How many calories should I eat?

shosh413

Ok so I am F 5"4 and currently give or take 141 pounds. I started MFP at 145 saying i wanted to lose a pound and a half a week and they had me eating at 1200 calories (not including exercise). After June and July went by i went on the elliptical almost everyday for about 45 minutes and then did stretches/some classes... By the end of July i was almost 139 pounds... in the second week of august i started 30 day shred. My clothes definitly got loser and i definitly am getting more muscle... but i gained a pound (i also had a really bad binge weekend so its prob from that too) and now the scale constantly fluctuates from 142-145... though i do look smaller etc

i know i'm building muscle and i shouldn't pay attention to the scale... only my body but i have been the same weight for a few weeks now and after researching bmr and tdee i'm questioning whether i should be listening so strictly to MFP's 1200 calorie goal. I do usually eat back my calories, but every day i eat a different amount... sometimes its 1400.1500. It definitely depends on my exercise which is not exactly the same every day... and sometimes i leave over 100 calories or so and sometimes i eat over unfortunately... but i try to keep the weekly goal under.

last week instead of saying i wanted to lose a pound and a half a week i said a pound.. because i realize its more realistic... this only upped 40 calories in the MFP system... from 1200 to 1240

So according to MFP my BMR is 1394... and i'm really confused about what my TDEE is because different websites say different things... I think one said around 1600..

Do you think i should set my MFp to 1600 and not eat back cals and always just try to eat that much?

fueledbychange

MFP sets it up so that even if you do absolutely no exercise, you still burn more calories than you eat, because they have it at 1,200. If your BMR is higher than that (it is) then if you eat 1,200, you will burn calories and lose weight. If you exercise, it is important that you eat back at least some of your calories. It's good to have a net of about 1,200, but most people actually need more.

Personally, I don't like to trust online calculators when it comes to TDEE because they're so broad and can often be incorrect by hundreds of calories. Try upping your intake by 100-200 for a few days/weeks, and see how you feel! It's all about listening to your body.