off (high or low), and for a rare few quite far off, because that's the nature of statistical estimates.

I have a respected brand/model that many people here find quite accurate. I've used it for well over a year. It says that over the last 7 days, my all-day calorie burn has averaged 1,567 calories, and it's been in that ballpark for many months, up and down a little with exercise amount changes, but roughly that area. That's actually surprisingly consistent with MFP's estimates, for me - close, maybe +/- 10%-ish (I haven't checked, just know they're close).

Over the last roughly 10 months, I've been losing about a pound a month, on average, eating 1850 calories plus exercise most days, and well over that occasionally. Based on over 5 years of pretty careful logging, my pre-exercise daily calorie requirement is 2100-ish, perhaps a bit more.

I do think my device is probably off by a fairly predictable percentage, so if I cared to, I could probably do a spreadsheet analysis for a few months and learn what that percentage is. I could also probably change my device's user settings (lie about age, weight, that sort of thing), to get a more accurate (heh) calorie result, but I have no need to or interest, personally.

Bottom line: People still need to validate that their device gets them right. It probably will, but there's no assurance.

Maintenence level calories too low?

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