Help with how many calories I should be eating!

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laurajade111
laurajade111 Posts: 58
in Food and Nutrition
I am so confused with what my daily calorie intake should be.
I know I should eat above my bmr, but this varies drastically between different calculators, and I am not sure which to trust!
I also know about TDEE, but find this hard to calculate as my activity varies greatly from week to week.

My stats are 5'6" and 174ibs.
I currently have my daily food calorie allowance set at 1450 and eat back some/ a fair bit of my exercise calories. Does this seem ok? I would rather work off bmr than tdee due to very varied activity levels.

Thanks for any advice/ feedback!

Replies

  • 212ackley
    212ackley Posts: 431 Member
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    I entered my info in the system on mfp and it gave me 1800 calories per day, I manually changed it to 1600 to see if I could stick to it and to see how much I would lose...I'm averaging about 2.7# a week...trust the system..it works!!!
  • photojunkie28
    photojunkie28 Posts: 292
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    I just ordered BodyMedia Fit Link ...if you have some extra cash to spend, I would suggest taking all of the stress/ guess work out of it and invest in one these devices. It will tell you soooo much about your body.

    I am 5'5, 164 lbs and though my activity level varries I seem to maintain around 2400 calories and suggest not making too large of cuts as you are likely to stall out/ damage your metabolism.
  • AmyRhubarb
    AmyRhubarb Posts: 6,890 Member
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    I am so confused with what my daily calorie intake should be.
    I know I should eat above my bmr, but this varies drastically between different calculators, and I am not sure which to trust!
    I also know about TDEE, but find this hard to calculate as my activity varies greatly from week to week.

    My stats are 5'6" and 174ibs.
    I currently have my daily food calorie allowance set at 1450 and eat back some/ a fair bit of my exercise calories. Does this seem ok? I would rather work off bmr than tdee due to very varied activity levels.

    Thanks for any advice/ feedback!
    Well, if you're getting vastly different results from different calculators, and having varied activity levels, you probably just need to pick one calculator and go with that. Since your activity varies daily, maybe set your activity level to sedentary or one level above that, and then eat back exercise cals on the days that you are more active.

    In either case, stick with it for several weeks, like a month or longer, and see how it goes, keeping in mind that it takes time for the body to adjust to new calorie and or activities, so you might see a gain at first, and you may not. But if you stick with it for a time, you can see how it goes and make adjustments up or down on the calories as needed. It's a process!
  • briang1224
    briang1224 Posts: 19
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    If your activity varies on a week to week basis, then you should probably total up your calories and activity on a weekly basis and then break that down to days.

    A lot of people try to calculate for the days activity, but its over time that gets the results.
    Weight loss isn't always an exact science I am starting to find out myself.
    Pick a method and follow it for a few months and see how it goes.
    If you don't get results, tweak it a little and see if it changes.

    I'd be guessing with your weight and height, 1600-1800 calories net a day would get you decent results as long as you are eating healthy. Many girls under eat by a ton.

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