How many calories to eat?

Ljay30
Ljay30 Posts: 31 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I know this has probably been posted before, but I am confused by how many calories I should be eating.
I thought I just went with the 1200 calories that mfp calculates, but I have seen other posts about bmr and other things that have got me confused!
My bmr is around 1600 - is 1200 a day right?

Thank you!

Replies

  • bitonech
    bitonech Posts: 31
    Myfitnesspal will not recommend anything lower than 1200 per day, neither will a doctor (I've had 3 tell me this magic number). You need min 1200 (good calories) per day to get the nutrients and minerals your body needs to function properly.

    Your bmr is your calories you would burn if you lied in bed all day long... from breathing, digesting, and other various things your body does to live.

    If you want to loose weight you should probably eat near or slightly less than your bmr.
  • KellyJoMorris
    KellyJoMorris Posts: 35 Member
    I found this really helpful, I have lost an average of 2lbs a week using this advice. MFP predicted 1lb a week loss and gave me 1200 calories to eat. This information gives me 1453, so I have eaten more and lost more than predicted! xx

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/654536-in-place-of-a-road-map-2-0-revised-7-2-12
  • vorgas
    vorgas Posts: 741 Member
    You really shouldn't eat less than your RMR.

    If you do your body is going to think that there is a food scarcity. It will respond by cannibalizing muscle, which consumes calories even when at rest, and holding onto fat which doesn't. It will also latch onto every calorie it can in the food you do eat, even if that calorie would normally be considered unhealthy or poisonous and passed as stool.

    So, eating less than your RMR will cause you to lose weight, but that's probably not what you want. What you want is to lose fat. If you lose muscle your RMR goes down, which means you have to do *more* work over the day to burn the same amount of calories.

    If you run the numbers a 180 lb person with 20% body fat burns 2140 calories during a sedentary day. If they lose 5 lbs of muscle because of a starvation diet that drops to 2080 calories a day. If they gain 5 lbs of muscle through exercise and proper nutrition it jumps up to 2200 calories a day. That's a difference of a pound of fat a month just for living out a normal day!

    If you want a defecit to drop the pounds, then exercise regularly. Just be careful about going over 500 calorie a day defecit.

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