How many calories should i be eating a day?

dm22121

Hello peeps, i am new to this site and i am learning about nutrition and dieting and that sort of thing. I was wondering how many calories i should be eating a day? My stats are - 19 Years old, 5 foot 9 and a half inches tall (Maybe 10), Around 160 pounds. Most days i am doing things around the house or at college so i spend 30% of the day sitting and the other 70% Standing, Walking, Doing things of daily life basically. I do try and do one lifting session a week although i don't do it every week. I would be grateful for any input on this peeps, thanks

mrsmcmo

Welcome! I followed the calories that MFP gave me, based on height, gender, weight and activity level and have been very successful. I would start there and see how it goes. I didn't worry about macros (and still don't really, though I try to be at about the right percentages) as much as I just stayed within my daily calorie allowance.

dancafc1995

Would u say I'm lightly active? Is Sedentary like sitting ALL day?.

mrsmcmo

*I* would say lightly active in your situation. I believe sedentary would be more suited towards people who work at a desk job for hours and hours with minimal physical exertion.

alereck

Are you a male or female? This is the website I use:

http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/
I've input your info as if you were male and to maintain your weight you should be eating at about 2,000 cals. If you want to lose weight then you decrease that by at least 200 depending on how fast you would like to lose the weight.

Learning how to measure your food and log accurately is the most important thing when starting on this site. If you don't do that properly and most people don't, that number does not mean a thing.

Good luck.

RaspberryTickleChicken

Are you attempting to gain, lose, or maintaining weight?

This is the maintaining section so if you are looking to lose or gain, you may want to repost the question in the Gaining or Losing forums to get a more robust response.

And if you are looking to maintain, I'd suggest plugging in your stats here to get a good starting point iifym.com/tdee-calculator/

It's never an exact science because everyone is different.

Good luck!

20yearsyounger

start logging what you are eating and see where you are at. What you are doing is close enough to maintenance at 5 9. Make sure your protein is in a good range (at least 20% depending on your goals)