Can you be just short of targets?

Hello. I’m new here and sometimes find it difficult to get to my exact daily goal. Is this bad?

Answers

  • spiriteagle99
    spiriteagle99 Posts: 3,855 Member

    Not at all. I aim to be within 100 calories over or under my daily goal. That works for me. I have maintained a 50 pound loss for several years without ever worrying about being exact.

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 38,178 Community Helper

    Are you talking calories or nutrition? Either way, it's somewhat flexible.

    Calories: If you told MFP you want to lose a pound a week, it gave you a daily calorie goal 500 below its estimate of your current weight-maintenance calorie needs. A kilogram loss per week, 1100 calories per day. You can do the arithmetic and figure out partial pounds/kilos worth of calories, and get an estimate of those current weight-maintenance calories; or you can set MFP to "maintain weight" and see what it says as a goal estimate, then reset back to your target loss rate.

    Either way, you can get an estimate of current weight maintenance calories. Any time you eat below that weight-maintenance calorie number, MFP expects you'll lose fat weight. Obviously, the closer you eat to maintenance calories, the slower the expected loss. Only over the maintenance calories would you expect to gain or regain weight.

    It's also not necessary to hit the target (or very close) every single day: It's fine to look at the average calories over a few days to a week. MFP resets at midnight, but our bodies don't.

    Nutrition is a little different. It's never necessary to be exactly exact every single day, even if nutrition is important to you. (Nutrients don't directly affect weight loss rate, though they can have an indirect effect on loss rate if sub-ideal nutrition triggers fatigue or appetite struggles.)

    For nutrients, generally, "pretty close on average over a few days" is fine. A little over one day, a little under another day, no big deal. If persistently very low on protein or fats much of the time, that might be worth improving for best health, but still no need to be exact. (Protein and fats contain "essential nutrients", things we need to eat for best health because our bodies can't manufacture them out of any other intake.)

    Malnutrition isn't instant, either, so you can work at any desired improvements over a period of time, as long as eating in an overall generally reasonable way and not diagnosed with deficiencies or relevant health conditions from the get-go.

    The MFP phone/tablet app will let you look at weekly averages for calories and nutrients, if you choose to monitor it that way.

    Both calorie level and nutrients are important, IMO, but stressing over hitting them exactly isn't helpful. I think in terms of that "pretty good on average over a few days" idea.

    Best wishes!

  • tomcustombuilder
    tomcustombuilder Posts: 2,550 Member

    you'll never be exact every day if ever actually . Don't worry about it get as close as you can and after seven days of eating, add those calories up and divide by seven and that's going to be your actual daily amount.

  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 10,354 Member

    ….or let the app do the math for you by using the drop down box under “nutrition”:


    Single day view

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    Weekly average view

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