I know you get this type of question/post often but...

hinicetomeetyou

Hiya MFP.
I put my stats into the MFP calculator.

It states that I should aim for the following:

1200 calories to lose 1.5lbs per week
1350 calories to lose 1lbs per week
1600 calories to lose 0.5lbs per week

I figured I'd set myself to strive for an average of 1500 per day.

I'm 5'4"
I'm nearly 33 years old
I'm female
I'm 172.6lbs

(Goal is to weigh 140lbs.)

Today I ate a little under 1500 without feeling deprived or hungry. Start from here and adjust as needed, right? 1200 per day would wonderful but I honestly dunno if I'll really ever achieve that low a mark. Hopefully 1500 per day will do the trick.


Feedback is welcome!

JeromeBarry1

Nice to meet you likewise. You are doing it sensibly. To continue doing it sensibly, check your rate of loss monthly to verify that you are losing at the rate of 1% per week. Of course some weeks will be gains, some losses, and some unchanged, so look at it monthly and see if the first month is a loss of 4%. Even if the first month isn't, keep doing it sensibly for the second month and then see if 8 weeks is a loss of 8%. If not, say it's higher than 8%, adjust your calories a bit to slow down. You don't want to be doing this in a way that scavenges your muscle, which is what will happen if you lose weight too fast. If your 8 week rate of loss is lower than 8%, you get to choose to either eat less or exercise more. You've got a good head on your shoulders and you'll get to your goal in good order.

Geocitiesuser

hinicetomeetyou wrote: »

Today I ate a little under 1500 without feeling deprived or hungry. Start from here and adjust as needed, right? 1200 per day would wonderful but I honestly dunno if I'll really ever achieve that low a mark. Hopefully 1500 per day will do the trick.

I weigh a little bit more than 10lbs more than you at 6' and strive for about 1500 calories as well as per MFP's calculator. 1200 is difficult, but possible. Just make sure for the love of all that is sane, you are eating back some of your exercise calories. MFP's system is based on your baseline metabolism (the bare minimum for just sitting sedentary all day) and is designed so that you can eat back some of the calories you burn.

The system is not perfect, you will need to experiment with how many calories your exercise is burning and make sure you're tracking as accurately as possible, so that you can watch your trends and adjust your calories as you see most fitting. Most of us take the "calorie burns" for cardio and half them b/c they tend to be really high.

So basically, yeah, 1500 is great if you can do it, so is 1200, but even though that's your target, that's only if you're not exercising. For example, my target is 1500 but most days I log around 300 calories of exercise, so that number goes up to 1800. I would only eat a flat 1500 cals if I did absolutely nothing all day

I hope this helps.

Cortelli

hinicetomeetyou wrote: »

Hiya MFP.
I put my stats into the MFP calculator.

It states that I should aim for the following:

1200 calories to lose 1.5lbs per week
1350 calories to lose 1lbs per week
1600 calories to lose 0.5lbs per week

I figured I'd set myself to strive for an average of 1500 per day.

I'm 5'4"
I'm nearly 33 years old
I'm female
I'm 172.6lbs

(Goal is to weigh 140lbs.)

Today I ate a little under 1500 without feeling deprived or hungry. Start from here and adjust as needed, right? 1200 per day would wonderful but I honestly dunno if I'll really ever achieve that low a mark. Hopefully 1500 per day will do the trick.


Feedback is welcome!

Yeah, you're doing this thoughtfully. Don't be surprised if you lose MORE or LESS than you expect at an average of 1500 cals per day -- MFP and other calculators make a good guess but we're all individuals and we all fidget differently and heat up / cool down differently, and have different ideas of what it means to be "lightly active." You've set a sensible goal as a starting point (as JeromeBarry1 said) and give it a fair bit of time to see results and then compare results with expectations. Thereafter adjust as needed or wanted. Good luck!

hinicetomeetyou

Thanks very much, everybody! I appreciate the responses!