Please check my numbers...

Scaredycat2

Hi there lovely (and mean ;-) ) people of mfp. First of all, I've been lurking for a while and have gotten some wonderful advice from the sticky threads... and bought a food scale!

Secondly - I've taken a couple of weeks break, but before that I lost 13 pounds in 12 weeks netting on average 1500 calories per day. From this I'm guessing that my maintenance would be around 2000? So - if I wanted to continue to have a very slight loss (say up to a half pound per week) do you think I'd be safe to aim for 1700-1800?

Yes, I could plug the numbers in to mfp, but it gives me way less calories than experience has shown that I lose on! I am short and small, but very active.

Thanks in advance for your help

StealthHealth

To give a reasonably accurate estimate you would need to provide Age, height, current weight.

But, they are only estimates - The real test is to eat at a calorific value for a week or two and monitor your weight loss progress. Many people on MFP do just that.

My recommendation is, up your calories by 200 per day and monitor for a couple of weeks then tweak by 100 cals in either direction based on loss/no-loss.

Edited to add - You've done well so far and if you've been losing at 1500 then you're probably right that maintenance is about 2000 and slight loss will be maintained at about 1700-1800.

williams969

Your personal data (calories in and weight loss over a time period) is indeed a closer estimator than TDEE calculators (which are themselves just estimations). I'd be very confident that about 2000 is indeed your maintenance number.

It really is as easy as eating at the 1750 range to slow down your rate. Caveat: you may notice a stall or gain on the scales after in increase in calories (or not). It is totally normal and temporary.

Ride it out and trust the process. There's a thread here somewhere called "why you gain when you eat more than your cut" that explains why. Someone with computer skills maybe can link it, or use the search function.

MommyMeggo

williams969 wrote: »

Your personal data (calories in and weight loss over a time period) is indeed a closer estimator than TDEE calculators (which are themselves just estimations). I'd be very confident that about 2000 is indeed your maintenance number.

It really is as easy as eating at the 1750 range to slow down your rate. Caveat: you may notice a stall or gain on the scales after in increase in calories (or not). It is totally normal and temporary.

Ride it out and trust the process. There's a thread here somewhere called "why you gain when you eat more than your cut" that explains why. Someone with computer skills maybe can link it, or use the search function.

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1071202/why-you-gain-weight-if-you-eat-more-than-your-cut

Scaredycat2

Thanks for the advice! I'll stick to 1750 for a few weeks and see where that takes me... then re-evaluate with those numbers