New to the app

BobbyWynne5054
BobbyWynne5054 Posts: 1 Member
edited January 1 in Getting Started
Hi Everyone, hope you guys are having a fantastic Christmas Holiday, and not blowing your diets too much. Anyways, I joined the trial for the premium package, and it seems pretty good. I lift weights 6 days a week, and just want to track my calories and watch my macros. There is something I don't understand about the way my remaining calories are accounted for, for example, here are my numbers today:

My goal is 2490--consumed 1457 + excercise 1194 = net 2651, which put me at a deficit of -161. I thought my goal should be to eat 2490, which I'm obviously missing by a long shot.

Replies

  • quiksylver296
    quiksylver296 Posts: 28,439 Member
    edited December 2020
    You need to eat 2490, PLUS exercise calories to use this site the way it is intended. Exercise calories can often be overestimated, so many people start by eating 50% of them.

    So, you should consume approximately 3090 calories today, 2490 plus 50% of 1194.

    1194 exercise calories seems like a LOT. I wouldn’t trust that number personally. What did you do that allegedly burned 1194 calories?
  • Memyselfandi59
    Memyselfandi59 Posts: 45 Member
    I’m not really new to MFP, but I am giving it a go again. I set my goal weight to be 140 from 164, lightly active, losing 1 lb a week. MFP set my daily calorie allowance to be 1320. Does that seem right? It seems to be allowing me to eat more than when I previously tracked a year ago and the weight is about the same.
  • KickassAmazon76
    KickassAmazon76 Posts: 4,678 Member
    quiksylver296 wrote: »
    You need to eat 2490, PLUS exercise calories to use this site the way it is intended. Exercise calories can often be overestimated, so many people start by eating 50% of them.

    So, you should consume approximately 3090 calories today, 2490 plus 50% of 1194.

    1194 exercise calories seems like a LOT. I wouldn’t trust that number personally. What did you do that allegedly burned 1194 calories?

    Listen to this one. Quiksylver is awesome.

    What she said.
  • KickassAmazon76
    KickassAmazon76 Posts: 4,678 Member
    Memyselfandi59 wrote: »
    I’m not really new to MFP, but I am giving it a go again. I set my goal weight to be 140 from 164, lightly active, losing 1 lb a week. MFP set my daily calorie allowance to be 1320. Does that seem right? It seems to be allowing me to eat more than when I previously tracked a year ago and the weight is about the same.

    Hard to know without knowing your other stats. Do you know if you set your activity to sedentary last time? That could be the difference?
  • Memyselfandi59
    Memyselfandi59 Posts: 45 Member
    I had the same activity, Light. I’m 164 lbs, 5’4”, 61 years old, want to lose 1 lb. per week but no option to put a time limit. Not sure what else is required.
  • DancingMoosie
    DancingMoosie Posts: 8,619 Member
    Time limit? Not sure what you mean by that.

    OP: You didn't address how you calculated that massive calorie burn... unless I missed it
  • quiksylver296
    quiksylver296 Posts: 28,439 Member
    DancingMoosie wrote: »
    Time limit? Not sure what you mean by that.

    OP: You didn't address how you calculated that massive calorie burn... unless I missed it

    Doesn’t look like they’ve been back since the OP. When I was new, I remember not being able to find threads I’d started. I hope they find their way back.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    Memyselfandi59 wrote: »
    I had the same activity, Light. I’m 164 lbs, 5’4”, 61 years old, want to lose 1 lb. per week but no option to put a time limit. Not sure what else is required.

    The math would have been the same if the stats are the same and same option selected, but age went up so it actually should be less of a daily goal before exercise.

    BMR 1289 x 1.4 Lightly Active = 1805 - 500 cal deficit = 1305

    You should check your stats because I used what you used and that's not rounding error.

    Goal weight has no bearing in the math, and of course time based goals are a landmine of frustration since weight loss is not linear - so correctly not used anywhere even if it did give an estimate of time - which it will when you finish your daily calories.
    Again - not useful there either.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    BobbyWynne5054 wrote: »
    Hi Everyone, hope you guys are having a fantastic Christmas Holiday, and not blowing your diets too much. Anyways, I joined the trial for the premium package, and it seems pretty good. I lift weights 6 days a week, and just want to track my calories and watch my macros. There is something I don't understand about the way my remaining calories are accounted for, for example, here are my numbers today:

    My goal is 2490--consumed 1457 + excercise 1194 = net 2651, which put me at a deficit of -161. I thought my goal should be to eat 2490, which I'm obviously missing by a long shot.

    Since logging weight lifting from the database would be a whole lot less calories than that - it is accurate enough on it's own since so small - I'm betting what is being called exercise there is actually the extra calories from syncing an activity tracker.

    Now a HR-based activity tracker would inflate the calorie burn from lifting - but again not by that much.

    So you probably selected Sedentary on MFP as activity level, true or not, and your activity tracker is showing that even outside exercise you are a whole lot more active than sedentary.
    Unless you are doing some big cardio along with lifting.

    So you do want a reasonable deficit from your total daily burn to help maintain that hard earned muscle from lifting.
    But you also want a decent estimate on that daily burn - depending on your daily activity, if a tracker is used it may or may not be helpful there.
  • Memyselfandi59
    Memyselfandi59 Posts: 45 Member
    Thanks for the formula and calculations. I will have a look, but I’m quite certain the stats are entered as I mentioned. I just assumed MFP would calculate correctly, but maybe it’s not that reliable.
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