Calorie Target Question
emmach2609
Posts: 2 Member
Does anyone else find it difficult to lose weight on what MFP/other calorie calculators recommend?
For context I am F27, currently 167 pounds from highest weight 190, 5 foot 2.
I am currently wanting to lose weight safely and healthily but relatively quickly as we are trying to conceive.
My understanding is you need a daily calorie deficit of 1000 calories to lose 2 pounds a week but, as per MFP minimum calorie requirements that would be extremely difficult for me? As per calculators I need 1500 calories daily to maintain weight, therefore I would need to balance out at 500 which I'm really struggling. MFP recommends no less than 1000 calories and to be honest I'm struggling just with that in terms of feasibility, energy levels and getting in enough nutrients. I can't realistically burn more than 500 calories a day by exercise, I work full time, often 13+hours, and can just about manage a short run or workout on working days around 300 calories.
I believe my calculations are correct as well because I'm losing 0.5-1 pounds a week, mostly balancing out around 900-1000 calories daily tbh, I could be doing better. But it stills feels like I'm working so hard and just not seeing much progress.
Does anyone else have any similar experience or any advice?
Thanks :-)
For context I am F27, currently 167 pounds from highest weight 190, 5 foot 2.
I am currently wanting to lose weight safely and healthily but relatively quickly as we are trying to conceive.
My understanding is you need a daily calorie deficit of 1000 calories to lose 2 pounds a week but, as per MFP minimum calorie requirements that would be extremely difficult for me? As per calculators I need 1500 calories daily to maintain weight, therefore I would need to balance out at 500 which I'm really struggling. MFP recommends no less than 1000 calories and to be honest I'm struggling just with that in terms of feasibility, energy levels and getting in enough nutrients. I can't realistically burn more than 500 calories a day by exercise, I work full time, often 13+hours, and can just about manage a short run or workout on working days around 300 calories.
I believe my calculations are correct as well because I'm losing 0.5-1 pounds a week, mostly balancing out around 900-1000 calories daily tbh, I could be doing better. But it stills feels like I'm working so hard and just not seeing much progress.
Does anyone else have any similar experience or any advice?
Thanks :-)
0
Replies
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With your rate of loss, provided you’ve been at this calorie amount for longer than a month, your actual deficit is average of 250-500 calories a day.2
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Where are you getting your numbers from? I don't know any calculators that show a TDEE of 1500 for someone with your stats. Are you confusing BMR with maintenance calories? Because a BMR of 1500 sounds a lot more likely, but you shouldn't use BMR as the starting point for calculating a deficit.
Even fully sedentary, this calculator gives you a TDEE (=maintenance calories) of more than 2000 calories: https://www.health-calc.com/diet/energy-expenditure-advanced
Are you saying you are currently consuming 900-1000 calories per day, losing 0.5-1lbs per week? You are most likely underestimating your food intake, statistically speaking you should be losing more weight at that level of intake. A level of intake which is too low, by the way! MFP has a minimum of 1200 for women, to ensure adequate nutrition.
At your current weight, you shouldn't be aiming for 2lbs per week, by the way. The general recommendation is 0.5 to 1% of your bodyweight per week (preferably the lower end, to ensure you don't lose (too much) muscle mass).
How are you logging your food intake?
Weighing everything?
Making sure you are using correct food database entries? (There are many incorrect ones in the database)
Using the recipe builder or the Meals functionality for prepared meals?4 -
Where are you getting your numbers from? I don't know any calculators that show a TDEE of 1500 for someone with your stats. Are you confusing BMR with maintenance calories? Because a BMR of 1500 sounds a lot more likely, but you shouldn't use BMR as the starting point for calculating a deficit.
Even fully sedentary, this calculator gives you a TDEE (=maintenance calories) of more than 2000 calories: https://www.health-calc.com/diet/energy-expenditure-advanced
Are you saying you are currently consuming 900-1000 calories per day, losing 0.5-1lbs per week? You are most likely underestimating your food intake, statistically speaking you should be losing more weight at that level of intake. A level of intake which is too low, by the way! MFP has a minimum of 1200 for women, to ensure adequate nutrition.
At your current weight, you shouldn't be aiming for 2lbs per week, by the way. The general recommendation is 0.5 to 1% of your bodyweight per week (preferably the lower end, to ensure you don't lose (too much) muscle mass).
How are you logging your food intake?
Weighing everything?
Making sure you are using correct food database entries? (There are many incorrect ones in the database)
Using the recipe builder or the Meals functionality for prepared meals?
Thanks. Sorry, yes you're right that is my basal metabolic rate not maintenance although 2000 seems high, pretty sure I wasn't eating that much even when I was gaining weight! I would say I am sedentary except for purposeful exercise which I log.
Sorry, no I'm not consuming 900-1000. It's more like 1200 and I exercise around 300 calories daily so with my MFP set to 1000 calories(I did have to set it manually but I wasn't losing any weight at all with the target of 1200) I am majority in range -100 to +100 of target.
I knew it was a low target but that was what I wondering was why I needed to go below the recommended target to lose "enough" weight. I thought my aim should be 2 pounds a week because that's what I seem to read a lot but that makes sense that maybe I am just aiming for too fast weight loss and need to be more patient.
You might be right that maybe I'm not logging my calories correctly as well. I often eat prepackaged salads or soups at work so can just read the calories off the packet, but for homecooked meals for dinner I do struggle with accurately completing the calories, I measure as much as possible but struggle with the difference between cooked and uncooked weight/calories sometimes and TBH I don't weigh things like oil, just estimate. I think what I might do is make a real effort to measure calories for a week or so and check it lines up with what I have previously been calculating.1 -
I would definitely try to be more accurate, at least for a week. Oil specifically is calorie dense so estimates can definitely skew the numbers.
if you have specific foods you have difficulties logging correctly, we can try and help. And if you open up your diary (setting it as public) we can take a look and give feedback.2 -
Hi, I'm shorter than you and my BMR is 1400ish, which tallies with my FitBit average daily cals if I mooch around and have a walk. If I sit on the sofa all day I use around 800-1000 cals, in total. The calculator above puts my TDEE around 2400 cals. It's very rare I use that many calories unless I go hiking or gardening all day. More like 2000 cals. It doesn't make sense to me either!
My daily calorie goal is 1200 cals, and I aim to burn 1700 cals per day to get a 1lb week loss. I have 12 lbs to lose to get to the right weight for my height. Example - today, so far, my FB says I have used 1500 cals, including walking 13,600 steps, yoga and a 20min cardio workout. I will go for another walk or run later.
I weigh *everything*. It's a pain, but it's so easy to go over calories used when you're short. Even a chocolate bar or glass of wine /beer can send me way over calories needed. A couple of days 'enjoying nice things' sees me easily put a couple of lbs on. It's hard work, I hate it, it's no fun, but I'm at an age where weight loss gets harder and I'd rather get fitter and weigh less before it gets even harder!
Good luck, you have a great reason for losing the weight!0 -
emmach2609 wrote: »Where are you getting your numbers from? I don't know any calculators that show a TDEE of 1500 for someone with your stats. Are you confusing BMR with maintenance calories? Because a BMR of 1500 sounds a lot more likely, but you shouldn't use BMR as the starting point for calculating a deficit.
Even fully sedentary, this calculator gives you a TDEE (=maintenance calories) of more than 2000 calories: https://www.health-calc.com/diet/energy-expenditure-advanced
Are you saying you are currently consuming 900-1000 calories per day, losing 0.5-1lbs per week? You are most likely underestimating your food intake, statistically speaking you should be losing more weight at that level of intake. A level of intake which is too low, by the way! MFP has a minimum of 1200 for women, to ensure adequate nutrition.
At your current weight, you shouldn't be aiming for 2lbs per week, by the way. The general recommendation is 0.5 to 1% of your bodyweight per week (preferably the lower end, to ensure you don't lose (too much) muscle mass).
How are you logging your food intake?
Weighing everything?
Making sure you are using correct food database entries? (There are many incorrect ones in the database)
Using the recipe builder or the Meals functionality for prepared meals?
Thanks. Sorry, yes you're right that is my basal metabolic rate not maintenance although 2000 seems high, pretty sure I wasn't eating that much even when I was gaining weight! I would say I am sedentary except for purposeful exercise which I log.
Sorry, no I'm not consuming 900-1000. It's more like 1200 and I exercise around 300 calories daily so with my MFP set to 1000 calories(I did have to set it manually but I wasn't losing any weight at all with the target of 1200) I am majority in range -100 to +100 of target.
I knew it was a low target but that was what I wondering was why I needed to go below the recommended target to lose "enough" weight. I thought my aim should be 2 pounds a week because that's what I seem to read a lot but that makes sense that maybe I am just aiming for too fast weight loss and need to be more patient.
You might be right that maybe I'm not logging my calories correctly as well. I often eat prepackaged salads or soups at work so can just read the calories off the packet, but for homecooked meals for dinner I do struggle with accurately completing the calories, I measure as much as possible but struggle with the difference between cooked and uncooked weight/calories sometimes and TBH I don't weigh things like oil, just estimate. I think what I might do is make a real effort to measure calories for a week or so and check it lines up with what I have previously been calculating.
I agree with @lietchi's advice, so the bolded parts above sound like a really good plan for you moving forward.
I've been at your current weight, and accidentally lost too fast for a while there - not as fast as 2 pounds a week, mostly - and got weak and fatigued. It took multiple weeks to recover normal strength and energy, even though I started eating more quite quickly. No one needs that!
Half a pound to a pound a week seems like a good rate, at this point. As a bonus, eating closer to maintenance calories gives us more opportunity to find and practice the eating/activity strategies that will keep us at a healthy weight permanently. Since most people find maintenance much more challenging than initial loss (which is hard enough!), finding those maintenance strategies and making them habitual is a really useful thing.
As an aside, it's true that calorie estimates from MFP (or other calculators) may not be accurate for any given individual. The calculators are giving us the average for people similar to us (based on the data we input to the estimate). Most people are close to average, so usually it's not far off, but it can be surprisingly high or low in rare cases. (It may not be obvious why.)
It's far more common for people to be undercounting calorie intake, or over-estimating activity, or a combination (rather than the estimate being truly far off). Since you're approximating, and doing so with a calorie-dense thing like oil, that seems likely in your case. Your plan to tighten up logging for a week or so should give you good evidence one way or the other.
Best wishes!0 -
PixieKazza wrote: »Hi, I'm shorter than you and my BMR is 1400ish, which tallies with my FitBit average daily cals if I mooch around and have a walk. If I sit on the sofa all day I use around 800-1000 cals, in total. The calculator above puts my TDEE around 2400 cals. It's very rare I use that many calories unless I go hiking or gardening all day. More like 2000 cals. It doesn't make sense to me either!
My daily calorie goal is 1200 cals, and I aim to burn 1700 cals per day to get a 1lb week loss. I have 12 lbs to lose to get to the right weight for my height. Example - today, so far, my FB says I have used 1500 cals, including walking 13,600 steps, yoga and a 20min cardio workout. I will go for another walk or run later.
I weigh *everything*. It's a pain, but it's so easy to go over calories used when you're short. Even a chocolate bar or glass of wine /beer can send me way over calories needed. A couple of days 'enjoying nice things' sees me easily put a couple of lbs on. It's hard work, I hate it, it's no fun, but I'm at an age where weight loss gets harder and I'd rather get fitter and weigh less before it gets even harder!
Good luck, you have a great reason for losing the weight!
I'm not sure of details in your case, but it's going to require roughly 7,000 calories over maintenance (in total across days) to gain two pounds of body fat. That's possible to do in a couple of days - I've done it! - but it's quite a lot of extra calories.
It's utterly standard for a couple of days of more moderate overeating, but eating in unusual ways, to add multiple pounds of extra water retention (plus some extra waste in the digestive tract). That shows up on the scale, but isn't fat gain. Usually the extra water/waste will drop off within a couple of weeks, though it can be longer for women who have menstrual cycles also playing games with water weight on the scale.
You may already know all of that, but I mention it because it's such a common thing to see with people who are newer to calorie counting: They eat maybe 500-1000 over their calorie goal (which may not even exceed maintenance calories), gain several pounds of water/waste weight from eating in that unusual way, think they've lost all their progress, and maybe even give up.
When that happens, I think it's an over-reaction. It may not be what's happening when you "enjoy nice things", but I wanted to mention it in case others aren't aware of the effect.
FWIW, I'm 'of an age' too (67), so I know that as we age the calorie needs estimates get lower, and extra much so for those who are fully sedentary and of petite stature.1 -
I'm 5'-2" and weigh everything, workout most every day and I only lose about 1/2 pound a week. Over the past five months I have lost ten pounds. Remember, it's not a race to drop weight, it's about changing your habits, your movement, your portion sizes. You've got this!!3
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Hi AnnPT77, I hope the 'enjoying myself' isn't all fat going back on, as you say I'd need to be several thousand calories over to gain that much. It's just annoying that it takes soooooo long to get the weight off, then some booze, eating out and a couple of treats later and the scales go up. Bodies are strange things. A couple of pounds go a few days later as long as I eat properly again, as does the bloat.1
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PixieKazza wrote: »Hi AnnPT77, I hope the 'enjoying myself' isn't all fat going back on, as you say I'd need to be several thousand calories over to gain that much. It's just annoying that it takes soooooo long to get the weight off, then some booze, eating out and a couple of treats later and the scales go up. Bodies are strange things. A couple of pounds go a few days later as long as I eat properly again, as does the bloat.
If you haven't read it already, this thread (and especially the article linked in the first post on the thread) is useful/informative:
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10683010/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-fluctuations/p1
As a general rule of thumb, in a situation without a huge, dramatic change in eating or activity:
* A sudden gain/loss of multiple pounds is water weight (or a difference in waste in the digestive tract on its way to the exit).
* Fat gain/loss happens very gradually, a few ounces or fractions of a kilogram per day, even when losing fat pretty fast. (2 pounds a week fat gain or loss requires eating about 1000 calories above or below maintenance calories for a full week. That's about 4.6 ounces per day. 4.6 ounces is slightly more than the weight of a quarter cup of water.) That tiny change in fat is easily masked by those multi-pound daily variations in water/waste weight.
* Muscle gain or loss - absent some dire disease state causing loss - is even slower. Two pounds of muscle gain in a month would be about the max in ideal conditions (including a calorie surplus). That'd be 4.2 ounces in a day on average . . . and keep in mind that that would be an unusually fast rate of muscle gain.
So, yeah, if we eat, I dunno, 1000 calories over maintenance one day, there's probably going to be a multi-pound scale jump (water/waste) almost immediately. But if we go back to normal routine, it'll drop off soon. Even if we eat at maintenance every other day, the max fat gain from the excess 1000 calories is less than 1/3 of a pound.
Understanding all of this is quite calming, in my world. YMMV.
From reading threads around here, over-reacting to water weight shifts (thinking it's fat gain/loss) leads to dysfunctional behavior. (Example: Going from deficit to sensible maintenance calories, seeing a multi-pound scale jump, freaking out and returning to a deficit, so the person loses more weight than rational. Or, giving up because of an early-in-deficit freak out, thinking that one over-goal day undoes weeks of challenging calorie-deficit progress.)
No one should try to defeat normal water weight fluctuations. Water retention shifts are part of how a healthy body stays healthy. They know what they're doing. We should try to understand, not try to game that, IMO.0 -
emmach2609 wrote: »Where are you getting your numbers from? I don't know any calculators that show a TDEE of 1500 for someone with your stats. Are you confusing BMR with maintenance calories? Because a BMR of 1500 sounds a lot more likely, but you shouldn't use BMR as the starting point for calculating a deficit.
Even fully sedentary, this calculator gives you a TDEE (=maintenance calories) of more than 2000 calories: https://www.health-calc.com/diet/energy-expenditure-advanced
Are you saying you are currently consuming 900-1000 calories per day, losing 0.5-1lbs per week? You are most likely underestimating your food intake, statistically speaking you should be losing more weight at that level of intake. A level of intake which is too low, by the way! MFP has a minimum of 1200 for women, to ensure adequate nutrition.
At your current weight, you shouldn't be aiming for 2lbs per week, by the way. The general recommendation is 0.5 to 1% of your bodyweight per week (preferably the lower end, to ensure you don't lose (too much) muscle mass).
How are you logging your food intake?
Weighing everything?
Making sure you are using correct food database entries? (There are many incorrect ones in the database)
Using the recipe builder or the Meals functionality for prepared meals?
Thanks. Sorry, yes you're right that is my basal metabolic rate not maintenance although 2000 seems high, pretty sure I wasn't eating that much even when I was gaining weight! I would say I am sedentary except for purposeful exercise which I log.
Sorry, no I'm not consuming 900-1000. It's more like 1200 and I exercise around 300 calories daily so with my MFP set to 1000 calories(I did have to set it manually but I wasn't losing any weight at all with the target of 1200) I am majority in range -100 to +100 of target.
I knew it was a low target but that was what I wondering was why I needed to go below the recommended target to lose "enough" weight. I thought my aim should be 2 pounds a week because that's what I seem to read a lot but that makes sense that maybe I am just aiming for too fast weight loss and need to be more patient.
You might be right that maybe I'm not logging my calories correctly as well. I often eat prepackaged salads or soups at work so can just read the calories off the packet, but for homecooked meals for dinner I do struggle with accurately completing the calories, I measure as much as possible but struggle with the difference between cooked and uncooked weight/calories sometimes and TBH I don't weigh things like oil, just estimate. I think what I might do is make a real effort to measure calories for a week or so and check it lines up with what I have previously been calculating.
Stressing your body out too much would be counterproductive to your efforts to conceive. If you eat 1200 calories and exercise 300, then your net calories are indeed 900 calories, which is too low.
However, from how you've described your logging, you are surely eating more than you think. Losing 0.5-1 pounds a week is actually a good place for you to be.
Use a weight trending app such as Happy Scale (iphone) or Libra (Android) and focus on the trend, not the individual weigh-ins, and also compare yourself to the same point in your cycle as last month.
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