Help!! Calories Goal too high??

Your coach isn't much of an expert, apparently. Without context of your stats and lifestyle it's hard to give you a correct calorie amount however 2,890 will most likely cause weight gain instead of loss. 2,000 may even be too high.

The more fat you carry the bigger the deficit can be. Person A may lose at 2,000 and person B may gain at 2,000 even though they're the same size. Daily non exercise activity will be the biggest determining factor.

Then there is the accuracy factor. How accurate are you with counting? 2,000 can be much higher in reality if you're underestimating your intake.

The macros you've given add up to to 2850 Cal a day; not 2890 or 2000.

Protein and carbs are 4 Cal per gram. Fat is 9 Cal per gram

If they don't add up to 2000 , then your coach is NOT asking you to eat 2000.

MFP, unless things have recently changed, does not take into account AT ALL how many times a day you say you will exercise. It asks and then does not do anything visible with the information

Exercise when logged as expected after it was performed adds calories to compensate for the extra energy spent thus helping you keep to your desired deficit. That's in everyday use after guided setup has been completed.

What you describe in terms of different goals based on exercise does not make sense. Sounds like you may be using a non MFP setup

If you want to setup your goals independently of MFP you can search for sail rabbit TDEE

Time to double check what inputs you're providing and where and with your coach on their advice

Ask your coach how you're supposed to consume those macros (which total 2850 cals) and yet only consume 2000 calories.

mrsbrown322 wrote: »

Hya, I am not sure how to get help with this .. I am overweight and trying to lose weight but exercising at same time.. I was talking to my coach today and he mentioned that I should be having around 360g of carbs, 150g Protein and 90g of fat per day. And I should be in the region of 2000 calories a day.
When I try to set my Goals at My fitness pal, if I put those macros in, it gives me 2890 calories to have per day (I had put in that I would do 7 workouts per week) --- Is this right? seems a lot when I am 200 pounds and want to lose some weight. If I take off the exercises planned for the week, I still get 2230 calories per day .. but that is not having exercises .. so confused.. Thanks so much x

I'm wondering if you simply misunderstood? 360gr of carbs seems quite a lot. With 160gr of carbs, 150gr of protein en 90gr of fat, you'd arrive at 2050 calories.

mrsbrown322 wrote: »

Huge math error for fat: they multiplied 89.8gr of fat by 4 instead of 9 to calculate the calories. It's 808 calories instead of 359.
Which makes the total calorie intake incorrect as well.

mrsbrown322 wrote: »

Ahh that was me!! So that will bring the totally amount of calories even higher.. So acccording to those calculations I should be on 2782 calories that is not too far off from what MPF calculates, but find it still so high .. maybe because I am overweight at the moment and each time I loose weight I have to adjust my calories .. I can only think its this

Sorry for the harsh reaction then

What activity level and weight loss rate are you entering for MFP? Because 2700 calories sounds quite high.
MFP's activity level is meant to not include exercise (only daily activity: work, commute, housework, hobbies...) - exercise should be added separately on days when you do it and will then increase your goal.
What exercise are you doing?

This is what I see when I put your stats in sailrabbit (moderately active as noted)

TDEE- 2384 calories daily
1.5 lb deficit per week= 1634 calories daily


TDEE- 2384 calories daily
1 lb deficit per week= 1894 calories daily


Just for reference, you're about the same height as I am and can have nearly 1000 calories more than I can at your TDEE so I would caution increasing your calories to that 2800. That seems to be highly counterproductive to what you’re trying to achieve.

mrsbrown322 wrote: »

I am not putting any exercise to see if it drops the calories

Sorry for the harsh reaction then
Not harsh .. glad you saw it 😃

FYI: this is a part of MFP I've always hated because so many people get confused about it: your fitness goals have zero influence on your calorie, they aren't taken into account at all.
Only exercise logged in your diary influences your calorie goal, for that day.

I'm guessing you chose a high activity level to arrive at 2700 calories. Because you're including exercise in that choice? (Which can be fine, as long as you don't add exercise calories on top of that)

The true test of your calorie goal will be what your weight does over one or two months (or menstrual cycles if applicable).
It makes sense to start higher and lower the goal later on if necessary to be cautious regarding muscle loss.

mrsbrown322 wrote: »

My coach just messaged me this afternoon as he may change my training in order to have less Cardio and more Strength training so it will help me lose the weight.

I have done MyFitnessPal before when I lifting weights and it made sense, but now I am just getting confused with it all.. I think I prefer to work with Macros rather than calories. I also want to be able
to have a proper meal plan rather than thinking I am dieting and then put weight back on again

To the first part, weight training doesn’t help with losing weight more than cardio. In fact, it uses less calories than cardio. This is the part we need you to grasp, I think more than anything- A calorie deficit and only a calorie deficit impacts weight loss. Macros and whatever type of work out you do is only for fitness/health/satiation and not weight loss.

Look at it this way:

Calories = weight loss, maintenance, or weight gain (depending on your calorie goal).

Workouts = health, strength, and/or endurance

If you want to lose weight you need to burn more than you eat, so monitor calories.

If you want to be athletic/strong then cardio, weight lifting, or a sport will help. Here’s the surprising part… Many people are over weight and obese while weight training or in a sport due to a lack of calorie balance. If you’re eating more than you burn, no matter what, you’ll gain weight. No clean diet or special sport will save you.

Your diet and your workout are two separate goals that do two separate things.

To your second paragraph, you said you prefer to work with macros instead of calories. You need to understand macros are made up of calories. If you don’t understand how many calories to eat you will over eat your macros and gain weight. This is counterproductive to your goals. Are you really wanting to eat 2800 calories because your math said that’s how many macros you need? You will become obese in no time and hurt your weight loss and fitness goals immensely. We are just trying to help you get your priorities in order to prevent that.

First- find your calorie goal (MFP will give that to you when you enter your stats and goals)

Secondly- decide your macros % for your sport or use what MFP gives you. I, specifically, need lots of carbs for energy and don’t function well on protein/fat. You will learn what works for you.

Third- test your logging and trend over 4-6 weeks and see if the math is mathing. If you’re not losing the amount you think, you need to adjust your logging and make the adjustment to your diet.

I agree with you, don’t “diet” in terms of eating a random menu full of stuff that doesn’t make sense. But, eat your diet of food that is “normal” in your calorie goal. Despite what you think, you absolutely need to know what your TDEE is, how many calories to eat in a deficit, how much to expect to lose on average, how to log that, and how to follow that trend.

If you choose to eat whatever macros you posted then check back in 4-6 weeks with the comparison, and we can go from there.

I agree with those above about calorie goal being the highest-order issue if weight loss is the most important goal. I agree with you and your coach about losing weight slowly if athletic performance generally or strength/muscle specifically are important goals.

I do - I think - feel a little more strongly than some others here that nutrition is very important, and that there are basics that need to be met vs. "it's all flexible". IMO that's especially true in a case where athletic performance is a goal. I believe in using gram estimates for protein and fats needs, not percentages of calories.

I think the methods you outlined for estimating protein and fats are reasonable. In a case like yours, I feel like those are the more important, and that carbs - being not an "essential nutrient" in technical terms - are more flexible.

If I were you, I'd set a protein minimum, a fats minimum, and use carbs to balance calories. If you're substantially overweight now, it's reasonable to use a healthy goal weight to estimate those, rather than basing on a current high weight. (In particular, protein's main importance is to maintain our lean mass. We don't need lots extra because we have excess fat mass.) If you don't know a good goal weight, just use the middle of the normal BMI range. (I know that BMI is controversial. For something like this, it's a close enough approximation IMO.)

I may be wrong (because there's some individualism in all of this), but I doubt that it's essential for you to get 368g of carbs, or maybe not even 268g. (That's even though 268g gives you what could be a reasonable starting calorie level to test-drive as gross intake for a few weeks (at least a full menstrual cycle if you have those, so you're comparing body weight at the same relative point in at least two different cycles).)

Since you plan fairly high activity, timing the carbs you do eat around workouts may help with performance. That could be slow carbs (more complex) in the hours before a longer/tougher workout, or faster carbs (high GI, leaning toward sugars) if shortly before (or during) a longer/tougher workout. It will take some experimentation to optimize for your own personal body.

Admittedly, I'm not a triathlete. I do a short-endurance sport (on-water rowing, mostly). I've worked out regularly and sometimes pretty hard/long, but I don't have anything routine that's as long as the long run days marathoners including in training, for example. More carbs shortly before/on those endurance training days would probably be good. If you want to get fancy, you could look at the (actual) protocols for athletic carb loading before events, which actually involve more nuance than "eat a plate of spaghetti before a race", and apply those principles to long-endurance workout days. But that's a nicety that could probably be left to the longer term.

Just opinions from some random idiot on the internet, though.

P.S. One thing I find weird about that worksheet is that they start by converting your weight to kg. If you usually think in pounds . . . why? Why wouldn't they just convert the formulas to use pounds? That would work fine.

P.P.S. If you want another source, there's an evidence-based protein calculator and guide here, from a site that's generally regarded as neutral (among other things, they don't sell supplements) and attentive to the science:

https://examine.com/protein-intake-calculator/
https://examine.com/guides/protein-intake/

Somewhere in the guide they do say it can be fine to use a lower (goal) weight in the calculator if materially overweight.