Big favour: PLEASE work out my daily calorie allowance

I'm talking a vast range from 1800 up to 3000!

My suggestion is to eat a total of 2000 calories every day for a month. Don't eat more if you exercise. Don't eat less because you don't believe calculators. Just eat 2000 every day. You sound like the kind of person that wants things simple. I promise, you WILL NOT GAIN ANY FAT eating 2000 calories per day.

If after a month you aren't losing weight fast enough, drop it to 1800 every day.

Per this site: http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/harris-benedict-equation/calorie-intake-to-lose-weight.php

"If you want to lose fat, a useful guideline for lowering your calorie intake is to reduce your calories by at least 500, but not more than 1000 below your maintenance level. For people with only a small amount of weight to lose, 1000 calories will be too much of a deficit. As a guide to minimum calorie intake, the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommends that calorie levels never drop below 1200 calories per day for women or 1800 calories per day for men. Even these calorie levels are quite low."

I dunno man, I think you're probably OK with the caloric intake. But I'm no personal trainer. A guy I train with swears by HIIT and chats me up about it a lot. HIIT is a lot of fun and it really torches you and kicks your metabolism in high gear.

http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/Publications/USDAFoodPatterns/EstimatedCalorieNeedsPerDayTable.pdf

If he was 4-6 years old 1400 would e great...and sorry a TV show doesn't not qualify as a "professional" in dietary needs.

He isn't American, so that's OK. Your table of estimated calorie requirements are "Estimated amounts of calories a needed to maintain calorie balance for various gender and age groups at three different levels of physical activity" and hence broadly useless for weight loss.

The professionals filmed on the show are professional, one's a well published researcher, see the screenshot above that shows their suggested intake. They prescribed a dietary restriction rather than an excessive exercise regime.

doesn't matter nationality 1800 calories is the minimum healthy recommened amount of calories for a grown man just because a lot of American men eat in excess doesn't mean that the science behind the recommendations are wrong.

But lets be frank you eat 1400 a day...you are slowly depriving your body of what it needs and losing lots of muscle in your process I actually think you need to seek professional help....and that isn't said to be mean it's actually out of conern

but if you are going to insist that caloric needs change due to nationality

Here

ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/007/y5686e/y5686e00.pdf

Joint paper by Joint
FAO/WHO/UNU Expert Consultation on Human Energy Requirements so World health org, United Nations etc and Published by Oxford university Press...check page 42..min for a man between the ages of 30 and 59.9 is 2100 calories and that is a small man who is not active

Bypassing all the responses, has anyone told this dude to meet Scooby?

http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

Yes, thanks, but Scooby gave me a totally different calorie intake of 2347! Even I know that's too high. So what is the point of any of these sites if we can't trust them? I guess I just need to pay to see a nutritionist professional then. Surely if my BMR is X and MFP is telling me to eat a lot less than X then that is dangerous and there should be safeguards in place to stop the computer giving such stooooopid advice?

Thanks to everyone who took the time to respond, but with most of you saying completely conflicting things, I'm still no clearer what my healthy daily calorie intake should be

Unfortunately, no web site can magically examine your body and tell you exactly the right answer. They are all estimates. Therefore, you have to take those estimates and experiment with what works for you. If you eat 1500 calories and are starving, then eat 1800. If you are not losing weight at 1800, then drop it to 1700. You have to experiment until you figure out what works. And you really should be shooting for 1-1.5 lbs per week unless you want to be hungry all the time. Set MFP to 1 lb per week loss (as already recommended to you). You should lose weight, especially with the exercise you do.

Thanks for advice. Trouble is I'm not a patient man, but I do have strong willpower, so ignoring hunger hasn't been a problem. My goal is to get down to my target weight as quickly (realistically) as possible, then start maintaining with higher exercise and more calories to build muscle back up. (Like Christian Bale in that film 'The Machinist' - except without his good looks, money or talent

I agree with you on trying and experimenting with what works. So I'm ignoring MFP's computer stat of 1530 and sticking with 1870, see how that goes for a few weeks.

I think that's a very realistic number to start with. I agree with you about being impatient, I'm the same way. However, I turn into a serious grump when I get hungry, so I can't agree with you on the willpower thing lol.

Realize this tho if you don't fuel your body you will lose muscle along with the fat...not sure that's what you want...

You will be the weight on the scale but you probably wont like what you see...

1400 is below the minimum recommended for men. That Min is at least 1800 calories a day.

recommended by whom, where. I was quoting a professional.

http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/Publications/USDAFoodPatterns/EstimatedCalorieNeedsPerDayTable.pdf

If he was 4-6 years old 1400 would e great...and sorry a TV show doesn't not qualify as a "professional" in dietary needs.

I for one am definitely not going to argue with their credentials...

http://www.ncl.ac.uk/ihs/people/profile/ashley.adamson
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/biomedicine/research/brc/profile/Roy.Taylor

Not sure how much more professional you could want :laugh:

I don't care what degree they have or where they went to school or where they work...if a "professional" is recommending a man eat under 1800 calories a day they are a quack...

Guess what you call a doctor who graduated last in their class....Doctor...letters behind names mean nothing if the knowledge isn't there...and if they don't stay current. All I am gonna say is...Dr. Oz...now that's a laugh...and so are these two if they recommend for a man...full grown man to eat under 1800 calories.

You didn't even look, did you?

1400 is below the minimum recommended for men. That Min is at least 1800 calories a day.

recommended by whom, where. I was quoting a professional.

http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/Publications/USDAFoodPatterns/EstimatedCalorieNeedsPerDayTable.pdf

If he was 4-6 years old 1400 would e great...and sorry a TV show doesn't not qualify as a "professional" in dietary needs.

I for one am definitely not going to argue with their credentials...

http://www.ncl.ac.uk/ihs/people/profile/ashley.adamson
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/biomedicine/research/brc/profile/Roy.Taylor

Not sure how much more professional you could want :laugh:

I don't care what degree they have or where they went to school or where they work...if a "professional" is recommending a man eat under 1800 calories a day they are a quack...

Guess what you call a doctor who graduated last in their class....Doctor...letters behind names mean nothing if the knowledge isn't there...and if they don't stay current. All I am gonna say is...Dr. Oz...now that's a laugh...and so are these two if they recommend for a man...full grown man to eat under 1800 calories.

You didn't even look, did you?

Yah I did twice to make sure I saw what I saw...I stand by my post above.

Just as proof...the female got her RD in 1987 but how current is she?
He is in research for diabetes and does metabolic research...

both at new castle...doesn't mean squat when they are quacks who recommend under 1800 calories for a full grown man, that is deprivation of nutrion, vitamins, macros, micros and they should be ashamed of themselves.

I'm not taking sides, but as it's my thread I just wanted to say that whether it's weight-loss or astro-physics by the nature of science (to propose a theory then set about proving/disproving it) you can always find a hundred people who are qualified to say 1800 is minimum for a man, or 1400 is minimum, etc).

As I'm guessing none of us have PHDs in dieting/nutrition, then it all comes down to which theory your lifestyle makes you want to agree with. Truth doesn't come into it unfortunately, same goes for religion - but let's not get started on that! lol

My apologies for hijacking...

I just hate to see bad advice given.

'Just as proof'? Proof of what? :huh: How current do you want her to be? She's published 10 peer-reviewed scientific articles in the last year alone.

Maybe you have misunderstood, the diet devised for that individual was never designed to be permanent - the guy was grossly overweight with 42% body fat. I think we have all agreed that the OP shouldn't try and copy it. There really is no need to resort to name calling.

That I looked..you seem to be an invisible person beside me "assuming" I didn't check the links.

I don't care how the diet was advised...it was irresponsible of the doctors to do it...akin to biggest losers..esp since there are people who take it as the gospel and now think it's okay for a man to eat under 1800 calories to the point they are eating 1400 because that's what they saw on a TV show...

A responsible doctor will tell the patient that weight loss shouldn't be quick and if it is too quick they will not only lose fat but muscle as well and that it is too important to maintain your macros and nutrition even if it means the weight loss is slower.

I found it difficult to understand how you could have looked, but still called them 'quacks', hence I assumed you didn't. If she were a quack, she'd definitely be out making more money by using her credentials to sell 'magic supplements', rather than being a research academic :laugh:

That said, I do understand what you mean about other people seeing it and thinking it's ok for them to do it - and yes, it was bad advice for the person earlier in the thread to suggest it. Each case is unique and you can't use one person's plan as a blanket fits all. I would also go for something more along the lines of the scooby's calculations.

But I felt it was a bit much to take it out on the Professors themselves - they clearly have many more years experience and an immense amount of knowledge in the subject than, I would suspect, almost everybody on this site. I can't comment on whether it was irresponsible or not, because I am not a Professor of nutrition or metabolomics, nor did I examine the person involved and get to know all their stats, nor do I have the vast wealth of in depth knowledge on the human body that they do. The show could have just picked a 'celebrity nutritionist' or some such person with no real credentials (Gillian McKeith anyone?! :noway: ), but instead they went to a research institute and got the advice of actual current researchers, who have no financial motivations to try and plug a particular diet or "magic pill, which just so happens to be available from your local supermarket at £4.99" :laugh:

So, yes, I agree that it shouldn't have been suggested on this thread as a "but, but, but, THEY did it and it was ok", because it is not going to be ok for everyone, particularly when you aren't under consistent medical scrutiny. But I disagree with saying the academics are wrong - being at the forefront of researching this stuff is their life. They are the people who are developing the knowledge for the future, to be shared on internet forums like this :drinker:

And also, apologies from me for the hijack - I just thought the term 'quack' was a bit unfair when they are anything but :embarassed:

Can I make a suggestion because if you want to really know what calories you need to lose a set amount of wt per week/month etc then I would do the following:

do a 1 month or 2 week base line test before you start.

Weight yourself on some accurate scales then

For 2 to 4 weeks log all your food exercises carefully with the tools on this site do not change what you eat or do any extra exercises.

Now Weight yourself again at the same time of day on the same scales wearing the same clothes.

If your weight is the same on the 2nd weighing then you have 3 choices:

1 more exercise - cardio eg running, walking etc
2 less food as for every 500 calories less per day is 3500 per week which is roughly enough to lose 1 pound fat/muscle
3 do 1 and together for a faster loss of weight until you reach your goal wt loss of 42 pounds then I would go back to your normal eating habits within reason of course but keep up the extra healthy exercise.

See how it goes and if you start putting wt on again once over then of course its common sense that you need to change something again either with your diet or exercise and there will be no excuses no because you will now be armed with what works for YOU (know thyself)