Decreased Calorie Allowance

CrazyMermaid1 · January 4

Overnight I went from 1400 calories per day to lose 1 lb per week to only 1280 calories per day. I’ve only lost 10 lbs since September. Does this make sense to anyone?

pridesabtch · January 4

Do you still need to lose 1lb/ week?

mtaratoot · January 4

What is your current weight and height?

How are you tracking the calories you eat - do you use a food scale for everything?

Do you log completely and honestly? Every bite?

Ten pounds lost since September 30 or September 1? If the end of September, you're losing almost 0.75 pounds a week on average.

How often do you weigh yourself? Do you track trends?

More data is required to provide any insight.

Lildarlinz · January 4

Do you mean in your calorie goals?

Did u change your goals?

Check again..you may have clicked on lose 2lb a week rather than 1lb a week

X

MsCzar · January 5

Makes perfect sense. Were I to eat ~1400 calories a day, the scale would not move at all. At 1280, the scale might move, but at a glacial pace. For me, good results happen around 900-1000 calories per day. That does become wearisome and to avoid burnout, I go to 1500 for a day or so every few weeks to avoid feeling deprived. I am an older female, rather sedentary, with a long history of yo-yo dieting. YMMV, but some of us just maintain/lose weight at lower calorie levels than the charts suggest. I'm sure someone might come along with some C&P chart posted as absolute gospel of what should work, but you know your body and what calorie levels work and don't work for YOU.

CrazyMermaid1 · January 5

I should have clarified that when I put my data into MFP about 5+ years ago, it gave me the 1400 calories to lose 1 lb per week. Over that period of time I have lost about 10 lbs. I am 5’5, 63, with a CW of 160. Now suddenly 2 days ago MFP changed my calorie allowance to 1280 to lose 1 lb per week. Has anyone else had this happen? Nothing else has changed.

mtaratoot · January 5

I wondered if that's what happened. It happened to me two or three times over the years, but in the opposite direction. I just happened to notice because I logged in after midnight before logging any food and before I took any steps so my device would sync and give me more calories.

You can imagine I said, "WTF?!?"

I just went into my settings and put it back. I also submitted a help ticket so staff would know about it. I suggest you do those two things. It has happened a couple other times. Go to your goals but do not go through the guided setup. Or better yet - go through the guided setup! If you have lost or gained weight, your goal should change. If you set your calorie goal to a specific number and THEN go through the guided setup, it will reset your goal even if you don't accept the results. Then you'll just have to go reset it manually, but you won't need to submit a help ticket.

It's a good idea to keep an eye on this from time to time. It's also a good idea to reassess your goal from time to time if you lose weight. I have received notifications from MFP that suggest I revisit my goals. I have 'em set how I like.

If you don't know about it, another good tool to see where you might want to set your goal is Sailrabbit. It is a little different from what MFP says because it gives Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) which includes exercise. My Fitness Pal uses Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT), and then you add calories when you exercise. You'll need to see what your NET calorie goal is in MFP at the end of the day after exercise to compare them.

Sailrabbit says for a 63 year-old 65" tall slightly active woman at 160 pounds, to lose one pound a week your calorie goal would be 1762 per day. If instead of "slightly active" that theoretical person was bedridden, it would still be 1346 calories per day. I'm thinking maybe go play around with Sailrabbit, look at the guided setup again, and pick a good goal for yourself.

CrazyMermaid1 · January 5

mtaratoot wrote: »

I wondered if that's what happened. It happened to me two or three times over the years, but in the opposite direction. I just happened to notice because I logged in after midnight before logging any food and before I took any steps so my device would sync and give me more calories.

You can imagine I said, "WTF?!?"

I just went into my settings and put it back. I also submitted a help ticket so staff would know about it. I suggest you do those two things. It has happened a couple other times. Go to your goals but do not go through the guided setup. Or better yet - go through the guided setup! If you have lost or gained weight, your goal should change. If you set your calorie goal to a specific number and THEN go through the guided setup, it will reset your goal even if you don't accept the results. Then you'll just have to go reset it manually, but you won't need to submit a help ticket.

It's a good idea to keep an eye on this from time to time. It's also a good idea to reassess your goal from time to time if you lose weight. I have received notifications from MFP that suggest I revisit my goals. I have 'em set how I like.

If you don't know about it, another good tool to see where you might want to set your goal is Sailrabbit. It is a little different from what MFP says because it gives Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) which includes exercise. My Fitness Pal uses Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT), and then you add calories when you exercise. You'll need to see what your NET calorie goal is in MFP at the end of the day after exercise to compare them.

Sailrabbit says for a 63 year-old 65" tall slightly active woman at 160 pounds, to lose one pound a week your calorie goal would be 1762 per day. If instead of "slightly active" that theoretical person was bedridden, it would still be 1346 calories per day. I'm thinking maybe go play around with Sailrabbit, look at the guided setup again, and pick a good goal for yourself.

Thanks so much for this. As a “Crazy Mermaid “ I need confirmation of my reality and you gave me that.

mtaratoot · January 5

@CrazyMermaid1

Well... what if I'm just a figment of your imagination? I can neither confirm nor deny these allegations.

But seriously - take a look at your goal, and then just stick to it every day even if you have bad days.

AnnPT77 · January 5

CrazyMermaid1 wrote: »

I should have clarified that when I put my data into MFP about 5+ years ago, it gave me the 1400 calories to lose 1 lb per week. Over that period of time I have lost about 10 lbs. I am 5’5, 63, with a CW of 160. Now suddenly 2 days ago MFP changed my calorie allowance to 1280 to lose 1 lb per week. Has anyone else had this happen? Nothing else has changed.

If your 1400 estimate is from 5+ years ago, and you've also lost 10 pounds since then, but haven't gone back through MFP goal setting, that might be enough to make MFP change your goal by 120 calories for a pound a week weight loss. For me, Sailrabbit's TDEE estimate (for sedentary) changes by about 80 calories if I vary my weight by 10 pounds and age by 5 years . . . but the magnitude of such a difference would vary depending on the person's size, activity level, and age at the start.

It'd still be a question why MFP recalculated, even if that were true.

Since MFP's calorie estimate for me has always been silly far off, I have to admit I set my calorie goal manually rather than letting MFP estimate my goals. If you're getting the results you like on 1400, I'd say set it to 1400 (and hope it stays there!). Its estimates aren't gospel, they're just a starting point.

mtaratoot · January 5

@AnnPT77

MFP won't reset your goal without your permission. It will give you a notice that says something like, "Hey, it looks like you've lost some weight! Would you like to revisit the guided set-up?" Something like that.

There has been a bug a few times. It may reappear more than once and then not bother you again. It happened to me multiple times, but it's been months - maybe over a year. It had nothing to do with a change in weight. In my case, it increased my calorie goal. I suspect it may be an artifact of some other updates they are doing. It has to be an awful lot of code, and there must be terabytes of data. Maybe petabytes. It's a pretty amazing service we have access to!

AnnPT77 · January 5

mtaratoot wrote: »

@AnnPT77

MFP won't reset your goal without your permission. It will give you a notice that says something like, "Hey, it looks like you've lost some weight! Would you like to revisit the guided set-up?" Something like that.

There has been a bug a few times. It may reappear more than once and then not bother you again. It happened to me multiple times, but it's been months - maybe over a year. It had nothing to do with a change in weight. In my case, it increased my calorie goal. I suspect it may be an artifact of some other updates they are doing. It has to be an awful lot of code, and there must be terabytes of data. Maybe petabytes. It's a pretty amazing service we have access to!

I agree that what @CrazyMermaid1 has experienced may be a bug, sure. But I've also had the experience of accidentally resetting my own goal, whether by doing something I didn't realize would make it recalculate, or just by going into my profile to check something then hitting a wrong key.

mtaratoot · January 5

AnnPT77 wrote: »

mtaratoot wrote: »

@AnnPT77

MFP won't reset your goal without your permission. It will give you a notice that says something like, "Hey, it looks like you've lost some weight! Would you like to revisit the guided set-up?" Something like that.

There has been a bug a few times. It may reappear more than once and then not bother you again. It happened to me multiple times, but it's been months - maybe over a year. It had nothing to do with a change in weight. In my case, it increased my calorie goal. I suspect it may be an artifact of some other updates they are doing. It has to be an awful lot of code, and there must be terabytes of data. Maybe petabytes. It's a pretty amazing service we have access to!

I agree that what @CrazyMermaid1 has experienced may be a bug, sure. But I've also had the experience of accidentally resetting my own goal, whether by doing something I didn't realize would make it recalculate, or just by going into my profile to check something then hitting a wrong key.

It's possible. Either way - just reset it!

I suppose it could have even been a random bit-flip from a cosmic ray.

CrazyMermaid1 · January 5

Again, thanks for all your input and help

StealthyJen · January 5

Hello- my suggestion is that instead of following the formula MFP gives you, find out what your body actually needs using data your body gives you. I did it like this: set MFP to maintenance, eat at around that for about 10 days. Weigh yourself each day and log it. Then find the average of the calories you ate those ten days and the average of your daily weights. A pound is about 3500 calories. So say if you gained a pound then you ate that many too much, divided by the 10 days. If you lost, you ate that many too little. So here’s an example:
MFP maintenance allowance
:2000 calories.
Average for 10 days: 2000
Weight lost/gained: -1 lb
So over the course of 10 days, there was an average deficit of 350 calories, meaning actual maintenance is 2350.

Base calorie goals on that, not the numbers MFP gives you. So losing 1 lb a week, for example, would mean eating a 500 cal/day deficit or 1850 calories a day.

Before I did this, I could never stick to a deficit because the deficit was way too large and it felt like I was starving.

Also look into calorie cycling to keep your metabolism a bit higher.

Lietchi · January 5

StealthyJen wrote: »

Hello- my suggestion is that instead of following the formula MFP gives you, find out what your body actually needs using data your body gives you. I did it like this: set MFP to maintenance, eat at around that for about 10 days. Weigh yourself each day and log it. Then find the average of the calories you ate those ten days and the average of your daily weights. A pound is about 3500 calories. So say if you gained a pound then you ate that many too much, divided by the 10 days. If you lost, you ate that many too little. So here’s an example:
MFP maintenance allowance
:2000 calories.
Average for 10 days: 2000
Weight lost/gained: -1 lb
So over the course of 10 days, there was an average deficit of 350 calories, meaning actual maintenance is 2350.

Base calorie goals on that, not the numbers MFP gives you. So losing 1 lb a week, for example, would mean eating a 500 cal/day deficit or 1850 calories a day.

Before I did this, I could never stick to a deficit because the deficit was way too large and it felt like I was starving.

I fully endorse basing calorie goals on real life data, but 10 days is a very short period, especially for women (hormonal cycles can cause water weight fluctuations masking true weight loss): I'd recommend using a full menstrual cycle (or if not applicable, a full month) to crunch the numbers.

Decreased Calorie Allowance

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