How do you find your calories needed?

TylerWhiite

Just curious how everyone finds their calories needed for fat loss? I know there’s so many calculators and methods out there, so I was wondering what methods everyone uses!

malibu927

I use what MFP says

MegaMooseEsq

I started off with MFP’s suggestion and then started a spreadsheet to track my calories and weight. After a couple of months I realized that MFP’s estimate was too low (I was losing faster than I wanted) so I raised my calories. It took a few months of tweaking, but I’m pretty confidant at this point. You don’t need a spreadsheet, but you do have to watch your actual results over time - all of the calculators, including MFP, are just estimates based on population averages.

LivingtheLeanDream

Put in your stats on MFP, choose the rate of loss per week and it will calculate it for you.

TavistockToad

I use MFP

melissawill2017

I set my own calorie goal. I try it out for a few weeks and then make adjustments as needed if I'm losing weight too fast or too slow. MFP says that I should be at 1200 calories a day- no way is that accurate for me; I'd be starving all day if I stuck with that. My advice to you is try calculating your calories on MFP, by TDEE, and any other method you choose to. In the end you are going to be most successful by not starving yourself and eating at a calorie goal that will allow you to lose gradually. Good luck!

juliet3455

The Dietician at the local Hospital made a recommendation and it was very close to what MFP came up with.

1houndgal

I am using MFP. I eat my goal and eat back some of my excercise kcal. I swim and see myself as an athlete nowadays. Whereas before on WW I saw myself as a dieter. Seeing myself an athlete,
empowers me and tells ne to eat to refuel myself. Currently I am set to lose 2 pounds a week. Swim fast!

sijomial

I used this site to suggest my calorie goal based on selecting an appropriate rate of loss I thought I could sustain and also used this site's method of accounting for exercise - be cautious about mixing and matching goals from one place and methods from another unless you really understand what the differences are.

After a month or so I manually adjusted my daily goal calories based on my actual weight loss results when I was confident any initial "whoosh" was gone and my logging was consistent. Didn't need to make much of an adjustment despite my own slightly laissez-faire logging style.

toxikon

I like to double-check with http://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/. I like that they go into more detail on activity levels.