Most reliable calorie calculators?

Jeyradan

I'm considering moving to maintenance soon and I'm trying to get a general idea of the calorie limit I can expect. (Obviously, I'm not going to rely entirely on that - I'll increase slowly and see how things go - but I'm pretty anxious about accidentally overestimating and gaining back, especially as I'm so small and on such a tight calorie budget.)

(As a side note, I know that they will all default overestimate for me, because I've verified with a doctor that I personally need less than the "average" for my height and weight. This is just useful as a baseline.)

I've tested out a bunch of online calorie calculators just to get an overview, but some of them are quite different. I used the same height and weight for each one and marked myself as sedentary (except for one, where the lowest possible option was "lightly active"). Do you guys have any opinions on which are most reliable, or any insights as to why they might be so different?

I've tried (including calorie recommendation, from low to high):
- CalorieKing (1300 to 1500)
- Bodybuilding.com (1420)
- Healthy Calculators (1539)
- Calorie Control Council (1548)
- Free Dieting (1550)
- Mayo Clinic (1550)
- Calculator.net (1558)
- Scooby's Workshop (1561)
- Active.com (1956)
- SELFNutritionData (2015)

TavistockToad

make your own data.

start with one of the above numbers (doesn't matter which), log and weigh for 4-6 weeks, if you lose weight, eat less, if you gain weight, eat more... log and weigh, repeat....

ETA: Scooby and MFP were pretty accurate for me!

jemhh

If you're moving to maintenance it sounds like you've been losing weight. I'd suggest doing this:

A = average of last 4 weeks calorie intake per day
B = average of last 4 weeks weight lost in pounds per week
C = B ÷ 7
D = C x 3500

Then do this:

A + D = maintenance calorie estimate

Eat that amount to start and adjust up/down from there.

cwolfman13

I assume you've been losing weight...you should have your own data available and it will be more accurate than any calculator estimate. All of the calculators are just reasonably decent estimates...ultimately you just have to adjust things as per your real world results.

Also, none of the numbers you're illustrating are substantively different except the last one...something you need to understand is that maintenance isn't going to be some exact number of calories...it's really a range of intake because your CO isn't going to be exactly the same day to day...don't get wrapped up in some exact figure, because it doesn't exist.

Jeyradan

Thanks for the input! I have lost weight since I started logging (January 1st of this year), but haven't lost any substantive amount in at least a couple of months - this despite being on 1000 calories (yes, doctor-approved). I'm hoping that's related to other body changes (for instance, I've started strength training and am hopefully adding muscle, and I've started hydrating appropriately after years of being borderline dehydrated), because I honestly couldn't handle being on a 1000-calorie diet for the rest of my life.

I'm looking to move to maintenance to see if I can increase my calorie intake without gaining fat. I'll take your collective advice and do my own calculations. I just worry about accidentally overestimating and doing damage it takes a long time to undo (or can't be undone at all)...