Calories set too high?

Kittyy1994

Hi all, i am 5’6” currently 63kg trying to lose about 3 more kilos. I am set to lightly active and 0.2 kg a week weight loss. My calorie goal has been set at 1700 by MFP.... I feel like this is too much to lose weight - I am managing three very decent meals and two snacks and sometimes even dessert within my calories goal each day, I don’t feel like it is any less than I used to eat before trying to lose weight. Any advice/ similar experiences?
Thanks

apullum

How long have you been eating this number of calories?
Are you losing at the expected rate?
Are you weighing all of your food using a food scale?

Kittyy1994

Hi, I’ve only started 10 days ago and haven’t weighed myself again yet. Yes weighing and measuring all food accurately. I guess I just expected to eat a lot less...?

shadow2soul

The only way to know for sure is to try it for 4-6 weeks and see what happens.

I am losing weight on 1800 and I’m only 5’4.5. I am active though and before I had surgery for mirena removal (followed by trying BCPs that didn’t agree with my body), I was 54.5kg maintaining on 2300-2500. I am trying to get back to being as lean as I was then even if that’s a little heavier. I might be an outlier on that though. As I have seen posts from other women who sound to be more active than me, similar height and need less to maintain a higher weight.

Best advice I have:
- a food scale
For accurate logging. A food scale is more accurate then eyeballing portions or using measuring cups. It is also less clean up than measuring cups.

- Avoid “Homemade - *insert meal here* entries in the database. You don’t know the exact ingredients used or what amounts were used. This makes it highly unlikely to be accurate for what you are eating.

- Double check all entries you log. Just because it has a green check mark doesn’t mean it’s correct. Also don’t trust the barcode scanner to pull up the correct entry. I’ve scanned tortillas before and the scanner pulled up jalapeños.

apullum

You don't have much to lose, so your calorie intake isn't going to be that much less than your maintenance calorie goal. This also means that you shouldn't expect your weight loss to happen very quickly at all.

Many of us recommend recomp rather than weight loss for people who are already in a healthy BMI range, as you are. Recomp builds muscle and reduces fat, so this often helps folks who are at a healthy weight yet are not happy with how their bodies look.