How many calories are you eating to lose weight?

iamdanielstrong

Hi there, i am kind of new to this, I joined a while back but have only been really starting to use mfp for the past month. I am curious what some peoples daily calorie goals are.. mfp says i should eat 1200 cals a day. I feel that is way to little. I am also looking for some clean eating friends!

jenmom2myboys

Are you exercising, too? Eat back your exercise calories. I am at 1200 and however much I exercise which cam bump me up to 1600-1700 calories a day. My food diary is open and feel free to add me.

montana_girl

I'm 44, 5'2 and have just 4 more pounds to get back to goal (yea!!). I have MFP set at 1455 calories + I eat back my exercise calories. I have actually been eating more than that (about 1475 + exercise calories) but because I'm eating clean, I have still been averaging a weight loss of .7 per week.

Some people will tell you 1200 calories is too low, so if you feel it is too low than determine your TDEE (just google TDEE calculators) and eat 10% to 20% less than that.

Feel free to add me and my diary is open (though be warned, I tend to only clean about 80% of the time! LOL).

kelly_e_montana

It sort of depends on what your goals are and what else you are doing.

If losing fat while maintaining muscle is a big thing to you, you can try a slower loss by cutting 20% from your TDEE on your rest/recovery days and cutting 10% or eating at maintenance on your heavy workout days. This assumes you are strength training and eating adequate protein.

However, if you just want to lose weight and don't care about body composition that much, MFP is probably fine and just eat your exercise calories back.

I am 5'5" and have 13 pounds to go and I eat 2100-2700 calories per day but I am highly active with lots of strength training and CrossFit.

iamdanielstrong

Thanks everyone!

jocop2003

I am new to this group to I am in the same bought I am striving for no more than 1550 calories a day. If you search the Olivia Method in my Fitness Pal it will explain a few things there, you don't have to follow it is really up to you. I am nervous about eating back to many calories but I also don't want to much a deficit that I am under eating.

jbaerbock

I'm a guy so MFP sets my caloric goal a bit higher than the ladies. It tells me 1800 a day but I tend not to eat that much. I got down to about 165lbs about a year ago and then blew it :-(. So am trying to get back down there.