Serious advice needed with calories

slimmingmachine

I'm 42yrs old, pear shape, petite up top and hold my weight on my legs and I'm 5ft1.
126lbs looking to get back to 112lbs.
I have no idea how to calculate my calories an MFP is way to low at suggesting 1200.
My exercise routine is 2 Metafit classes (30min each), 2 Bodypump classes (60min each), 1 Insanity class (50min) and 1gym session around 1.5 hour per week.
Can anyone help me set a realistic calorie goal or give me some idea to what calories to eat back? Thanks in advance.

Equus5374

Learn about and then calculate your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure). This will tell you what your body burns just doing its thing throughout the day. Then you can calculate your daily caloric needs, factoring in what you want to accomplish for weight loss. Keep in mind that around 1 lb of weight loss per week is considered healthy. The other thing is that the weight will come off your body from where your pre-programmed genetics tells it to. Be patient, be very patient, and keep on keepin' on! TDEE calculator here: http://iifym.com/tdee-calculator/

jemhh

If you are not comfortable with the goal that MFP gave you, consider reducing the number of pounds per week that you are trying to lose. What number do you get if you tell it that you want to lose .5 pounds per week?

Also, keep in mind that you are supposed to log your exercise and then eat the calories. You might want to start by eating back 50% of those calories, just in case the calorie number calculated by MFP is overstated. Then reevaluate in 4 weeks to see if your weight loss is on track.

astralpictures

Another TDEE calculator to compare: scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

At your current weight and goal, you're better off losing less than a pound a week. Set your goal to .5 lbs in MFP, and make sure you add all of your exercise calories (most people eat back half to be safe accounting for inaccurate burns). The Scooby calculator estimated you could eat 1595 calories a day to cut 20%, assuming you work out 3-5 hours a week moderately based on what you said for stats and activity.

RoxieDawn

I am posting some links you might find helpful for this. I am 5'4" and I had to custom setup my goals when losing weight so I am not the best to help with this, but hopefully these "stickies" will help with learning all of this...

Setting Your Calorie and Macro Targets
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/819055/setting-your-calorie-and-macro-targets
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1072049-thoughts-on-tdee-calculators-and-switching-from-mfp-to-tdee

And for exercise,
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/818082/exercise-calories-again-wtf/p1

doktorglass

Hi, at you height, weight and moderately active, your TDEE is ~1750kcal. Since you only need to lose ~15lbs, I think 0.5lbs/week is a good pace. That would be a daily calorie allowance of 1500kcal/day. (deficit of -250kcal/day). Time to goal: around 4 months.

brendak76

I'm 5'2 and 124. MFP gives me 1250 to lose 1/2 pound a week at the "sedentary" lifestyle. I exercise a lot and try to be conservative and eat back 1/2 of my exercise calories. That puts me at around 1400/day, which isn't a ton. It is what it is for shorter women. I've used several calorie calculators and mfp is right there in line with all of them.

Do you know how many calories you currently eat to maintain your current weight? Maybe just go with that and cut back by 200/day or so.

farfromthetree

you can do it one of 2 ways. Use the 1200 calories MFP sets, calculate exercise calories and eat half or all back, depending on how aggressive you want to be. I never ate large amount of calories back. When people eat back 1000 calories from exercise, it is too much in my opinion, and may negate any weight loss.

or you can use this (my favorite calculator)http://scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/

Play around with the numbers, activity level and it will give you your BMR, TDEE, and your daily goal (depending on your weight loss goal) When using the scooby calculator you do not eat your exercise calories back.

In the end whether you use scooby or MFP, the daily number works out to be about the same.

Scooby=MFP+exercise