Help: Calorie goal is suggesting way lower daily calories than I've seen any other suggest

Bryvl93
Bryvl93 Posts: 1 Member
in Getting Started
So I am a 29 y/o male, 6'0 tall, weighing 224.2 lbs at about 26% BF. I work a sedentary office job and I work out 3-4 times a week for 60 minutes a workout.
My goal is to reach 180 lbs. I filled out the guided goal set up and input that information with an aggressive goal of 2lbs weight loss per week and it told me my daily calorie goal is 1500 calories and only about 70g of protein which sounds WAY OFF. Most TDEE calculators put me at about 3100 calories a day so even an aggressive cutting period of -1000 cal would be 2100.
What did I do wrong? It didn't even ask me when I would like to achieve my goal by so maybe it thinks I am trying to get there in 2 months or something?
Any insight?
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Replies

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 31,953 Member
    Most calorie estimators are TDEE calculators, and average in your exercise calories. MFP estimates your calorie needs before intentional exercise, then expects you to log exercise when you do some, and eat those calories, too. Generally, MFP will give you a lower calorie goal as a result of that.

    The main reason you're getting a stupid-low protein goal is that you're trying to lose weight faster than is sensible for your current size/weight. 1500 calories is the lowest it'll ever give a male. Unless you're very slight of build, or old, or something like that, 1500 is another hint that you've picked a too-aggressive loss rate. Some people do like to set a higher protein goal than the MFP default, so that's always an option, too.

    With around 40 pounds to lose, you could maybe go for a pound and a half a week for a few weeks, but it'd be better to drop to a pound a week about the time you cross 200, if not sooner, and half a pound a week for the last 10 or so.

    Going for too fast loss increases health risk, plus can be harder to stick with; you could lose more muscle mass than the minimum alongside fat loss; and their can be appearance consequences, like thinning hair. It's your call how much risk you like, though.

    MFP is trying to give you the 2 pounds a week you asked for. It seems to think you'd burn 2500 or fewer calories before considering exercise. It's not making assumptions that you want to lose in any particular amount of time, just looking at the loss rate you requested, your height/weight/age, and whatever you said was your activity level (which should be your activity level excluding the exercise).
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,093 Member
    edited March 2023
    To add onto AnnPT77's post: the guided setup asks you how much exercise you'll do, but doesn't actually use that info to calculate your calorie goal. Exercise only gives extra calories when effectively logged in your diary.
    And those extra calories will in turn also give a higher protein goal.
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 9,869 Member
    edited March 2023
    Neither inputs will be accurate, yours or online calculators. I would suggest you consume what you would think is maintenance for 3 or 4 weeks with your best ability hat on, record everything with the most accurate precision available adjusting your intake until you have what would appear a decent amount of time in maintenance and create a deficit from there, trust me this may seem like the long way around but it isn't. I agree the protein is way too low for your goal, if that's what you meant by "WAY OFF" Cheers
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,876 Member
    Bryvl93 wrote: »
    So I am a 29 y/o male, 6'0 tall, weighing 224.2 lbs at about 26% BF. I work a sedentary office job and I work out 3-4 times a week for 60 minutes a workout.
    My goal is to reach 180 lbs. I filled out the guided goal set up and input that information with an aggressive goal of 2lbs weight loss per week and it told me my daily calorie goal is 1500 calories and only about 70g of protein which sounds WAY OFF. Most TDEE calculators put me at about 3100 calories a day so even an aggressive cutting period of -1000 cal would be 2100.
    What did I do wrong? It didn't even ask me when I would like to achieve my goal by so maybe it thinks I am trying to get there in 2 months or something?
    Any insight?

    MFP isn't a TDEE calculator, it is a NEAT method calculator. If you put not very active because of your desk job as the descriptor would indicate you should and an aggressive target of 2 Lbs per week it's going to bottom out at 1500 calories per day...but that's 1500 plus exercise calories which are added when you log exercise. MFP also uses different multipliers for activity levels since their activity level settings are based on your day to day humdrum without any exercise. TDEE calculators include exercise upfront in the equation. The macro ratios aren't anything "special"...they're just a default based on RDA recommendations. You can adjust everything manually.
  • westrich20940
    westrich20940 Posts: 871 Member
    1. 'Activity Level' in MFP and on a TDEE calculator are asking for different things. MFP just wants to know your lifestyle/job -- you have a desk job so you are sedentary. You would log your cardio workout in MFP and get more calories for it for the day.

    A TDEE calculator is *including your intentional workout.

    So, question you should consider....are you going to use MFP to log your cardio workout? In that case I'd use 'sedentary' on a TDEE calculator as well. Which would give you 2400 calories as your maintenance calories. Your BMR is estimated to be 2000.

    The reason MFP is giving you 1500/day is bc you choose '2lbs/week' as a weight loss rate. MFP will then take whatever it calculates as your maintenance level calories and subtract 1000 calories and it it goes below 1500 it defaults to 1500 for men (1200 for women). You do not have that much wiggle room to create a deficit.


    So....you want to eat more than your BMR - but less than your TDEE -- so you can manually set your calorie goal at ~2200, and then also log your workouts in MFP. It will give you those calories back, but you can have some wiggle room with that, but I'd suggest eating back at least 50%+ of them.

    Alternatively...you can use your true TDEE, which would likely be more like 3100 calories and create a deficit from there and NOT log your cardio calories on MFP so it doesn't add them back (they are already included in the TDEE calculation). As long as you are consistent with your activity level...you can manually set your calorie goal at what you want....so if you wanted to lose 1lb per week (subtract 500 cals) and eat 2600 a day. If you want to lose 1.5/wk....shoot to eat like 2350/day. Both are still above your BMR.

    That can all be confusing so do whatever seems to make more sense to you....either way you'd be consuming more/less the same amount of calories. Like...if your daily goal was 2200 (using MFP/sedentary) and then you burned 200 with exercise, you'd eat that too so your NET would be 2400 - more/less same as if you used the TDEE method instead and didn't log your workout.

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