Daily caloric intake on MFP confusion

bjankabanjac

I'm 20 years old, female, 172 cm (5'8"), I weigh 75 kg (165 lb), and I exercise 3-5 times a week. Since I've joined MFP over a month ago, based on the site's calculations, I've been eating 1200 calories a day and not much seems to be happening, my weight loss has stalled. I've been researching a lot and mostly I've come to realize that I should probably be eating a little more than that. Please just help me determine how many calories a day should I be consuming to lose about 1-2 lb weekly.

beachbum4044

I use calorie king as a tool. I believe you are not eating enough, I would try increasing your goal to 1400 and see if that helps create positive movement for you.

http://www.calorieking.com/interactive-tools/how-many-calories-should-you-eat/?ref=nav

malibu927

beachbum4044 wrote: »

I use calorie king as a tool. I believe you are not eating enough, I would try increasing your goal to 1400 and see if that helps create positive movement for you.

http://www.calorieking.com/interactive-tools/how-many-calories-should-you-eat/?ref=nav

If she weren't eating enough, she'd be losing.

Set your goal to a pound (or .5 kilograms) a week, eat the goal it gives you plus half your exercise calories, and invest in a food scale.

MKEgal

bjankabarazani wrote:

I'm 20 years old, female, 172 cm (5'8"), I weigh 75 kg (165 lb), and I exercise 3-5 times a week. Since I've joined MFP over a month ago, based on the site's calculations, I've been eating 1200 calories a day and not much seems to be happening, my weight loss has stalled. I've been researching a lot and mostly I've come to realize that I should probably be eating a little more than that. Please just help me determine how many calories a day should I be consuming to lose about 1-2 lb weekly.

If you were eating less than you're burning, you'd be losing weight.
The last thing you need to do is eat more if you want to lose weight. (That being said, you're probably eating more than you think, not actually 1200 calories. If you were, you'd be losing weight.)

At 5'8" going by BMI you should be 125 - 160. So you're practically at a healthy weight now. Losing 1-2 lb per week is not a reasonable goal. 1 lb a month would be a victory. 0.5 lb is more likely.

Since you're having trouble, weigh or measure everything so you're sure about how much you're eating.
Ignore exercise calories, esp. how much MFP says you've burned. Notoriously inaccurate. Just ignore them completely, do not eat any of them.

Here's a newbie help post I did with links to helpful info such as sexypants, accurate measuring & logging, goal setting (including weight, calories, macros), motivation...

This calculator will tell you not only your BMI, but how many servings of various foods to eat to maintain that weight.
https://www.bcm.edu/cnrc-apps/healthyeatingcalculator/eatingCal.html
At your stats, if you were inactive and wanted to maintain 160 lb you should eat 1883 cal/day.
Aiming for 1200, you should be losing 0.5 lb per week, which is really too fast.

bjankabanjac

I weigh all my food and log everything, I'm really restricting and I doubt that I'm eating more than those 1200, and if I am, then it's a small number and still something should be happening. Also, I don't eat the calories back lost from exercising and I know that the calories lost number is highly unreliable.

When I chose the settings on MFP, I chose I wanted to lose 0.7 kg weekly and I chose I have sedentary lifestyle because aside from exercising 3-5 times a week, I don't move much and have a desk job. Do you also include exercise in that lifestyle part? If so, then I would choose moderately active and it makes my daily calorie intake higher, to 1350. I entered that and that's what started this whole confusion.

malibu927

Can you open your diary up? If it gives you 1200 calories for your goal, then generally that will be too aggressive a number, especially for your age and size. Like MKEgal said you're on the cusp of a healthy BMI, which can make losing tougher as you don't have much to go. Also, the way MFP is set up you are expected to eat back the exercise calories. The reason I said 50% was because of those overestimations.