Advice on Cutting needed

semmenegger
semmenegger Posts: 1 Member
in Goal: Maintaining Weight
I’m going to be honest, I do not have much of a clue about any of this stuff. I noticed that maintaining 145 pounds takes 2540 calories but I read online that it’s recommended you obtain 10 calories per pound a day. That would be 1450 calories which is a huge difference. I use to run cross country collegiately so I understand I’m going to burn some calories because I stay active but how should I go about it if I want to stay relatively close to my body weight but obtain a good body?

Thank y’all!

Replies

  • DancingMoosie
    DancingMoosie Posts: 8,613 Member
    Have you gone through the guided set up here on mfp to calculate your calories based on your goals? That's a good place to start. Then log your food and exercise and go from there.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
    Why on earth would you choose such an inaccurate method when far better ones (including, but not limited to, the guided set up here) are available at the click of a mouse?

    Should I ignore my physically active lifestyle and the 1000+ calories I burned in a cycle ride today because some dumb formula says I should eat 1780 cals when my true maintenance needs today are over 3600, makes no sense to me!
  • mtaratoot
    mtaratoot Posts: 13,125 Member
    I think it's a misunderstanding of context.

    Play around with Sailrabbit. Enter a number of different combinations of height and weight. The super basic "ten calories per pound of body mass to maintain" seems to be pretty close to BMR (basal metabolic rate). As we need to keep in mind, BMR is for zombies. As soon as you wake up and roll over in bed, much less get out of bed and start doing things, your caloric needs go up.

    @semmenegger

    Definitely use the tool on MFP to get a first estimate. Go play around with Sailrabbit, too. You'll see that there's a bunch of estimates, and they are based on your self-reported level of activity. What you're looking for is TDEE (total daily energy expenditure), not BMR.

    Keep in mind that if you use MFP's goal setting tool, it gives you NEAT, not BMR or TDEE. That's non exercise activity thermogenesis. This is based on your BMR plus your daily activities, like sitting at your desk, cooking, and eating. When you do EXERCISE, that will also increase your caloric need. Eat back some, most, or all of the exercise calories you get through MFP.

    Be as accurate as you can on all entries. In six or eight weeks, you will have more personalized data to make small changes to attain your goals.

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