Food and log

Homemaker15
Homemaker15 Posts: 17 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Today I ate less than 900 calories. I had strawberries and coffee for breakfast. Tuna with pickles, olives and jalapenos with a tbsp of mayo and I had homemade taco from ground turkey for dinner with 1/2 grapefruit for a snack I drank water all day. It bugs me that the app won't post my logging because it's under 1200 calories. My macros were balanced and I'm not hungry. Isn't the app about weight loss and maintenance?

Replies

  • Alatariel75
    Alatariel75 Posts: 18,340 Member
    edited September 4
    The only thing completing your diary does is give you a 5 week prediction, which is completely based on a simple maths equation. They don't let you complete at under 1000 calories so as not to encourage people to go super low calorie to meet very fast weight loss predictions. It's a liability thing.

    Now that the newsfeed is gone so it doesn't even post to your friends, completing is pointless aside from that prediction.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,595 Member
    Homemaker15 wrote: »
    Today I ate less than 900 calories. I had strawberries and coffee for breakfast. Tuna with pickles, olives and jalapenos with a tbsp of mayo and I had homemade taco from ground turkey for dinner with 1/2 grapefruit for a snack I drank water all day. It bugs me that the app won't post my logging because it's under 1200 calories. My macros were balanced and I'm not hungry. Isn't the app about weight loss and maintenance?

    Sure.

    But the fastest weight loss isn't necessarily the best or most effective weight loss. Balanced macros at too-low calories still won't deliver adequate nutrition, because we need reasonable amounts of key nutrients, not simply too-few nutrients in some specific proportions.

    If eating as low as 900 calories is a rare or very occasional thing, no big deal. But 900 calories, if done consistently, is a very low calorie intake for any woman who isn't quite old, very inactive and pretty petite. Fast loss increases health risks.

    Alatariel is correct, there's no penalty for not closing your diary, other than that you won't get the 5 week prediction, which tends to be misleading anyway.
  • Hobartlemagne
    Hobartlemagne Posts: 603 Member
    You can make a fake food entry that's exactly 300cal, or whatever keeps the total over 1200
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,879 Member
    Hobartlemagne wrote: »
    You can make a fake food entry that's exactly 300cal, or whatever keeps the total over 1200

    But why do that? To close the diary, to get a 5 week prediction which will be even less reliable since it's based on fake info?
  • Alatariel75
    Alatariel75 Posts: 18,340 Member
    Hobartlemagne wrote: »
    You can make a fake food entry that's exactly 300cal, or whatever keeps the total over 1200

    There's no point. It used to be that you could do this to get it to post to your newsfeed so your friends knew you finished your diary for the day, but the newsfeed has gone, so there is zero point in doing this, and it will mess up your stats.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,097 Member
    It bugs me that the app won't post my logging because it's under 1200 calories.

    You can stop being bugged because there's no news feed anymore for things like this to post to.

    But if there were, it makes sense that MFP wouldn't want to post I Co that seems to celebrate and advocate ultra low calorie diets.
  • 6m4cytkt7y
    6m4cytkt7y Posts: 4 Member
    Alatariel is correct, there's no penalty for not closing your diary, other than that you won't get the 5 week prediction, which tends to be misleading anyway. [/quote]

    Why is it misleading if you don't mind.explaining?
    I was counting on that info 😥

  • trixsterjl31
    trixsterjl31 Posts: 156 Member
    Being that low should only be done under doctor supervision. If you dont eat right you will lose fat but your body will also eat muscle. So there is a good chance you will lose weight but not the weight you want to lose. The best way to get there if you are small is increase protein and activity to help tell your body it still needs the muscle mass.
  • Alatariel75
    Alatariel75 Posts: 18,340 Member
    6m4cytkt7y wrote: »
    Alatariel is correct, there's no penalty for not closing your diary, other than that you won't get the 5 week prediction, which tends to be misleading anyway.

    Why is it misleading if you don't mind.explaining?
    I was counting on that info 😥

    [/quote]

    Because it's based on a very simple maths equation which says 3500 calories = 1 lb fat, so it takes your estimated daily calorie use just for existing, and your estimated exercise calories, and subtracts them from your calories eaten, and spits out a number which assumes that:

    1. It's estimates are correct
    2. You will eat the exact same thing, and move the exact same amount every single day for 5 weeks
    3. Doesn't take into account hormones, water retention, cortisol, and all the other fun things that makes us fluctuate.

    It's really just a gimmick.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,595 Member
    If you like having some kind of semi-prediction, consider getting a weight trending app. Some examples are Happy Scale for Apple/iOS, Libra for Android, Trendweight (requires a free Fitbit account but you don't need a device), Weightgrapher on the web, and there are probably others. Generally there's a free version.

    These aren't magically accurate either. You input your weigh-ins, ideally measured at a consistent time in consistent conditions. The apps use statistical techniques (fancier kinds of averaging) to try to smooth out the crazy daily ups and down from water fluctuations and varying digestive contents. They show a smoothed-ish graph of the history trend, then a projection into the future. It's still just an estimate, but it's a little more sophisticated and potentially helpful. Important to understand that it's still not a crystal ball, just a better estimate. (It can be misleading in unusual circumstances now and then.)

    Also, some people set up their own history/averaging spreadsheet.

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