Is 1500 cals ok for a dude?

Just to throwing this out there, I'm a 30 year old dude that's 5'8 weighing in at a hefty 232lbs. I was eating 2000 cals a day and getting my 10,000 steps for awhile and losing weight just fine and then all of a sudden, it stopped producing results.

At that height, and assuming the walking is your only real exercise, 2000 won't create a huge deficit, which means accurate logging is very important. Before dropping the calories, I'd be hyper vigilant/accurate with logging for a couple of weeks to see what happens, first.

But to answer your question directly - no, 1500 isn't insanely low - I'm 6'1" and my BMR is under 2k. You also have plenty of reserves to draw on.

EDIT: That TDEE calculator doesn't account for your high body fat percentage, so it is over-estimating your base burn. I'm much taller than you and my "light exercise" TDEE is only 2800-ish.

Just to throwing this out there, I'm a 30 year old dude that's 5'8 weighing in at a hefty 232lbs. I was eating 2000 cals a day and getting my 10,000 steps for awhile and losing weight just fine and then all of a sudden, it stopped producing results.

At that height, and assuming the walking is your only real exercise, 2000 won't create a huge deficit, which means accurate logging is very important. Before dropping the calories, I'd be hyper vigilant/accurate with logging for a couple of weeks to see what happens, first.

But to answer your question directly - no, 1500 isn't insanely low - I'm 6'1" and my BMR is under 2k. You also have plenty of reserves to draw on.

EDIT: That TDEE calculator doesn't account for your high body fat percentage, so it is over-estimating your base burn.

Not a huge deficit, but at his age/ht/wt, depending on the calculator it's probably 400-600 right now.

For sh*ts and giggles, I entered your info you provided into IIFYM.com calculator and came up with 1989 as you BMR and 2735 as your TDEE. To lose at a safe steady rate try a deficit of 20% under TDEE which is 537.

2735 - 537 = 2198 That should be about 1 - 1 1/2lbs week.

So, yeah, 1500 is way too low. Heck! It is what my body need just to exist as a woman who weighs much less than you. You would be dying.

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I'm searching amazon right now for a food scale. I think when I start weighing things, I'm gonna be shocked how many extra calories I've been putting in my body that haven't been logged. What about the pre packaged meals though? I eat a lot of those Marie calender's meals. Those would be hard to figure out myself wouldn't they? Maybe I should just subtract a few calories from what it says on the package just to be on the safe side
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Just as a side note, a lot of Marie Callender meals are particularly high in sodium. Could be contributing to water retention. http://caloriecount.about.com/marie-callenders-nutrition-m1447

I just read an article about the Fitbit devices causing people to gain weight .... hmm, and now this. Weird or What.

http://www.today.com/health/my-fitbit-making-me-fat-users-complain-weight-gain-fitness-1D79911176#my-fitbit-making-me-fat-users-complain-weight-gain-fitness-1D79911176

Btw .. it really depends on the guy, I did 1500 cal for months and lost just fine. Until the end .. when things went off the rails and I couldn't stop losing. Maintenance is way harder than losing. Just saying.

I'm going to play devil's advocate here and get some exercise by swimming against the stream of most of the other comments:

First, here's why:

1. I don't like weighing food. Let's not make this more work than it needs to be. I understand some people need to, and that's cool, but I'd rather avoid it if I can. My compliance would be low. I want to eat out at a restaurant and not have to whip out a food scale. Even eating prepackaged food that may be off by 20%, if sometimes it's high and sometimes it's low it will average out. Even if it is consistently high, it won't matter - see next point. I'm not a bodybuilder and don't need to get everything that tightly dialed in to lose (or gain) weight.

2. I don't think of the TDEE as an absolute "real" number. It is an approximation. My food consumption is an approximation, my exercise is an approximation, my BMR is an approximation. Added all together, they are a an even broader approximation.

3. What does this mean in terms of my calorie goal for the day? Well, on day 1 it's just a approximation as well. MFP gives you a good starting point, but again, it's just a simple formula that's making a guess. There no indirect calorimetry hood to measure your BMR. You are not getting weighed in a tank of water to calculate your bodyfat percentage.

4. So at the end of the day we are comparing a guess with a guess and then get upset when the we don't get the results we want. So what to do? Two options:

A. The Hard Way: Measure everything. Don't make exceptions. Pay for expensive tests to figure out your real BMR. Buy equipment that tries (not always successfully) to measure all your activity throughout the day.

B. The Easy Way: Be consistent and just dial-it in over time. Get good at consistently estimating portions sizes and exercise. It doesn't really matter if you are right or not, so long as you are consistent. Pick a number for your calorie goal. If you don't lose weight at that number, then lower the number. Maybe "gasp" your number goes to 1200 calories a day. Well it doesn't matter, because you are probably really eating 1800 calories, and you just consistently under estimate your portions by a third. Or maybe your exercise only burns 300 calories when you think it burned 600. So long as you are consistent, you can adjust your food intake to match. Over time, plot your guessed net calories verses your actual weight loss and tape measurements. Losing too slow, cut your calories by ~ 250/day. Losing too fast, raise your calories. Adjust once a month or so unless you are really gaining/losing too quickly.

Some other stuff:

1. Always weigh and measure at the same time of day (morning is best) and under the same conditions. Be realistic, if you binge the night before you weigh in, expect the scale to move up the next morning. Give it a day, go to the bathroom, and then re-weigh the next morning.

2. If you are a female, compare your weight with a comparable day of your monthly cycle, not always from one week to the next

3. Also I like to think about it in terms of weekly calories more than daily calories. If I eat too much or too little one day, I make it up the next. It all averages out.

4. You need to decide how fast you want to lose weight. Depending on how much you have to lose, if you are otherwise eating high protein, moderate fat and doing some kind of resistance training, you'll drop a higher percentage of fat and lose less muscle. It you want to lose faster, you can cut calories lower, but then this becomes more important so your retain your muscle. When I cut, I want to drop fat.

5. To dovetail onto point #4 - it may not only be desirable to lose weight faster, but it may also help you keep more weight off for a longer period of time! (I told you I was swimming against the stream here.) Please read the following article which explains it better than I could, and also links to the actual science. :

http://gregnuckols.com/2013/06/04/slow-and-steady-weight-loss-i-think-not/

But here's the summary - a meta study (study of other science studies) has shown that people who go on very low calorie diets and drop weight the fastest (instead of the slower 1 lb a week, etc.) not only lost more weight, but they kept more of it off, and this was after 5 years!

So, in conclusion - to answer your question, yes, an estimated 1500 daily calories is ok for a dude your size, especially if you are not losing weight as wanted at your current daily calorie level. Just be consistent and get it dialed in.

For a guy of your height at an weight of say 180lbs, yeah 1500cals is ok. you're heavier, so your tdee is higher. Stick at 2000 cals, and get stricter with your logging. Open your food diary. Report back in 3 weeks.