Calorie Goal to lose 40lbs ?!

dominicantummy

Hey everyone, I'm trying to lose 40lbs by the end of this year and I'm wondering what should my calorie goal be? It has been at 1600 but I'm guessing that's too high since I've only lost 10 lbs this whole summer. Any thoughts at where it should be?

deannalfisher

What is your current weight? 40lbs in just over 4 months is fairly aggressive unless you have 100+ lbs to lose (since 10lbs a month is 2.5lbs a week or 1250 cal def a day)

dominicantummy

I'm 257, I want to be down to at least 200 by the end of the year.

tiffany011191

Try doing 1200 calories and add more cardio.

kimny72

Are you already set to lose 2 lbs per week? Are you using a food scale? If not, tightening up your logging is probably in order. Start weighing out your portions as often as possible, and check that the entries you are using in the database are accurate. Here is a great post about logging:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1234699/logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide/p1

Having said that, 2 lbs per week may be too aggressive. Sometimes adding a deadline to goals isn't as helpful as it would seem. 1 lb per week is actually great progress - congrats on the 10 lbs so far!

(And please don't just randomly eat 1200 calories, there is no reason to starve yourself to meet some time deadline.)

rmgnow

10 lbs lost -- Summer--3 months is not bad.
If you want you can recalculate.
And log accurately.
1600 is aggressive in my opinion. If you are accurate and honest, it will happen

kommodevaran

We could use your height and age as well, and how long "summer" has been, but I'd say 1600 calories is a good goal, and that you could lose faster at your current weight, and at 1600 calories at your weight, you should have lost more than 10 pounds in 3 months. So, I think your logging is off - you are eating more than you think. But it's easy to fix if you're willing:

Buy an electronic food scale and use it for everything you eat and drink. Find correct entries in the food database for each item, or create your own. Log everything in the exact amount of grams that you actually eat. Don't leave anything out, don't forget, or cheat. And don't give up. Aim to hit your calorie goal +/- 50 every day,but you need consistency way more than accuracy, and lots and lots of patience. Weigh yourself regularly under the same conditions each time and watch the trend. You will want an average loss of around 1% of your body weight per week, and feeling energetic and happy. If something is not right, adjust accordingly.

I would also NOT set a deadline on weightloss. Just eat and move as planned, and you WILL lose weight in a timely fashion.

DebLaBounty

Ten pounds a month weight loss for four months to get to your goal sounds very aggressive to me. Why not just have a goal of losing 40 pounds without the deadline? What's so important about WHEN you reach your goal? You did great losing 10 pounds already. Keep up the good work!

nowine4me

Time + Effort is required for weight loss. Just punch your stats into MFP and do exactly as it says. You're doing great so far, just keep doing what you're doing and have a bit of patience.