HOW MANY CALORIES ???

Albertafun
Albertafun Posts: 29 Member
edited November 12 in Health and Weight Loss
How do you know how many calories you need to eat in order to lose weight? I am currently on a 1200 cal. a day but everyone I talk to says that it is too low. I do have a office job but I also doing a lot of moving I average about 10,000 steps as day (fitbit) and I also workout at curves 3 -4 times a week. Please help
thanks
Julie

Replies

  • juggernaut1974
    juggernaut1974 Posts: 6,212 Member
    Current height/weight and goal weight?
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    edited February 2015
    How many calories does fitbit estimate you should eat?
    You can also tell if you are losing faster than your plan is set at.

    1200 is the lowest women are supposed to cut their calories to remain healthy. The thing that happens generally is over restriction, some end up binge eating, and some end up feeling like crap. 1200 would be way to low for me. I tried sticking to 1400 for a while back in Dec. As an experiment so to say. This meant I wasn't eating exercise calories or calorie adjustments from my activity tracker. My workouts suffered slowly and after 3 weeks I felt horrible. 1600 calories is approximately a 1000 calorie deficit. I know this based on loss vs intake averages. Having to large of a deficit can result in muscle loss and as a result a lower metabolic rate when it comes to maintaining. My personal goal is fat loss. I want to keep as much muscle as possible, so I eat as much as I can and still lose around 1-2lbs per week on average.

    edit: I should add that while 1200 is to low for me. There are people who do just fine on it.
  • Albertafun
    Albertafun Posts: 29 Member
    sorry current weight is 173 and height is 5"2'
  • juggernaut1974
    juggernaut1974 Posts: 6,212 Member
    Using a generic online TDEE calculator, that comes out to about 1900 calories TDEE. To lose a lb a week, you need a 500 calorie/day deficit - so somewhere closer to 1400-1500 would seem a good number to try.

    Try it for a few weeks and see if it's working...if not, adjust from there.
  • prattiger65
    prattiger65 Posts: 1,657 Member
    OP, I ran you numbers and lightly active would put you at @2000 calories per day TDEE, meaning that's how many calories you burn a day. With that in mind, to lose 1 pound per week you would need to consume 1500 calories per day. Make sure you weigh all your solid food on a food scale and measure liquids with measuring cups/spoons. Accurate logging is important, particularly as you first start out. You will probably get a lot of advice/opinons, take them all, mine included, with a grain of salt. Good luck to you
  • Camo_xxx
    Camo_xxx Posts: 1,082 Member
    You use one of the many online calculators to get an estimate and then adjust it over time according to your actual results.
  • Aemely
    Aemely Posts: 694 Member
    edited February 2015
    Good advice above. Here are some links that might help.

    To change your goals, click Goals > Change Goals > Guided, Continue (direct link), enter in your accurate information and realistic goal weight, and click Update Profile. MFP will give you good information on how many calories you should eat each day to safely lose weight. Here's a chart to help you decide how many lbs. to set for loss per week:

    Between 40 - 75 lbs. to lose? Set to lose 1.5 lb.
    Between 25-40 lbs.? Set to lose 1 lb.
    Between 15-25 lbs.? Set to lose 1 -.50 lb. range.
    Less than 15 lbs.? Set to lose 0.5 lbs.

    BMI Calculator: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/tools/bmi-calculator
    BMR Calculator: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/tools/bmr-calculator
    TDEE Calculator for Cross-Checking: http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
    That scooby website told me I can only eat 1200 calories to maintain my weight...
    I'm 5"8 and 140lbs
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    edited February 2015
    christinev297 wrote: »
    That scooby website told me I can only eat 1200 calories to maintain my weight...
    I'm 5"8 and 140lbs

    @christinev297?
    I entered your stats.

    From the Calorie Calculator with Desk Job/little exercise:
    gcv354vdw9lq.jpg
    hh8pe4fa1auq.jpg

    From the Accurate Calorie Calculator with Desk Job/little exercise:
    yw8rwf5jadnv.jpg
    utnui3mkkrov.jpg



    Are you sure you weren't looking at the amount to lose weight? A 20% deficit of the first 1 is a little over 1300 and a little over 1200 for the second.

    edit: I get close to 1200 if I say your 100 years old or I change height to 3'6" or I change weight to 80lbs.
  • Aemely
    Aemely Posts: 694 Member
    shadow2soul wrote: »
    edit: I get close to 1200 if I say your 100 years old or I change height to 3'6" or I change weight to 80lbs.

    LOL. If I get to 100, I'm *so* not food-logging. :lol:
  • segacs
    segacs Posts: 4,599 Member
    Aemely wrote: »
    LOL. If I get to 100, I'm *so* not food-logging. :lol:

    Me neither. When I'm 100, I'm gonna eat ALL THE ICE CREAM.
  • Aemely
    Aemely Posts: 694 Member
    christinev297 wrote: »
    That scooby website told me I can only eat 1200 calories to maintain my weight... I'm 5"8 and 140lbs

    MFP's BMR calculator gives me 45 cals. lower than the Scooby's calculated BMR level. The numbers are just different enough that I find it fun to cross-check the two tools.
  • lisalipscomb1116
    lisalipscomb1116 Posts: 1 Member
    So I'm looking at that Scooby site and it tells me what my weight will be in 60 months. That is five years. Is that right?
  • prattiger65
    prattiger65 Posts: 1,657 Member
    Another site is www.fat2fitradio.com they have a pretty good calculator.
  • segacs
    segacs Posts: 4,599 Member
    lisalipscomb1116 wrote: »
    So I'm looking at that Scooby site and it tells me what my weight will be in 60 months. That is five years. Is that right?

    Yeah but you don't need to look that far out. That graph is just to illustrate that if you keep eating the same number of calories for long enough, your weight loss will eventually level off as you get closer and closer to your goal weight.

    Actually, there's a better version of that calculator here:
    scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    This content has been removed.
  • Zedeff
    Zedeff Posts: 651 Member
    How do people manage to register on this website and still have these questions?
  • segacs
    segacs Posts: 4,599 Member
    Zedeff wrote: »
    How do people manage to register on this website and still have these questions?

    Because MFP makes a huge mistake when it asks new users to sign up by choosing how fast they want to lose the weight. Without understanding more about how it works, most people are gonna choose 2lbs/week since it's the fastest option given, and duh, why wouldn't you want to lose the weight faster? But for most people, that's not an appropriate goal.

    We could cut down on these questions a LOT by skipping that question and having MFP automatically calculate a default goal -- and rate of loss -- based on a ~20% deficit. That would work for most newbies, and people could always customize their goals later.
  • Albertafun
    Albertafun Posts: 29 Member
    Thank you so much all of you, you have al given me great pointers and ideas.
  • Zuidz
    Zuidz Posts: 15
    I don't think 1200 is too low at all.
  • Zuidz
    Zuidz Posts: 15
    Zedeff wrote: »
    How do people manage to register on this website and still have these questions?

    Way too many. ;P
  • saggyandbaggy
    saggyandbaggy Posts: 138 Member
    Just to say I have been eating 1200 for months and it works for me - You just have to find out what works for you!
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
    shadow2soul wrote: »
    christinev297 wrote: »
    That scooby website told me I can only eat 1200 calories to maintain my weight...
    I'm 5"8 and 140lbs

    @christinev297?
    I entered your stats.

    From the Calorie Calculator with Desk Job/little exercise:
    gcv354vdw9lq.jpg
    hh8pe4fa1auq.jpg

    From the Accurate Calorie Calculator with Desk Job/little exercise:
    yw8rwf5jadnv.jpg
    utnui3mkkrov.jpg



    Are you sure you weren't looking at the amount to lose weight? A 20% deficit of the first 1 is a little over 1300 and a little over 1200 for the second.

    edit: I get close to 1200 if I say your 100 years old or I change height to 3'6" or I change weight to 80lbs.

    thank you so much @shadow2soul I must have clicked on something really wrong lol

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