How much calories do I need to lose weight?Help!

curvychica

Hey everyone! I am new....

I am a 16 year old female 5'7 and I weigh 180 pounds. My BMR is 1629. I need to know how much calories I need to consume to lose weight...? I have been scouring the internet and I got A LOT mixed results. I turned here because of the success stories MFP has I am going to start walking an hour a day. So, how much calories do I need to eat to lose 1-2 pounds a week. I am thinking 1500..not sure though. I definitely know not to eat 1200 b/c that's too low. I was also thinking 1800...? Good,bad?

ladyhawk00

Here is a good thread that explains how to determine a good loss goal and cal goal. Good luck to you!

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/61706-guide-to-calorie-deficits

Cytherea

Why don't you try what MFP tells you? It does all the calculations for you, as long as you put in an accurate weight/height/activity level/etc. If you put in 2 lbs. per week and it gives you 1200 calories, change it to a lower amount lost per week so you can eat more than that.

Everyone is going to tell you something different- some will tell you one amount is too low and another person will tell you that same amount is perfect. Someone else will tell you to eat even less. Some people will say to cut out all carbs, or all processed foods, and so on and so forth. But you said it yourself- MFP has successes. Most people have done it here by following the guidelines that the site gives you. If you find that it isn't working for you for whatever reason, then you might want to switch it up, but if you are just starting and you like the results that you see on here, why not just try it out?

catcrazy

At 16 although you may have finished with the height your bones etc are still not finished so make sure what you do eat is as balanced as possible. Your dietary requirements are different than that of an adult 21+ so it might be wise to seek the advice of a certified dietician (there are a few on here...put a shout out on the forums)

As you are so young and still growing I would suggest starting of no lower than 1800 unless told otherwise by someone qualified

ladyhawk00

At 16 although you may have finished with the height your bones etc are still not finished so make sure what you do eat is as balanced as possible. Your dietary requirements are different than that of an adult 21+ so it might be wise to seek the advice of a certified dietician (there are a few on here...put a shout out on the forums)

As you are so young and still growing I would suggest starting of no lower than 1800 unless told otherwise by someone qualified

Good point, and I would agree.

monkeydharma

Don't think of it so much as 'how much can I eat and lose weight', but rather 'how fast do I want to lose it?'

Simply put, one loses weight when the amount of calories they eat is less than the amount they burn. Since a pound of fat equals 3600 calories, you'll lose a pound when you have eaten 3600 calories fewer than you've expended by your daily activities. How quickly? Depends on how big the difference.

If you eat 500 calories a day fewer than your BMR+exercise, then you will lose ONE pound per week (500x7=3500 cal). A thousand less per day will take off TWO per week (1000x7=7000 cal; two pounds is 7200).

Here's where it gets tricky. If you drop below 1200 cal per day, you are tempting your body to go into 'starvation mode', where it DROPS your basic metabolism and INCREASES the amount of calories your gut will extract from what you eat - making it MORE difficult to lose weight. So, for you it is probably best to go for a pound a week (dropping your intake to 500 calories less than your BMR+exercise). Want to lose two pounds per week? Then you need to add 3500 calories worth of exercise per week (500 avg per day) - doable, but fairly extreme.

So - manage your expectations, adhere to basic science, and don't get sidetracked by spurious claims.

Good luck!

taletreader

Welcome! I think you're asking good questions, and I like that you clearly want to go about this sensibly. That's great.

OK, so here's the deal:

- You're overweight, but not *very* (BMI around 28 or so). Losing around 30 lbs, as you say is your goal, sounds sensible and certainly doable without deprivation or suffering. I'd target something like 1 lb/week, as you have a lot less to lose than many of us, and the closer you are to the "normal" BMI range, the harder it gets and the more slowly you should take it. But even so, by the end of spring you'll look QUITE different.
- You're not done growing and developing, and possibly (due to your youth) have a much more revved up metabolism than those of us who are in our 40s and 50s. Also, you may be more active, or at least it should be easier to raise your everyday activity level.

Now how to estimate a calorie goal? There are two ways about it:

a) The MFP way: MPF lets you set a basic goal (based on your target calorie deficit, BMR and daily *general* activity level) and then *add back in* any additional calories you burn with exercise. Pros: You track your exercise more closely (motivation!) and vary your consumption based on your exercise intensity (ie, you eat more on exercise days and less on rest days). Cons: Both calorie counting and estimating exercise calories is hard -- studies show we tend to overestimate the second and underestimate the first. Ouch. Also, I find people who slavishly follow the MFP recommendations don't always learn what calorie goal they're aiming for once at their goal weight and what the numbers mean, and are stumped once they run into a plateau.
b) The simple calorie counting way: You estimate your calorie consumption *including* exercise, subtract 500 cal (or whatever your deficit is) and eat THAT every day. A variation of that is to calculate energy expenditure at your target weight and simply eat *that* (minus 200 or so once you're close to your target -- see http://www.fat2fitradio.com/tools/bmr/ for a calculator). Pros: You get a better idea of your actual calorie needs.

(There are actually a lot more ways to go about it... some baseline recommendation is to eat 10 cal per lb of body weight for a moderate deficit. Works fine too!)

Me, I sort of like to do both -- I do set a "no extra exercise" target and eat 100-200 cal more on exercise days, but I want this entire weight-loss thing also to lead to a better understanding of how my body works and how I should treat it for the rest of my life.

So running your numbers a few ways, it looks to me that *if*you*add*activity*, you'd quite easily end up with a daily calorie consumption (including that activity, exercise, whatever) well north of 2000 calories, and if you're completely sedentary around 2000 calories. Given you say you want to start walking I am guessing you aren't hugely athletic already (nothing wrong with that -- walking's great, and you can always always build it up over time). All this would lead me to this approach:

- Target maybe 1700 calories a day, plus or minus 100 depending on whether you got exercise in or not.
- Pay attention to the quality of food -- learn something more about food preparation (if you're like 99% of 16 year olds, you aren't an experienced chef yet and it's gratifying to learn something like that), read labels, DON'T become phobic of any particular ingredient.
- Pay attention to the nutrients -- if you're over in protein compared to MFP's recommendations, that's actually a good thing (moderately over), but try to avoid going over in fats and carbs. You'll see that fried foods and cakes, as you probably would have guessed, make this harder .
- GET MORE ACTIVE. If you like walking, go hiking in the weekends. There sure is a hiking group around you could join. Volunteer at an animal shelter and walk their dogs. Get a bicycle and cycle to your daily destinations. Resistance training would be good, but if you're aghast at the idea of using a dumbbell, leave it for a while. Join an exercise class -- "core strength" type things (yoga...) or maybe you like dancing -- there are all sorts of dance-based classes around.
- Observe for 3 weeks: How did your weight develop? How do you feel? Are you getting more stamina? And based on the results after 3 or 4 weeks, tweak the calorie intake or the exercise output, or both!