2500 calories for weightloss

thkdiffgirl

Hi
My trainer is advising me to eat 2500 calories a day. Anyone else had success with weightloss with 2500 calories, females in particular?

Thanks

wunderkindking

It is really going to depend on your activity level and current size. It's not some gender specific thing that trumps those two things.

I'm currently 5'5" and 140lbs. This week I did a whole lot of extra activity. Most days I ate about 2300 calories and that still gave me a decent deficit.

When I was 5'5", 190lbs and still active (but not as active as this week) I could have lost on 3000. Because maintaining and MOVING that 190 lbs took a lot of calories.

thkdiffgirl

Thanks. I am 5’10.5 and weigh 225 pounds . I like working out and have been on a rollercoaster with weight loss. Sigh. So hopefully a trainer and mire commitment would help.

AnnPT77

I've been losing very slowly, at 5'5" and 125 pounds, age 65, female, eating 2200-2500 many days recently, on good workout days (less than that, 1850, on a full rest day). I'm around the sedentary/lightly active border non-exercise steps-wise at this time of year, and retired. So, not consistently 2500, but I'm much smaller & older than you.

On what basis is your trainer coming up with 2500? Like, how many hours a week are you exercising, for each main type of exercise? What's your non-exercise life like (job & home chores)?

What does MFP say for pre-exercise calorie goal at a moderate weight loss rate, for you? (Note that you'd add exercise calories to that number to get an eating goal)? What does a TDEE calculator** say, if you consider, both daily life & exercise, and a 20% deficit (or less)? Do you have any history of loss with calorie counting (month or more long) that you could use to create a personalized calorie needs estimate?

** I like Sailrabbit, which lets you compare multiple research-based formulas, give you more activity levels (with better descriptions) than some other similar calculators, and will use body fat percent in some formulas if you have any decent estimate of that.

thkdiffgirl

Thank you so much for the helpful information! My trainer based it on 2-4 workouts a week. I guess I can give it a try , I figure nothing to lose eating clean and working out.

thkdiffgirl

In the past I have had success with just counting calories, but not sustainable.

xxzenabxx

https://tdeecalculator.net/result.php?s=imperial&g=female&age=30&lbs=225&in=70&act=1.55&f=2

Well according to the TDEE calculator above you would burn about 2800 calories with moderate exercise so your trainer is actually right. You say you have been on a rollercoaster for weight loss so maybe you’ve been restricting calories too much and then falling off the bandwagon because it was unsustainable? You’re pretty tall as well and it’s a fact that the taller you are the more you need to eat (in general) and a lot of tall women struggle with that concept.

I’ll give you my own example-

I’m much smaller and shorter than you at 5’ 4” and 160ish lbs and I lose weight on 2100 calories as a weekly average. If I’m less active then 1800/1900. I used to cut down to 1000/1200 calories and crash diet. I was basically yo-yo dieting and it took me years to get out of this cycle especially after my health suffered. What I’m trying to say is yo-yo dieting wastes alot of time and effort and it’s not worth it. Going slowly and sustainably and aiming for permanent weight loss is actually much faster (even though it’s slower in terms of results) because you won’t have the hassle of gaining it all back or even more. I would stick to 2500 calories for 4 weeks and then evaluate and see if you need to drop calories but I’m sure trainer will advise you on that.

thkdiffgirl

Thank you so much, makes a lot of sense why yo-yo diets do not work for me long term. Agree, going to stick with it and see what happens in a month