[Closed] MFP calorie allowance question

It’s tied in with the activity level you sort on MFP. If you set it as ‘Sedentary’, then you can eat your exercise calories. If you set it to the other extreme of ‘Highly active’, then MFPs calorie allowance includes exercise calories.

I prefer to go with sedentary (as I do a desk job) and eat my calories. But I also recognise that the Garmin calorie count isn’t hugely accurate, so I never eat all that it says. At a minimum, you need to be recording running/walking type activity using a heart rate monitor, and ideally a power meter on the bike to get anything close to an accurate calorie burn.

1600 calories seems quite low. How tall are you? Male/female? What’s your non-exercise level of activity?

I’ve been eating all of my extra sports calorie allowance but I’m not seeing the weight loss that I want.

That’s why you aren’t losing weight. To lose weight, you need to maintain a deficit, but for sports specifically you also need post expertise carbs and protein to support recovery. You can achieve this by periodising your meals to ensure your having a within allowance recovery meal after your sport, or use a supplement.

I find it helps to work on a weekly rather than daily deficit. Some workouts need carbs to help and are not long enough to provide a large deficit once the intra-exercise carbs are in, and the post exercise protein is consumed, but others i couldn’t possible eat any more yet still have a massive deficit. I average about 2500 cals deficit a week fwiw during the winter period - about 3/4lb a week weight loss.

So should I:
1. Ignore the extra calories and just stick to the circa 1600 calorie allowance.
2. Eat all of the extra free calories (yum!)
3. Only eat part of my extra allowance?

id say youre making it more complicated than it need be, just use MFP as a guide. it wont be deadly accurate for you so log your calories, weigh yourself, if youre not losing weight you need to eat fewer calories (or exercise more), simple as that.
over the weeks youll be able to see how many calories you consume to maintain weight, lose weight etc etc

This sounds like someone who if they walk to the fridge they can then have a sausage, as it took 'calories' to walk there...

Do you allow yourself to eat the extra calories that exercise gives you on My Fitness Pal?

Yes, and it worked for me. But there are days when I'm still under the maximum amount of calories recommended by MFP and I'm not hitting exactly the recommended total by midnight every day of the week, so the weight loss could be coming from those days I suppose.

Basically I'd echo what @sadexpunk says - use it as a guide as calorie counting is never going to be a precise science.

Its also worth noting fat loss isn't linear. The body adjusts over time to the pressures being exerted, whether that be increased calories out or reduced calories in. If the balance is shifted to less in than out you will lose weight but don't expect it to be linear and watch the long term trend.

I plug for MacroFactor as an alternative to MFP. It simplifies things by calculating energy expenditure based on weight change and calorie intake, so you don't need to worry about estimating and logging expenditure from exercise. It's paid for, but I think it's great.

https://www.strongerbyscience.com/macrofactor/

Calories in - calories out.

If you did nothing all day you'd burn 2100 calories, giving you a 1600 target with a 500 deficit. If you burn 500 through exercise, you've now burnt 2600 so 2100 is your target with a 500 deficit.

It's not really any more complex than that.

Going by a weekly target is good too.

However, as you've found you'll need to keep adjusting your target as you go to keep the weight loss coming. And you'll need to reduce as you lose weight too.

I'd suggest not eating all available calories...but as said, weight loss isn't easy...first bit works but next bit takes longer and slower.

I seem to be loosing weight now but very slowly...still need to sort my diet out as suspect that'll help as well.

I tried something similar once. I started to drink Duval rather than normal beer because it came in smaller bottles, therefore I had to walk to the fridge more often and burn more calories. It was one of the best diets I ever tried however it had no effect at all on my weight.

Yes I used to eat my daily allowance as well as any gained calories through exercise, I did find the last couple of the kilo's were the toughest to lose and required real dedication from me and patience.

Do you allow yourself to eat the extra calories that exercise gives you on My Fitness Pal?

I do but not the full amount. I find Garmin over estimates calories for me so if Garmin says I have use 1000 calories on a ride, I would eat about 500 of those.

Perhaps not short efforts but for longer efforts your body does need extra fuel.

Aye.
I've tried it both way, but (for me), linking the Garmin watch in works.

I've always found that the MFP targets don't work that well, so work out my Basal Metabolic Rate then Total Daily Energy Expenditure. That gives you your maintenance calories (i.e. to stay at the same weight). I subtract 500 from that to give me my daily target calories.
Then I muck about with MFP til it is pretty much that number.

I have it set to add specific Garmin activities, but not the daily walking about thing (I do about 15,000 steps a day).

With that set up I lose weight really well - have lost 7kg in the last 6 weeks.

Which means I probably need to recalculate as your BMR drops as your weight drops. People often forget that and don't adjust the calories (and food intake) accordingly. Could be why the last wee bit is the hardest to lose!

So, BMR for me:
10 x weight (kg) + 6.25 x height (cm) – 5 x age (years) + 5
10 x 79 + (6.25 x 180) - (5 x 40) - 5 = 1710

TDEE
The 1710 is if I just lay in bed.
TDEE gives you a multiplier based on your activity level:

Sedentary (little to no exercise + work a desk job) = 1.2
Lightly Active (light exercise 1-3 days / week) = 1.375
Moderately Active (moderate exercise 3-5 days / week) = 1.55
Very Active (heavy exercise 6-7 days / week) = 1.725
Extremely Active (very heavy exercise, hard labor job, training 2x / day) = 1.9

I choose Lightly Active (desk job and some walking to the shops etc)

So 1710*1.375 = 2351.
Subtract 500 for my deficit and I get my target of 1850/day.

Then, if I do exercise over my "Lightly Active" levels (cycle 20 miles to work or go to the gym) I record that as a specific activity on my Garmin watch and it links in so I eat more that day, but end up with a net 1850.

Does that make sense?

But I also recognise that the Garmin calorie count isn’t hugely accurate,

It's all hugely innacurate!

The number of calories in food that you can absorb varies person to person based on your gut biome, so something that person A can extract 500 calories from, might only be 250 to person B.

The calorie measurements on food packets are pretty innacurate, normally underestimate.

The calorie measurment method takes no account of how the body can break down different starches - eg frying rice adds more calories in theory but actually changes the starch type to ones your gut can't digest so well, so you absorb less.

And that's just calories. Your body is a very complex set of closed loop mechanisms. Lets say you eat 2000 calories per day without gaining weight for months on end. Then you drop to 1600 calories. Are you in a calories defecit? That answer will vary massively by individual, for some people the answer will be no, their body just saves 400 calories a day being more efficient.

TL;DR Calorie counting is a hiding to nothing.

Do you allow yourself to eat the extra calories that exercise gives you on My Fitness Pal?

I think that the principle of MFP is that you need a certain calorie deficit per day to achieve the goal you've set, and it factors that in to the daily expenditure. So if your required deficit is X calories per day, and done Y exercise and your base metabolic rate is Z then you need to eat Y + Z - X calories.

However it's over-simplistic if you are doing more than just general normal person exercise. When you exercise you can do different things to your body depending on what exercise you've done. If you do high intensity exercise you'll deplete your glycogen stores and if you don't replenish them then you'll be more tired and weaker next time you exercise, so you'll actually burn fewer calories. If however you do low intensity exercise you'll burn fat and less glycogen so you won't need as much carbohydrate to recover. But, higher intensity exercise creates a stronger post-exercise burn, so it's all quite complex. I don't think MFP takes any of this into account, it's just a simple sum.

I think that many cyclists end up going beyond the general purpose exercise that people do in the gym. A couple of 3hr rides a week places some quite high demands on your body, especially if you are smashing it on an MTB.

if youre not losing weight you need to eat fewer calories (or exercise more), simple as that.

It's not... I mean sometimes this works, but sometimes it doesn't. I'm not going to start another bun-fight here but there's loads of articles on the internet about why it might not work.

EDIT what footflaps said ^^^

Lifting weights is often cited as a good weight loss exercise. But for me, it made me incredibly hungry. And if I forced myself not to eat, I just stayed really tired, I couldn't increase my weights, and my riding went down the toilet. But other people do well with it.

Lifting weights works because
a) in the short term, it burns calories later in the day as your body is rebuilding the muscle. Though you need to eat protein to build muscle and recover. Quite difficult to do that right (if aiming to gain strength/muscle and also lose fat and body mass) which is why bodybuilders cut and bulk in periods. I can do it but it requires a huge focus on calorie expenditure/intake, macronutrient balance and variations around training days. Tough to get right.

b) in the long term it changes your body composition, so for the same bodyweight (after a year of weight lifting) you will have a higher percentage of muscle [which requires energy to maintain] and fat [inert], so your BMR is higher. But then if you eat the same calories to lose weight as you did last year you will be in a higher deficit.

MFP and Garmin watches may be blunt tools or skewed instruments in some ways, but give them a go and see if they work. Monitor your real-life progress against what they say and adjust until it's working.
Also... get a measuring tape. Much better tool than the weighing scales.

- I also disagree with the idea that calorie counting is "a hiding to nothing". It is crucial in weight loss. You may need to finesse it or look into other things too, but you'll never lose weight without knowing how much you are taking in.

Do you allow yourself to eat the extra calories that exercise gives you on My Fitness Pal?

Yes. I'm currently working on a 1000 calorie deficit in MFP, so 1500 calories allowance per day for me. This should help me lose 1kg per week but the reality is that nothing is that accurate, some days I go under, sometimes I go over. My realistic goal is closer to 0.5kg per week weight loss.

A 1000 calorie deficit per day is hard to achieve, I can do it if I really try but I tend to exercise daily anyway which means I burn an additional 500-1000 calories per day. That way I can eat a reasonable breakfast, light lunch, and still have a relatively filling dinner while staying 500-1000 calories below my (daily allowance + exercise). I quite often force myself to do exercise to "earn" enough calories for a decent dinner.

I do this as while I would like to lose weight it's not the end of the world if I don't, and I really cannot be bothered to calculate every last gram/calorie/whatever. It works for me.

However it’s over-simplistic if you are doing more than just general normal person exercise. When you exercise you can do different things to your body depending on what exercise you’ve done. If you do high intensity exercise you’ll deplete your glycogen stores and if you don’t replenish them then you’ll be more tired and weaker next time you exercise, so you’ll actually burn fewer calories.

More complex than that. Your body will burn less calories doing an identical exercise set when in calorie defecit compared with being calorie surpless. So a 1000 calorie run might become an 800 calorie run if you're in defecit.

@footflaps I have experienced this, also I can attest my BMR goes down if I am in enough calorie deficit as I start needing a jumper or coat when I normally am very warm blooded.

I also disagree with the idea that calorie counting is “a hiding to nothing”. It is crucial in weight loss. You may need to finesse it or look into other things too, but you’ll never lose weight without knowing how much you are taking in.

Yes, but as Footflaps say you also don't know how much you are putting out. Calories in/out is clearly important but there are many issues that aren't 'nuance' they are significant. There are loads of stories like the OP's - "I'm sticking to the calorie numbers and not losing weight - why not?"

As we've discussed your body processes different foods differently, for the same calories, and different people's bodies do different things when they exercise and when they eat.

Calories in/out or MFP can be a good start as it simply prompts you not to snack on junk and to be honest. But if it doesn't work or you cannot stick to it then there are other things to consider. It's important to remember that if you cannot stick to it it's not necessarily a moral failure on your part; it might just be the wrong approach for your body, your life or the exercise you want to do. What you eat is as or more important than how much.

Also… get a measuring tape. Much better tool than the weighing scales.

Yes, but I'd avoid measuring your belly as that can go in and out quite a bit depending on what's inside it. Chest measurement might be better.

Thanks all, for the responses, there's a fair bit for me to take in and digest (pun intended).

A bit more info about me:

181cm tall
81.5kg current weight
75kg target weight
44 years old
Have a sedentary job (MFP is set to 'Not very active') and don't log any of my ~8,000 daily steps.
I swim a mile twice a week along with other exercise such as a mixture of: run/cycle/turbo/family hill walk. So do exercise about 6 times a week which (according to Garmin) burns about 4,000 calories a week.

I'm now thinking that will try to only eat some of my extra calories I get from exercise and listen a bit more to what my body needs food wise post big rides etc.

Given what you said, I'd start looking at what you are eating rather than how much. Try eating low or very low GI foods only. There's also the iDave diet.. just saying...

molgrips, you're probably right. I'm still eating 3 meals a day with the occasional sugary snack and occasional alcoholic drink.

When I got down to 74kg in 2020, I abstained from all crisps, sugary foods, bread and alcohol. As well do at least 2 hours of exercise (some quite hard work-outs) per day. Never really calorie counted just stuck to my main meals. Just this was really tough for me and I had a big goal for me to aim at which helped with motivation.

I'll reduce my calories deficit by a couple more hundred calories and see how I get on.

I've got lots of low-carb or low GI recipe ideas, if you don't mind being a bit unconventional.

I’ll reduce my calories deficit by a couple more hundred calories and see how I get on.

Try it, but I predict you'll get too tired, so try the GI thing and compare. As an aside, when you lose the starch you end up eating tons of veg instead which is really good for you.

When you started calorie counting did you weigh or measure your typical servings? You need to get your eye in if not, stuff like granola, you can easily put 4 servings in a bowl, same with the milk. And again with dinner, making stuff like Bolognese, Im sure I'm eating double what MFP would consider to be a meal.

When you started calorie counting did you weigh or measure your typical servings? You need to get your eye in if not, stuff like granola, you can easily put 4 servings in a bowl, same with the milk. And again with dinner, making stuff like Bolognese, Im sure I’m eating double what MFP would consider to be a meal.

i weighed stuff the first time just to get my eye in as you say, for exactly that reason. so in your examples id maybe log 2 X bolognese, or 4 X granolas, then save them as one meal.
or you can create your own meal with your own weights and again, save them as a meal.
when youve logged that once, its easy to just repeat it again the next time you eat it.

I have had success with MFP but only when I am very disciplined. Regarding exercise calories the maximum I eat back is 50% of what my Garmin fitness tracker records "proper" workouts - normally spin or kettlebell classes.

I have my profile set to sedentary but try to do 10,000 steps a day.

My normal allowance is 1500 calories a day which I stick to if I have not done an exercise class, If I have I increase that to 1750.

When I first started I did feel hungry but after a week I got used to it, generally felt a lot better and had more energy. I really enjoyed the food I did eat.

Weight loss was very quick at the start and has now settled at around 2 or 3 pounds a week.

I started at 250 pounds and now am down to 210.

MFP does work well for me as I am quite data driven. I do think the sole focus on calorie deficit is simplistic and ignores other factors mentioned in the thread but it gets me results.

My main issue is maintaining once I reach goal weight. This if the third time I have lost 40 pounds in the past six years.

Since the 1st January I've been using Noom and I'm still using it. I hit my goal weight of 10st this morning. It allows you to log calories / meals etc. and takes half away of what you've spent during exercise, so you don't over eat. Just before Christmas I was 11st 6 and had really struggled with not diving into the choccies, cheese and everything else. Portion sizes were out of control too and I think this is where a lot of it fell apart, also eating when I was making dinner or when I came home from work. Noom really helped explain the psychology behind eating, dieting and maintaining the weight and provides you with some decent tools to help. It costs a few quid yes, but frankly it's worked really well for me. The loss of weight (I was down a stone by then) I also think gave me a few extra positions at the last CX race of the season.

So, BMR for me:
10 x weight (kg) + 6.25 x height (cm) – 5 x age (years) + 5
10 x 79 + (6.25 x 180) – (5 x 40) – 5 = 1710

Mine is 1707.5 - same weight as you but taller and nearly two decades old.

I've never seen this 'calc' before but yesterday I was coming to the end of my ride and my Garmin was showing 2000 calories used - no wonder I was hungry 🙂