Confused about how many calories I should be eating

keegalie

I thought I was suppose to be eating 1200 calories/day but I'm reading that that isn't enough and will actually prevent me from losing weight. Can someone explain to me how I can figure out how many calories I should be eating in order to lose a significant amount of weight? I would like to lose at least 60 lbs while eating healthy and going to the gym 4-5 times a week. Thanks!

trudijoy

http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/

You need to be eating at least your BMR. SO figure that out, and either eat what MFP tells you and then eat back your excercise calories until you're over BMR, or set your calories as your BMR and only eat back a portion of excercise ones if you feel you need them.

http://thefitgirls.com/tdee-calculator.aspx

Use this one to work out your TDEE and make sure your food intake is LESS than your TDEE number and more than your BMR number.

That's pretty much it

ETA - BMR is your basal metabolic rate (how much energy you would burn even if you were comatose). TDEE is yout total daily energy expenditure on a normal day.

megsmom2

Put your stats into the magic MFP system...but do NOT tell it you want to lose 2 lbs a week..that's really too fast, and will inevitably spit out 1200 cals... which just isn't enough for most people to be satisfied with. Tell it 1 to 1.5 a week. You'll get a more do-able number. Now....eat that amount. Every day. PLUS eat your exercize calories. You will lose weight. It works. You can do this. Really!

keegalie

Thank you : )