Daily Goal Calorie Intake Question?
iamthelie
Posts: 19
Why is my Daily Calorie goal so much higher than everyone elses that I have seen?
Mines like 1000 calories more then the majority of peoples I have seen.
Anyone tell me why? or the significance behind it?
Mines like 1000 calories more then the majority of peoples I have seen.
Anyone tell me why? or the significance behind it?
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Replies
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Why is my Daily Calorie goal so much higher than everyone elses that I have seen?
Mines like 1000 calories more then the majority of peoples I have seen.
Anyone tell me why? or the significance behind it?
Your daily calorie goal on MFP takes into account your height, age, sex, weight and daily activity level. There is also the factor of what you chose for a weekly weight loss goal, i.e. 1 lb per week, 1.5, 2.
ETA - some people may have altered their goal. Others may be aiming for a weight loss goal per week that is too high for them (people often choose 2 lbs a week when that is not a reasonable goal for those with less than 75-100 lbs to lose).2 -
Most of us set our own,Mine technically with working out is about 2500 but I personally lowered it to 1200 because thats the calorie intake that causes the most efficient weight loss from what ive heard.0
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it proportion to how much you weight. The heavier you are, the more you need to consume so the body can function properly. That's why in many case of the infamous "manual" 1,200 calories roaming on this forum is nonsense. Few of my friends needs 3,000 calories daily intake just to lose weight and not fall under starvation mode.0
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Most of us set our own,Mine technically with working out is about 2500 but I personally lowered it to 1200 because thats the calorie intake that causes the most efficient weight loss from what ive heard.
That is not correct.
1200 is far too low for many people. Most people will recommend a moderate calorie deficit. Having too large of a deficit can cause issues which can include losing more muscle and making it harder to maintain once you reach your goal.
WIll you lose weight at 1200, yes. Is it the best option - not for a lot of people, especially considering yours should be much higher.8 -
Yeah. Ive been losing about 2lbs a week. But im also drinking almost 2 gallons of water a day, taking a green tea supplement, and working out for an hour each day. 1200 keeps me full and happy and im full of energy and happier then ever. For people that 1200 is too hard, or it makes them tired and unhappy i wouldnt reccomend it.1
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My goal is 1200 but it ends up at 1350 a day. I am at 137 lbs and i dont do much throughout my day other then 1h of exercise so my body doesnt require much energy. If i would eat more than 1500 a day, i would probably gain weight.0
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Why is my Daily Calorie goal so much higher than everyone elses that I have seen?
Mines like 1000 calories more then the majority of peoples I have seen.
Anyone tell me why? or the significance behind it?
Same!! I went from about 215 to 175 with noom at 1200calories/day but then stalled hard and I was STARVING all the time! I got a fitbit and found I was burning about 2400 calories/day (still not sure how accurate that is if someone wants to enlighten me!) and not wearing it to bed. I'm working on figuring out where I need to be to lose weight and not be so hungry all the time. I'm trying 1800 cal/day now and seem to be losing but slower (down to about 167 until I went bananas with a bad week!). I'm trying to gauge my hunger better to see if I can maintain this goal but some days it still seems like not enough. Has anyone been successful with their weight loss switching to a higher calorie intake?2 -
anne_adams284220 wrote: »Why is my Daily Calorie goal so much higher than everyone elses that I have seen?
Mines like 1000 calories more then the majority of peoples I have seen.
Anyone tell me why? or the significance behind it?
Same!! I went from about 215 to 175 with noom at 1200calories/day but then stalled hard and I was STARVING all the time! I got a fitbit and found I was burning about 2400 calories/day (still not sure how accurate that is if someone wants to enlighten me!) and not wearing it to bed. I'm working on figuring out where I need to be to lose weight and not be so hungry all the time. I'm trying 1800 cal/day now and seem to be losing but slower (down to about 167 until I went bananas with a bad week!). I'm trying to gauge my hunger better to see if I can maintain this goal but some days it still seems like not enough. Has anyone been successful with their weight loss switching to a higher calorie intake?
This is a really old thread, from 2013. But I see that your post is new, so I'm replying.
The tracker devices (like Fitbit) are producing a very personalized daily calorie needs estimate. It's still just a statistical estimate. These estimates (from a decent device, like Fitbit) will be close for most people, a little bit off (high or low) for some, and quite far off for a very rare few people. That's just the nature of statistical estimates.
If your device is close to accurate (which is probable), then an accurate 1200 calories of intake would be substantially too low for you at 167-ish pounds, would lead to losing fat at a rate that could increase health risks. At your current weight, something like a pound a week of weight loss would IMO be a sensible plan, and that ought to take place at something around 1900 calories daily (500 calorie deficit = approximately a pound a week loss on average, averaged over multiple weeks).
What I'd recommend is that you use MFP guided setup to get a base calorie goal, and synch your Fitbit to MFP (including turning negative adjustments on), and eat back the number of calories MFP tells you to eat, based on the synchronization. (Synchronization can be a little confusing at first, because Fitbit and MFP may chat back & forth during the day, making adjustments with some assumptions that you'll behave similarly for the rest of the day; by the end of the day, it'll sort out. Then, with a few days experience, you'll have a feel for the whole process, and for what adjustment is likely to happen by the end of the day.)
Try that out for 4-6 weeks (whole menstrual cycles, if you're a premenopausal woman, so you can compare body weight at the same relative point in at least two different cycles). Look at the average weight loss per week over that period. If it's faster than a sensible target loss rate, eat a little more. If it's slower than a sensible rate, eat a little less or move a little more. That will give you the feedback about how accurate your Fitbit is *for you*, which is what matters.
I don't synch my device to MFP (long story, but my good brand one estimates way low, for me). I did join MFP only a little lighter than you are now (I was somewhere in the mid-150s), and lost another 25-ish pounds after that, mostly eating 1400-1600 calories daily *plus* eating back all of the exercise calories I got by manually logging my exercise (after estimating those calories carefully). The bottom line was that most days I was eating 1800-2000 calories (occasionally more), and losing at the rate I expected. I've maintained a healthy weight for 5+ years since then, still calorie counting, but now eating 1850+exercise, which is well over 2000 calories most days (2200-2500, usually).
Hunger can also be about food choices and food timing. Noom's food coloring scheme sort of tries to get you eating "healthier" foods, and things that are generically more filling for a lot of people, but we're all individuals. There may be foods that help you feel full that are not Noom green foods, but if they fit in your calorie goal, they're fine. (Nutrition is important for health, too, of course, but that's about overall eating patterns, not really about individual foods.) Timing of eating - how many meals/snacks, when you eat them, which are biggest, what nutrients/foods they include - can also affect hunger/cravings and fullness. It's OK to experiment.5 -
also replying because this is a new reply.
I hate math. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. It gives me anxiety. I made it a whole freaking 9 months just letting mfp do my goals and math.
I finally, finally, broke and did my own because guessing at my calorie needs was not working very well. (Note: I don't log exercise separately, as MFP is designed to do. I use a TDEE method) . I went to the report tab and the weightloss graph for 30 days to see what I had lost in 30 days.
That was 5lbs.
Then I multiplied that number by 3500 (amount of cals required to lose or gain a pound of fat).
That number was 17500
Then divided that by 30 (days in the month I used).
That number was 583.3. That was my rough daily deficit in order to have lost what I lost. Not exact, but more personalized than the calculator
Given that I was attempting at 250 cal deficit at this point (I'm into vanity weight and 'I dont' actually know if I want to lose more land), I... adjusted some things and eat more and feel better.
I'll have to do this again periodically, but it was worth facing the whole 'math thing'.4 -
mine is lower because IM short, i want to lose 2lbs a week ( though that remains to be seen), and my age and Im sedentary as well. I work on a computer all day so there's not much movement. I look at these targets that may need to be adjusted to my reality.1
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candysashab88 wrote: »mine is lower because IM short, i want to lose 2lbs a week ( though that remains to be seen), and my age and Im sedentary as well. I work on a computer all day so there's not much movement. I look at these targets that may need to be adjusted to my reality.
I'm only 5'5" (which is not short, but average), age 65, and sedentary outside of the exercise I eat back (retired). I should've said that. The numbers suggest that women who are older, shorter, less active *may* need to eat as low as 1200 to lose weight, but it's not true for all. (MFP's estimates do take age into account.)
If you have enough current weight to support losing healthfully at 2 pounds a week, and 1200 does that for you, that's great. As you say, it's a good plan for each of us to run that 4-6 week experiment, then adjust to personal reality, since all of these numbers are just estimates, until we see our real-world results.
Many around here think it's wise to lose no more than 0.5%-1% of current body weight weekly, with a bias toward the lower end of that, especially when getting closer to goal weight. For the person who posted recently (not those people from 2013) at 167 pounds, that would be about 0.8-1.6 pounds per week. (I should've said that previously, too 😉.) I suggested 1 pound per week.
She has a Fitbit suggesting she's burning around 2400 calories daily (which is not crazy high). Eating 1200 would be about 2.4 pounds loss a week, crazy fast for someone at 167 pounds IMO, though likely to lead to some pseudo-stalling on the scale due to cortisol-related water weight weirdness and temporary adaptive thermogenesis, so that 2.4 pounds might not really show up on the scale as expected.
She did not indicate her age, looks fairly young in her profile photo, but IMO, the older we are, there's more tendency to be less physically resilient. Since a big calorie deficit (fast loss) is a physical stressor, I'd argue that older folks like me should typically be more conservative, go for a slower than maximum loss rate, for health preservation reasons. (MFP estimated that I needed to eat 1200+exercise for reasonable loss. It was incorrect, I lost too fast, got weak & fatigued, took weeks to recover - not good. I'm not saying that specific experience would generalize to others my age, because the statistical estimates like MFP's are close for most. As a practical matter, my current calorie needs are around the 2400 that the PP says her Fitbit is estimating - in a personalized estimate - for her. That's why I was saying it was quite possible that she'd lose fine at higher than 1200.)
I get that slow loss can be frustrating, but fast loss increases health risks. Others may differ, but I prefer the lower end of the risk spectrum, and as a bonus higher calories are easier to stick to, which is (1) more likely to work out if substantial weight needs to be loss, because it's easier to stick with long enough to succeed, and (2) is better practice for eventual weight maintenance.4 -
candysashab88 wrote: »mine is lower because IM short, i want to lose 2lbs a week ( though that remains to be seen), and my age and Im sedentary as well. I work on a computer all day so there's not much movement. I look at these targets that may need to be adjusted to my reality.
How many pounds do you want to lose total? After watching The Biggest Loser, I thought 2lbs a week was a reasonable goal, but with the amount of weight I needed to lose that thought did not last past lunch.
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Depends on ypur weight and your goals. So naturally everyone is at a different colorie goals0
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