How many calories should I eat a day? (confused with calculators)

amiwills

Sorry, I know you probably get these questions all the time! I am finding these online calculators very confusing. For a long time I was putting my incorrect height in (I am actually 162cm which converts as 5.31496ft.... would this be 5'3ft or 5'4ft?) and I've lost a bit of weight now too but I am also unsure what activity level I should be selecting. Some calculators are recommending I eat below 1200 a day to 'lose weight fast' or 'lose 2lb a week' but that is just not going to happen, I struggle as it is on 1200 a day. I am going to put my info below and I wonder if anyone would be able to tell me more accurately what I should be eating to maintain, to lose, etc.

Sex: Female
Age: 23
Height: 162cm (as above, unsure wether this is 5'3 or 5'4)
Current weight: 133lbs
Activity: Need help with this...
...My time is split between studying and being at home with my baby. I go to the gym every single morning and do 45mins cardio, it's always a hard workout and I push myself more every time. I also walk for at least 90 minutes Monday to Friday and this is with the pram too, I try to walk fast and I choose the uphill routes to try to get a bit of a workout in!

Ideally I'd love to be able to continue to lose 2lb a week, but I am certainly not going to go below 1200 calories per day. According to my scales I've been losing 2lb for a week for many weeks, and this has been eating at least 1200. I thought if I worked out every day I might be able to eat more calories but I haven't been able to find much info on that.

Thanks everyone

jandsstevenson887

I'm the same height. I put 5'3" and to lose 1lb/week. You don't need to lose 2lbs/week at this weight. I'm 138 and trying to get to 127. I put lightly active and I log all my exercise and eat some of my calories back. I usually eat between 1300-1400 cal/day. I make sure I leave some calories to account for possible logging errors.
MFP is designed for you to eat your exercise calories back so even if it tells you to eat about 1250cal/day, if you burn 300 in your workouts, you can eat most of those back and eat about 1500cal/day.
Does this make sense?

kommodevaran

You are overthinking this!

You can change units to centimeters.

Activity level is very difficult to determine. I have had to "extrapolate" mine from my calorie intake and weight. You have to adjust intake to "real life" anyway.

You have a normal weight, and any weight loss will be slow. 2 pounds per week is for the obese. A calorie deficit of 3500 is required to lose a pound of fat. You can "spread" that deficit over as long as you want, up to this limit: one pound of fat can only metabolize 31 calories per day. If you aim for a slower rate, you can eat more. If you exercise more, you can eat more. Weight loss isn't linear; some weeks you lose more, others less, some weeks it looks like you've "plateaued", and sometimes as you've gained. Weighing every day can give you more data points.

chrisfwood

Lets start with 2lb is not a good idea for people close to their ideal weight, 0.5 to 1lb is a better idea.
Going by this http://www.healthchecksystems.com/heightweightchart.htm you are close at 5'3.

Next the value is a net value, so if you do workout you need to eat more you earn them especially if you are on a high loss deficit.

If I need 2000 to maintain my current weight standing still, and burn 700 running I now need 2700 to maintain, it is that simple. Think averages the body can cope with a little more one day and little less another day so long as over time the average is right, there is nothing magic about 24 hours.

This is taken from the Garmin site

 	Training Description 		Training 		Frequency 	
0 	No exercise 			- 			-
1 	Occasional, light exercise 	Once every two weeks 	Less than 15 minutes
2 								15 to 30 minutes
3 	Once a week 			Approximately 		30 minutes
4 	Regular exercise and training 	2 to 3 times per week 	Approximately 45 minutes
5 								45 minutes to 1 hour
6 								1 to 3 hours
7 					3 to 5 times per week 	3 to 7 hours
8 	Daily training 			Almost daily 		7 to 11 hours
9 					Daily 			11 to 15 hours
10 								More than 15 hours

I would put you are a 6 or 7 from what you have described.