Can someone help with my daily calorie intake?

tanialuke

Hi,

I am after any help that any of you are able to offer.

I am 5ft and weigh 57kgs. My BMR is 1546 calories/day

According to many sources i have read in order to lose 1 pound, one must create a 3500 calorie deficit.
I want to lose 0.5 kg/week (id love to lose more but that does not seem possible)
0.5 kg is equal to 1.1 pound, so i have worked out that i need at 3850 calorie deficit per week in order to lose 0.5 kgs.
3850 divided by 7 is 550.
Which means shaving 550 calories of my daily BMR calculated amount, and that equals a daily net calorie consumption of 996 calories.

Does this sound right to everyone? I have also read a lot of information that says I should not be eating under 1200 calories/day, but according to my maths if i do that i will not lose any weight at all!

I find it all so confusing, but maybe because I am so short i really do have to cut back to 996 per day??

I get so jealous looking at others food diaries. Mine just seems so measly, and im still not dropping kgs (although i have only been doing this seriously for a very short time).

Thanks in advance!

janesproject17

Hi, I'm not 100% sure but I thought your BMR is your basal metabolic rate, which is the calories required to simply function. ie, breathe, rest, digest food, organs work. This is not your total calorie requirements for the day because you need to walk, speak, work, eat etc. So while your calorie deficit to lose weight is probably right, I suspect the starting number needs to be higher. I recently read somewhere that you need to add a certain percentage on to your BMR requirements to arrive at your daily calorie requirements. Sorry I can't recall where, but I suspect 996 is too low and will make weight loss more difficult because you could potentially put your body into starvation mode. I'm a tiny bit taller and bit heavier and am slowly losing weight on about 1250-1300 calories a day. Exercise is helpful if the weight is not moving. hope this helps.

tanialuke

Thank you for your advice. It really does seem to low to me too. I might just stick to the 1100 recommended by The petite advantage diet and see how that goes for a few weeks before making any changes.
I have just had some very interesting advice via PM that has suggested I increase to 2100/day for 1 month, and then drop to 1700. He says I will gain initially, but then will lose. I'm too scared to do this ATM, but if my current plan doesn't show changes in 1 month, I may give it a try. On one hand it makes no sense, but if you read all of his information it actually makes a lot of sense. I'm still confused, but just going to stick to one thing for longer than a week, and see if I can figure out what works for me. Thanks again.

jaz050465

You could get a Bodynedia Fit device which will accurately calculate your daily burn.

jaz050465

If not, you need to decide what you daily activity is WITHOUT exercise- sedentary, lightly activevetc and set MFP to that. On top of that, you add your exercise daily. Most calculators include that in daily activity but MFP is different. This will give you extra calories to eat. Lots of people feel MFP over estimates this so only eat back some of these. A HRM for exercise will be more accurate if its cardio exercise.

Adw7677

You're at a healthy weight for your height. That could be why the weight loss formulas are coming up too low. You should shift your focus to health rather than weight. If you are interested in firming some areas of your body, meet with a trainer (or research the internet) and find out what exercises you could do to work those specific muscle groups.

Definately don't go below 1200. I've done that most of my life and it's one of the causes of my obesity. I recently increased my calories and I'm finally losing weight.

Good luck!

Schmidty102

Hi! You never want to go below your BMR. This is the number of calories your body requires every day to just function - this is what you would burn laying in bed all day basically. You burn probably 1000 more calories a day than what your BMR is.

Go to: http://www.fat2fitradio.com/tools/bmr/
and put in your age, gender, and height. Put your current weight in for current weight AND goal weight (so, if you weight 150lbs, put that for both). If you know your body fat percentage, you can put that. Hit submit.

Go ahead and post what your results are in the Activity level table. (give sedentary, lightly active, etc.)

AndyLL180

You don't use BMR (Basil Metabolic Rate)... you use TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure). TDEE is calculated from your BMR and activity level.

After you calculate TDEE you eat 500 calories less or better yet... TDEE - 20%.

MFP will calculate everything for you if you go through the goal setting process.

From reading the forums MFP seems to set female calories to low... double check the calories MFP sets using another calculator.

I use http://www.fat2fitradio.com/tools/ to calculate everything.

AndyLL180

Now that I figured out what 57Kg is in pounds ( 126 ) I think that 1.1 pounds per week is really aggressive and hard to hit without under eating which might have the opposite effect then you want.

1/2 pound per week might be a more realistic goal.

Andy