How many calories for weight loss?

amandamdouglas462

I know everyone has different calorie needs but I'm so confused on how many I should really be aiming for. I workout at a bootcamp about every other day (recently started) and I'm also breastfeeding so that's about 500 calories a day extra. I'm not really losing any weight and am so confused on what to even aim for, currently eating around 1800-2000. Any suggestions?

quiksylver296

How old are you, how tall are you, how much do you weigh and how active are you?

Can't even guess without that information.

amandamdouglas462

I'm 5"8 215 lbs and I workout about 3-4 times per week at a pretty strenuous bootcamp. My weight before having both kids back to back was 160 and I was solid. Looking to achieve that with about 22% body fat again.

NorthCascades

Nobody here will be able to give you an exact number. Fewer than you eat, but that's not very exact.

Log everything you eat. Log the exercise you do, too. And your weight. (I weigh every morning, naked, after doing my business; this makes the number as consistent as possible, ruling out "I gained weight because I drank a pound of water.") After a few weeks, you'll be able to use your logs to figure out how many calories you need.

quiksylver296

amandamdouglas462 wrote: »

I'm 5"8 215 lbs and I workout about 3-4 times per week at a pretty strenuous bootcamp. My weight before having both kids back to back was 160 and I was solid. Looking to achieve that with about 22% body fat again.

1800 seems like a reasonable number, based on that info. Start there. If you are dropping weight too quickly (more than 2 lbs/week), eat a bit more. If you aren't losing, eat a bit less. It's a bit trial and error, but I think you're in the range.

ConnieT1030

Plug that info (height, current weight) into MFP (along with age, which you didn't specify) and it will tell you what the appropriate calorie amount to shoot for is, based on what you want to lose. Choose a conservative amount, probably a half pound a week is best, because youll be losing the calories from breastfeeding as well. Your age makes a huge difference in metabolic rate.
You can fine tune from there if you need to, but most people do just fine with MFP's suggestion. Either set your exercise level to what best fits what you actually do, or choose sedentary and log your exercises, but dont take MFP's amount of calorie burn at face value, its usually too high, only eat 50-75% of what it says you burned. If you got your calorie burn from something else like a fitbit, input that amount instead, and add that to your calorie target that day.
That's the beauty of MFP, you dont have to know what youre doing, or how to figure out how much to eat, it's designed to figure out all that for you, you just log it all down.