A Nutritionist Once Told me...

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LMBelladonna
LMBelladonna Posts: 71 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
A few years ago, I was referred by my General Practitioner to a nutritionist within our clinic (so, certified.) She was one of the most helpful nutritionists that I had been to and even helped me find more features that I had not used on MFP before!

As I was looking to reduce weight, she told me that the amount of calories that you eat per day essentially determines what your goal weight would be. Meaning, if you eat 1500 calories per day it equates to 150 lbs, 1600 cal/day = 160 lbs. and so on.

While this makes sense, I am curious if anyone else has been told this before?
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  • LMBelladonna
    LMBelladonna Posts: 71 Member
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    Maintenance plus higher activity levels I can understand needing more. However if you are working on reducing weight...
  • Theoldguy1
    Theoldguy1 Posts: 2,473 Member
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    psychod787 wrote: »
    lemurcat2 wrote: »
    No, and it's not accurate. Your calories for maintenance (which is what she's basically talking about) will be different based on activity and height and muscle mass (to some extent). Also, even assuming one is sedentary (which is not ideal), those numbers seem low except for shorter people.

    I am about 130, and my maintenance is not 1300, and I lost down to 125 while eating around 1600 cals per day.

    Yes ma'am. I'm 208 and maintain on 3000+ because of exercise and food choice. While using modifications like 10,1,2,14×bw can be a rough ball park, only self experimentation tells the whole truth.

    Yeah, I'm basically the same weight and like you maintain at around 3,000 calories.
  • MikePfirrman
    MikePfirrman Posts: 3,307 Member
    edited August 2020
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    psychod787 wrote: »
    Theoldguy1 wrote: »
    psychod787 wrote: »
    lemurcat2 wrote: »
    No, and it's not accurate. Your calories for maintenance (which is what she's basically talking about) will be different based on activity and height and muscle mass (to some extent). Also, even assuming one is sedentary (which is not ideal), those numbers seem low except for shorter people.

    I am about 130, and my maintenance is not 1300, and I lost down to 125 while eating around 1600 cals per day.

    Yes ma'am. I'm 208 and maintain on 3000+ because of exercise and food choice. While using modifications like 10,1,2,14×bw can be a rough ball park, only self experimentation tells the whole truth.

    Yeah, I'm basically the same weight and like you maintain at around 3,000 calories.

    I'm 6'3" average 15k steps and lift 4 days a week. When I was 180 my maintenance was 3400. That's when I was weighing and measuring everything I ate. I have let myself drift up to 210ish 18% bf. Have maintained that on roughly 3700 cal for the past 2 months. OP. If I listened to your nutritionist, I would be ina deficit. We are all n=1.

    I actually probably eat just as much now as I did when I was obese. I was 255 at my largest and over 40% BF. I'm like 18 to 20% BF now at 195. I eat "cleaner", if you want to call it that -- I'm just more aware of what goes into my mouth and how many calories it is -- and I workout an hour a day, six days a week and my "off day" is very active as well.

    I'd guess I eat 3000 calories a day now. That's roughly what I ate before. Take out the 600 to 700 calories in an hour (I've worked up to this level over years of cardio) and that's nearly 1 lb a week. It took me like 8 years to get obese, so it's likely I eat more now than before, assuming just 500 or 600 calories a day in exercise, which is a low estimate for me.

    I've been in maintenance for 8 or 9 years. When I lost, my budget was 1750 and I was losing around a half a pound a week then, also very active then (but not nearly as fit as I am now).
  • nanastaci2020
    nanastaci2020 Posts: 1,072 Member
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    Not true for me. One size does not fit all when it comes to weight loss. Take someone at the beginning of their weight loss journey with a large amount to lose: they can choose 1 or 2 pounds per week, say 1500 or 2000. Depends on how fast or slow they want to go and how much they want to cut back their food. That person would thus have a goal weight of 150 or 200. Kind of a big leap there.
    LMBelladonna wrote: »
    A few years ago, I was referred by my General Practitioner to a nutritionist within our clinic (so, certified.) She was one of the most helpful nutritionists that I had been to and even helped me find more features that I had not used on MFP before!

    As I was looking to reduce weight, she told me that the amount of calories that you eat per day essentially determines what your goal weight would be. Meaning, if you eat 1500 calories per day it equates to 150 lbs, 1600 cal/day = 160 lbs. and so on.

    While this makes sense, I am curious if anyone else has been told this before?

  • Go_Deskercise
    Go_Deskercise Posts: 1,630 Member
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    Total coincidence BUT I'm currently 139 and MFP gave me a calorie goal of 1390 :D:#B)
  • deputy_randolph
    deputy_randolph Posts: 940 Member
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    That's an over-simplification....and that algorithm for weight loss is not one I've seen before.

    I'm 135 and maintain around 2000 calories per day. Age, activity level, body composition all play a role in the calories needed to maintain/lose/gain.

    I have had success using MFP for weight loss/maintenance/gain. The best advice I can give you is to start with the algorithm that MFP uses and adjust as needed. Use MFP's suggested calorie goal, follow that guideline for a few weeks, evaluate your weight loss, determine if you need to eat more or less, adjust calorie goal for a few more weeks, re evaluate.
  • spiriteagle99
    spiriteagle99 Posts: 3,680 Member
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    I'm 122 lbs. and my maintenance calories without any activity are about 1600. Since I do walk, run, etc. every day, my actual calories are quite a bit higher.
  • glassyo
    glassyo Posts: 7,617 Member
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    God, I hope not. Because, even with having to gain, to get to 105 without extra activity* would mean eating 1050 calories and that's only 30 above my bmr. And also only 1050 calories. :) And that just ain't gonna happen.

    *my sedentary is truly sedentary because I have a desk job and I'm lazy so if I don't take my purposeful walks, I'd be back to sitting on the couch watching tv and eating all night.
  • skinnyjingbb
    skinnyjingbb Posts: 127 Member
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    It is obvious not accurate for everyone. I felt it was good advise for the OP. For average height women, if not counting exercise, the number is about right. Also I felt the important take away in the nutritionist advise is to think about maintenance calorie from the beginning. Do not set a goal for an idea weight because you like that number or you see it on a chart somewhere. Set your goal by determining the calorie budget you can live on relatively comfortable for long time, so it is sustainable. Say your goal weight is 140lbs, you lost weight to 150lbs successfully with 1500 calorie, but further reducing calorie make you miserable, or doing lots of exercise is not your thing, then just stop and maintain at 150lbs and find other way to improve your health and well being.

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