Calories too high?

obrienk6

Does any one else feel like their calorie count is too high based on the apps percentages?

It is telling me I should be eating 1750 calories.. I'm 5'9 and 135 pounds. In order to lose weight, every website I've read is telling me I should be consuming 1200.

Please help!

Seffell

How much have you indicated you want to lose on the 'goals' page? What activity level have you set for yourself?

I'm 70kg, 171cm and have a (very) sedentary activity level. To lose 1lbs/week MFP gives me 1200 cals. (1200 is also the minimum MFP will give you even if you set to lose more a week, because less than that is not healthy)

Most likely 1750 is your maintenance for a sedentary lifestyle.

Edit: In general sedentary includes up to 5000 steps per day.

shadow2soul

What activity level did you select and what rate of loss?

Rit1603

obrienk6 wrote: »

Does any one else feel like their calorie count is too high based on the apps percentages?

It is telling me I should be eating 1750 calories.. I'm 5'9 and 135 pounds. In order to lose weight, every website I've read is telling me I should be consuming 1200.

Please help!

Why would you want to loose weight at 5.9' and 135 pounds?? It looks very good to me

kuftae

Rit1603 wrote: »

obrienk6 wrote: »

Does any one else feel like their calorie count is too high based on the apps percentages?

It is telling me I should be eating 1750 calories.. I'm 5'9 and 135 pounds. In order to lose weight, every website I've read is telling me I should be consuming 1200.

Please help!

Why would you want to loose weight at 5.9' and 135 pounds?? It looks very good to me

Because some people want to be exceptional. If you look in the mirror and say "dang" that good-- but it doesn't mean that you can't improve.

1750 seems high. For reference, I'm a 175lb 6' male and I eat 1850 a day to lose 1.5- 2 lbs a week when cutting.

shadow2soul

kuftae wrote: »

Rit1603 wrote: »

obrienk6 wrote: »

Does any one else feel like their calorie count is too high based on the apps percentages?

It is telling me I should be eating 1750 calories.. I'm 5'9 and 135 pounds. In order to lose weight, every website I've read is telling me I should be consuming 1200.

Please help!

Why would you want to loose weight at 5.9' and 135 pounds?? It looks very good to me

Because some people want to be exceptional. If you look in the mirror and say "dang" that good-- but it doesn't mean that you can't improve.

1750 seems high. For reference, I'm a 175lb 6' male and I eat 1850 a day to lose 1.5- 2 lbs a week when cutting.

Without knowing how active she is it's hard to say if it's too much or not. I am able to lose 0.7 lbs per week with an avg intake of 1871 calories and I'm 5'4.5"/121.5 lbs. Sure it's not as fast as your loss, but I'm okay with that. If I go buy the 1% body weight recommendation, I shouldn't go much faster anyway.

obrienk6

I am pretty active as I work out for an hour a day cardio incorporated with body weight workouts.

I haven't lost any weight - for whatever reason my stomach look like I'm 3 months pregnant if I am not flexing.. I am pretty thin and toned every where else but there. It's frustrating so I'm looking to shed a few pounds to see if it helps.

I put to lose 1 pound per week.. But I got nothing

shadow2soul

Keep in mind your activity level setting on MFP should NOT include exercise.

Base that on how active you are in your day to day activities without exercise. Then see what calorie goal it gives you.
I also recommend using a food scale for solid foods (when at home) for accuracy.

RGv2

kuftae wrote: »

Rit1603 wrote: »

obrienk6 wrote: »

Does any one else feel like their calorie count is too high based on the apps percentages?

It is telling me I should be eating 1750 calories.. I'm 5'9 and 135 pounds. In order to lose weight, every website I've read is telling me I should be consuming 1200.

Please help!

Why would you want to loose weight at 5.9' and 135 pounds?? It looks very good to me

Because some people want to be exceptional. If you look in the mirror and say "dang" that good-- but it doesn't mean that you can't improve.

1750 seems high. For reference, I'm a 175lb 6' male and I eat 1850 a day to lose 1.5- 2 lbs a week when cutting.

And being exceptional can also come with a more razer thin deficit in order to maximize losses to mainly BF and not LBM, which normally includes not losing at 1.5-2 lbs per week. With the ops stats, 1700 sounds about right.

ConnorMacFarlane21

Hmm, since it doesn't seem like anybody on here can be sure of a particular caloric intake, I'd suggest manipulating your daily calorie goals across various weeks.

For one or two week periods, you could try decreasing your daily calorie goal by 100-200 calories/day. I'd imagine that if you manipulated your calories over 2 week periods, that would be enough time to see the effects that particular intake rate will have on you. Progressively drop your daily caloric intake over these 2 week stretches until you find a daily caloric goal that suits your fat loss goal. Perhaps next week, you could try a 1550 calorie/day intake and see how that works. If that's not enough, you could try 1400 a week or two later (although I don't think you'd need to go THAT low). If 1550 has you losing too much weight, you'll know the right amount of calories will be somewhere between 1550 and 1750; at that point, you can just tinker with the counts until you find precisely what you're looking for.

As an example, I've tried this method over the past month or so and have found a calorie count that allows me to cut weight while still feeling good and lifting well at the gym. I started at around 2200 calories/day for 2 weeks and found it to be too high a count. After several weeks of manipulating my counts, I've found 1900 calories/day is enough to let me increase strength while cutting fat fairly quickly.

Try this yourself, if you aren't in a rush to lose your weight immediately. It might take a few weeks of number crunching, but it's better than jumping on a crash diet and feeling like crap.

I realize you might've already considered this approach, but I figure it's worth mentioning just in case.
Good luck!

shadow2soul

obrienk6 wrote: »

I am pretty active as I work out for an hour a day cardio incorporated with body weight workouts.

I haven't lost any weight - for whatever reason my stomach look like I'm 3 months pregnant if I am not flexing.. I am pretty thin and toned every where else but there. It's frustrating so I'm looking to shed a few pounds to see if it helps.

I put to lose 1 pound per week.. But I got nothing

At your current weight, I wouldn't expect more than 0.5 lb per week loss. You are already getting close to the bottom end of your BMI, so you might want to consider recomp (there is a thread about it in the Maintaining section)

Also, could it be your posture that is making you think you look pregnant?

For reference I'm using this:
http://www.iifym.com/iifym-calculator/

Sedentary day to day
1 hr workout/moderate difficulty/7 days a week
2063 to maintain estimate
1750 intake = 313 calorie deficit/0.6 lb per week loss

Sedentary day to day
1 hr workout/moderate difficulty/6 days a week
1999 to maintain estimate
1750 intake = 249 calorie deficit/0.5 lb per week loss

Sedentary day to day
1 hr workout/moderate difficulty/5 days a week
1935 to maintain estimate
1750 intake = 185 calorie deficit/ 0.37 lb per week loss

^ If any one of these are the case, it would be very easy to erase any deficit with logging errors. But I'm thinking you might want to consider recomposition.

obrienk6

Thank you everyone for you help and advice! I'll keep you posted!