How many calories should I really be eating?

katie133

I KNOW there are a million posts about different people talking about this in different situations, so i apologize in advance, but those that are patient enough to help me out i would really appreciate the help!

I have been eating 1200 cals for just over a month and the first two weeks dropped quite a few pounds.. but lately it has been stalling and i havent really lost anything... ive been stuck at 163.2 pounds for about two weeks, and just today went down to 162.( i dont feel deprived at all eating 1200 a day)

I've read so many posts about people who have had more success eating more, so i changed my goals and am now set to about 1500 a day. Is this a good idea? It would great to have a few opinions on this/success stories from people doing this... I have seen so many different thoughts about how you should eat your bmr/eating more to lose more,etc..

About me:

i weigh 162 lbs, 5 foot 4, work out anywhere between 4-6 days a week, doing cardio all of those days 35-60 mins and stregnth training about 2 days a week ...other than working out i sit at my desk all day working

melsinct

I started MFP at 175 pounds (I am 5’7”). I said “Screw MFP’s recommended 1 lb/week loss, I want to lose weight NOW! And FAST!” So I set it for a 2 lb/week loss which gave me 1200 calories. I did not eat my exercise calories back because I wanted to lose weight super quickly.

I lost roughly 15 pounds very quickly and then plateaued for a long time. After one month of the plateau, I finally started reading the MFP forums and realized I may be eating too little. I upped my calories to 1400 and gave it two weeks with no change. I finally caved and set MFP to a 0.5 lb/week loss, started eating back some (but not all) of my exercise calories and finally, after a 2 month long plateau, the weight started moving again within a week. I was now eating 1500-1600 calories/day and I felt so much better, more energized, and the scale consistently started moving downward again.

Moral of the story: enter a reasonable goal into MFP (no more than 1 lb/week loss) and eat what it tells you to. See if that works for you. If not, then start tweaking it and doing your own thing.

katie133

Thanks for sharing... Makes me feel better about upping my calories and will hopefully get good resluts, like you... I was doing the same at 1200, eating some of my exercise cals some days, and some days none.. congrats on your great loss!;)