Am I eating too many calories

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Tjs8819
Tjs8819 Posts: 33 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I'm 163lbs 5'5 and eating 1500 cal... is that too many? I need to lose 18 more pounds to reach my goal

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  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,397 MFP Moderator
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    Probably not. But you can track for 4 weeks and adjust if needed (pending you log daily and use a food scale for accuracy). We can only make educated guesses.
  • carolineb81
    carolineb81 Posts: 459 Member
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    Depends how active you are each day
  • Ready2Rock206
    Ready2Rock206 Posts: 9,488 Member
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    Are you gaining weight? Then it is too many. Are you losing weight? Then it is not too many. Is that what MFP gave you to eat to lose weight? Then if you are accurate it shouldn't be too many. If it is a random number you picked then it may or may not be.
  • RGv2
    RGv2 Posts: 5,789 Member
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    When you entered your stats into My Fitness Pal, how many did it give you?
  • californiagirl2012
    californiagirl2012 Posts: 2,625 Member
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    Tjs8819 wrote: »
    I'm 163lbs 5'5 and eating 1500 cal... is that too many? I need to lose 18 more pounds to reach my goal

    5’5” Approximate Maintenance Calories: 1780 (give or take some)

    Maintenance is the amount for you to stay the same, not gain or lose fat. It will ebb and flow slightly with the days and seasons.

    So absolutely 1500 is a calorie deficit for you.

    The closer you get to your goal the closer you need to eat at maintenance, or more days right at maintenance because your body has less fat energy storage to draw from. 18 pounds is actually fairly close, and when you get to within 10 pounds it's more of a "tightrope" to walk. Listen to your body, it will give you a lot of clues!

    If you grow body fat it's too much! haha, duh, we all know this right?
  • Schila64
    Schila64 Posts: 240 Member
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    MFP put me at 1300 then I went and calculated my TDEE and it was1969 cal for maintenance. Now -20% if I want to loose , that puts me at around 1500 and so far I was doing 1200 - 1300. No wonder why I was so hungry.
  • charlieandcarol
    charlieandcarol Posts: 302 Member
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    Schila64 wrote: »
    MFP put me at 1300 then I went and calculated my TDEE and it was1969 cal for maintenance. Now -20% if I want to loose , that puts me at around 1500 and so far I was doing 1200 - 1300. No wonder why I was so hungry.

    MFP put you on 1300 calories based on how much you told it you wanted to lose per week (Did you choose 2 punds?). Plus MFP calculates NEAT not TDEE. NEAT is the amount of calories you burn in a day going about your normal activities without exercise. TDEE includes the exercise. Two different things.
  • cheryldumais
    cheryldumais Posts: 1,907 Member
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    I'm 5'5" and maintenance for me at 135 (which is my goal) is about 1550. Having said that however I am 60 years old. As someone already stated MFP should tell you the right calorie level based on your stats and then you can fine tune from there. Everyone is different based on activity level, age and gender.
  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,182 Member
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    You're profile is private. Your diary is private. We have no idea if you are doing the things necessary to lose 18 lb.

    In general, if you string together a long daily sequence of living in a calorie deficit, you will lose some weight. If you do that long enough to accumulate a (18 X 3500) calorie deficit, you should be able to note the loss of 18 lb within a month or two of that.
  • gwong1966
    gwong1966 Posts: 2 Member
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    Have you considered a keto approach; it's not about counting calories: each macro food type has different impacts on your body and hormones - especially insulin.
  • StaciMarie1974
    StaciMarie1974 Posts: 4,138 Member
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    For comparison, I'm 5'5.5", 127ish, 42, and walk and/or run for a total of about 60-90 minutes daily in addition to a desk job and 2 hour (round trip commute). My maintenance is around 1900-2000 calories daily. While I don't know your activity/exercise specifics, at your height & weight you should be able to lose weight by eating 1500 daily.
  • StaciMarie1974
    StaciMarie1974 Posts: 4,138 Member
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    gwong1966 wrote: »
    Have you considered a keto approach; it's not about counting calories: each macro food type has different impacts on your body and hormones - especially insulin.

    Yet even for Keto, eating at a caloric deficit is still needed to lose weight. Low carb/high fat may have an impact on how satiated you feel after a meal however.
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,397 MFP Moderator
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    StaciMarie1974 wrote: »
    gwong1966 wrote: »
    Have you considered a keto approach; it's not about counting calories: each macro food type has different impacts on your body and hormones - especially insulin.

    Yet even for Keto, eating at a caloric deficit is still needed to lose weight. Low carb/high fat may have an impact on how satiated you feel after a meal however.

    To add, it's also ironic that insulin theory has been getting debunked by metabolic ward studies.

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