I think I'm under eating? Wellness program doesn't want calorie counting (long post)

A few random thoughts.
Take them for what you will. I do hope they help but they might or might not!

Quick check: BMI 34.7 -- given work possibly high muscle mass. but bmi on the high side. Neither short nor tall so within parameters of height where bmi should be working ok. So. A good indication that there exists excess fat available to be lost.

Your RMR numbers for now and in the past. There is a disconnect.

I haven't personally verified the apple watch in the past few years but based on previous information it uses Mifflin St Jeor (an RMR formula often presented as a BMR formula) as it's 1.0x basis. So does MFP. Your numbers at either 228 or 208 lbs are not 1700. The number at current age would be 1884 for 228lbs. And at 208lbs it would be -91 Cal at 1793. This is of interest.

MFP, sailrabbit.com, all online estimators, and your apple watch basically take your "hard" stats and figure out your RMR using research based formulas.

Then they multiply that RMR by an activity factor to come up with your daily caloric expenditure (TDEE) ESTIMATE.

The online estimators use the information you give them to guide you to a number. Your watch uses a combination of inputs such as research based MET values for various activities and the inputs it acquires (such as acceleration and heart rate) to come up with an estimate of your burn.

Implicitly your apple watch is assigning 2737 (TDEE) / 1884 (BMR) = 1.4527 as your activity factor.

Please note that MFP has recently (early 2025/late 2024 maybe?) changed the definitions of sedentary/lightly active/active/very active. They have moved from the previous 1.25, 1.4, 1.6 and 1.8 values and have changed them to: 1.4x for not very active, 1.6x for lightly active, 1.8x for active and 2.0x for very active. There exists some research support for this. Whether it will make people more successful or not is up in the air.

Please note that when using a tracker that is correctly integrated with MFP (and assuming integration works as expected and negative calories are enabled), it really doesn't matter what activity selection you initially make on MFP.

At the end of the day, at midnight, your "adjustment" will be such that your tracker's TDEE value will be the final value for the day on MFP.

So if MFP thought you would spend 2600 Cal but your tracker came up with 2650 you will end the day with a 40 Cal exercise adjustment. And if MFP thought you would spend 3000 Cal but your tracker came up with 2650 you will end the day with a 350 Cal negative adjustment. End of day your get your tracker's TDEE number. with integration and neg cals enabled. and working. which is not always true

Let's circle back to your 1555 test at age 45 at 208lbs. Note that you're the one who has given the values I'm using. if the dates or weight values or RMR values are different, you have to go back and re-run the numbers!

Using sailrabbit (weird name!) you would have been expected to have had a Mifflin RMR of 1803 when your test was 1555. i.e. your test gave you an RMR value that was 0.8625 of the expected value.

I have my own opinion as to whether this figure is fully actionable. But again I am working with the logic and issues you raised. To be clear I do not necessarily believe that after a gain of 20lbs over 2 years that your RMR will be as depressed as it might have been when you did your test while you were fasted and especially if the fasting took place in the context of a time period during which you were already eating at a deficit for a while. Or that one measurement is enough to reach a conclusion.

But assuming that the RMR measurement was valid. You tested at 0.8625 of expected.

Assuming that you would still test at 0.8625, this would fully transfer to your apple watch's estimate.

So, your expected TDEE of 2737 should be taken to be: ~2360 as "real" tdee.

a 20% deficit from that (which would be aggressive without being insane) would be: 472 Cal. i.e. you are an almost "perfect" candidate to be eating at -500 Cal a day.

However your -500 starts by subtracting from 0.8625 of your TDEE and not 1.0 of your TDEE

As to whether anyone can or cannot tell you what to log or not log.... For my main meal today I had 163g of A&W onion rings and a 218g Teen burger. How do I know? Because I took my car scale into the restaurant with me and logged my burger, onion rings, and 33g of ketchup while eating them and while drinking my diet root beer. I had my large headphones on (nothing playing) and I seriously doubt anyone gave a flying *kitten*. And in situations where they have (say the fish and chip shop I sometimes go to), I believe my standard answer is: "Just making sure I'm getting my money's worth" with a smile and a wink)

I do not know what you are getting out of the program you're engaged with at work. Maybe it is helpful to you. maybe it is not. It may be trying to teach you how to only eat when you're hungry or what have you. Maybe it has some other goal. I would suggest you may want to figure out whether your interests are best served by following it. Or, for that matter, whether they're best served by flat out pretending to follow it while you do your own thing.

One thing that I WILL suggest given that we are of very similar height and you're a couple of years younger than I was when I started on MFP. It **IS** worth it to give YOURSELF the priority focus in your life.
AND.
You really need to track what you're consuming especially if you're consuming most of your calories in non formal meal situations. Quick pictures help. But they can't fully substitute for a scale and pre-logging.

It is not fun to discover that there are no calories left for dinner because you've spent them all on snacks. Or that you just got home are ready to unload from a crap day... and you can't eat anything because you've wasted it on stale donuts at the office.

But, hey, that's how I got to be obese: by eating lunch and dinner.... IN ADDITION to a bunch of random other calories, especially when I was ticked off or frustrated ;-)

I don't know if you've gone through this many times (the more times the more likely to have left some side effects) but it does sound like you're a) in good physical shape and b) sensitive to downregulation caused by large deficits (mainly in reference to your 1555). You may want to keep an eye on general activity level in addition to formal exercises. 1.45 given your work is below what I would expect to see based on your job description (i.e. I would expect to see a 1.6 + just based on work)

If your TDEE REALLY is 2360 a carefully and religiously measured 1860 Cal a day (and that's not "a cup of cooked rice" but 55g of rice, white, long-grain, parboiled, enriched, dry and 2g of soup, chicken broth, cubes, dry for a total of 210 Cal) over a time period measured in multiple week spans will result in an average drop of about 1lb a week.

A year from now you will be sitting just below BMI 27--a position that arguably would let you soft land your weight loss by eking out another small loss over the next 12 months and letting yourself slide into maintenance

You may want to look into weight trend apps (libra, happy scale, trendweight.com, or creating a spreadsheet with a linearly weighted moving average going back say 10 days or so). They help smooth down daily weight changes especially if your "routines" are not very routine.

Anyway. Best of luck with this little self improvement project!

(I find glasslock containers where I can nuke and eat to be very useful. Bags of veggies are a bit expensive. But, then again, so is eating out. You should check out the calories in, say, 340g (or 500g) of riced veggies, in a broth made either with dry powder or using higher end material) Nukes in under 6 minutes)

Question — how do you retroactively log an entire months worth of foods? Were you weighing your food on a food scale and noting how many grams / ounces in a notebook outside of this app — so you had all that data ready to backwards log?

Issues with the Post

• Health Coach - Lacks proper qualifications.
• Starvation Mode - A common myth, your body doesn’t go into “panic” mode.
• Reputable Source - Do you understand what qualifies as a reputable source?
• Measuring Cups - Inaccurate for tracking food intake.
• Retroactive Measuring - Estimating after a month is unreliable.
• “Eat More to Lose” - Not how weight loss works.

It’s surprising how often incorrect advice is followed, even when repeatedly corrected. If you find yourself drawn to misinformation, you might be seeking an easier path, whether consciously or not.

What You Should Do Instead

1. Set Your Stats & Goals - Aim for a 1-1.5 lb weekly loss.
2. Track Calories Accurately - Weigh everything with a food scale.
3. Stay Consistent - Lack of results is almost always due to inaccurate tracking.
4. Trust the Scale - Excuses don’t change the numbers, trends over time reveal the truth.
5. Account for Natural Fluctuations - Hormonal changes can cause water retention, but they balance out.
6. Stick to the Plan - Follow general calorie recommendations for at least a month before making adjustments.

Weight loss isn’t about shortcuts, it’s about precision, patience, and accountability.

The amount of false and harmful information being spread around here is frightening - the fast track to disordered eating lives in a lot of these comments and feedback. Highly encourage anyone spending this much time tracking/calculating/measuring and likely housing significant food noise seek out non-diet dietitians for counseling and factual education/information.