Help Sorting Out Calories ?

akasharuns

I am 5'5 , 143 pounds. I need to lose 18 pounds in 4 months. I run 4 times per week , and burn between 300-600 on these runs. I also weight train on the remaining days. I'll burn 500-700 then.

Should I be consuming 1500 calories only? Should I just be netting 1500 calories for weight loss , and eating a little more than 1500...
So many people have different opinions. I am not confident in anything

Tried30UserNames

That seems low to me. I'd suspect closer to 1700-1800 might be better. Have you tried a TDEE calculator? What does the MFP calculator tell you if you want to lose 1 lb a week? Are you male or female? How old are you? Do you have a sedentary desk job or are your days more active, other than the deliberate exercise you do?

beanz744

whats ur goal, losing weight or getting more muscular? r u female or male? need to know these before i can give my opinion.

lifting weight wont burn 500 to 700, more like 150 to 300 cal depending on how heavy u r lifting. in general u should hit 1500 calories on a NET basis unless u r a female whose main goal is trying to lose weight.

tinkerbellang83

beanz744 wrote: »

whats ur goal, losing weight or getting more muscular? r u female or male? need to know these before i can give my opinion.

lifting weight wont burn 500 to 700, more like 150 to 300 cal depending on how heavy u r lifting. in general u should hit 1500 calories on a NET basis unless u r a female whose main goal is trying to lose weight.

To use MFP as it is intended you should be aiming for a net 1500 calories (if that is the goal MFP gave you) regardless of your sex, MFP calorie goals already accounts for a deficit for weight loss, netting under your 1500 could lead to malnutrition, particularly if you're very active as described.

To OP:

Your TDEE at lightly active (worked on basis of a 30 year old as I don't know your age) would be around 1850. This would mean eating 1500 calories per day will give you a deficit of 350 calories and will give you a weight loss rate of around 0.7lb per week.

Most people using MFP will advise eating back around 50% of the calories burned through exercise for 4-6 weeks to find out the accuracy of the burns logged (machine reads and MFP database can be very inaccurate), however if you're using an HR Monitor/tracker it would be more accurate. You can then determine accuracy from the weight loss rate (if you're losing faster than expected eat more of the calories earned through exercise, if you're losing slower eat a little less of them).