How many calories should be my intake for maintenance losing weight calorie is 1200

tburgess242002

What should be the calorie intake for maintenance if you're used to 1200 how many to many I know you don't want to go under 1200 thank you ifor your help

usmcmp

Usually if you change your goal on here to maintain it sets your calories for you.

There's no way to know what your maintenance number is based on your current calorie goal. Some people get 1200 calories as a goal to lose a pound per week and some get 1200 when they say 2 pounds per week. 1200 is the lowest MFP will set a female's calorie goal. Your maintenance calories could be anywhere from 1450 to 2200. We would need your height, weight, age and activity level to even begin to guess what your goal should be.

AnnPT77

If you've been eating 1200 net calories consistently, one way to estimate is to take the average pounds per week you've lost in the recent past, multiply that by 500, and add the result onto 1200 - that total would be your approximate daily maintenance calories for NEAT method (where you eat back exercise calories, if that's what you've been doing).

1200 + (average pounds lost per week X 500) = rough estimate of maintenance calories

Why? A pound of weight loss equates to roughly 3500 calories, so a 500 calorie deficit equals one pound a week of weight loss. Multiplying your weekly loss by 500 therefore tells you your average daily deficit in calories. Add your daily deficit to your eating, and the result is maintenance calories.

I'd just use maybe the most recent month of data, since you've been getting lighter (thus requiring fewer calories) as you went along.

If you haven't eaten exactly 1200, just use the calories that you actually logged to do a similar estimate. If you haven't been eating back your exercise calories, and don't plan to do so individually in future, you'd want to add your average daily exercise calories in, too, to estimate maintenance calories. If you've been eating your exercise calories, and plan to keep doing that, then you don't need to adjust for that.

WinoGelato

AnnPT77 wrote: »

If you've been eating 1200 net calories consistently, one way to estimate is to take the average pounds per week you've lost in the recent past, multiply that by 500, and add the result onto 1200 - that total would be your approximate daily maintenance calories for NEAT method (where you eat back exercise calories, if that's what you've been doing).

1200 + (average pounds lost per week X 500) = rough estimate of maintenance calories

Why? A pound of weight loss equates to roughly 3500 calories, so a 500 calorie deficit equals one pound a week of weight loss. Multiplying your weekly loss by 500 therefore tells you your average daily deficit in calories. Add your daily deficit to your eating, and the result is maintenance calories.

I'd just use maybe the most recent month of data, since you've been getting lighter (thus requiring fewer calories) as you went along.

If you haven't eaten exactly 1200, just use the calories that you actually logged to do a similar estimate. If you haven't been eating back your exercise calories, and don't plan to do so individually in future, you'd want to add your average daily exercise calories in, too, to estimate maintenance calories. If you've been eating your exercise calories, and plan to keep doing that, then you don't need to adjust for that.

While this is probably the most accurate way to do this, most users probably should start with just letting MFP provide a maintenance calorie estimate, especially if using MFP numbers for losing, to simplify matters. Use the system the same way you are today, just at a slightly higher calorie goal.

OP when transitioning to maintenance, it often helps to slowly increase cals up to that new goal, maybe add 100 cals/day each week till you get to that number. You might still lose slowly but it helps avoid a big spike on the scale from increasing too fast.

Noreenmarie1234

You need to figure that out yourself with calculators and trial and error. For example,I ate 1200-1500 to lose, I overshot my goal because I knew when increasing back to maintenance you gain a few lbs of water weight and glycogen stores. I gained a few lbs (like 3-5) when transitioning to maintenance at 1800. Then, not too long ago I increased to 2200-2500 because I was always hungry and had urges to binge and didn't gain anything and now have more energy. I count VERY accurately too and it boggled my mind I could maintain on more than I was eating. It is probably because when eating more I have more energy and my body uses the calories to perform bodily functions better.

tburgess242002

Thank you all for your input