NEED HELP GETTING STARTED ON HOW MANY CALORIES

How about just letting MFP figure it out for you? You put in your starting weight and goals and it tells you how many calories to eat each day. Try not to make your goal too aggressive. With 25 pounds to lose you should probably be aiming at 1 pound or even 1/2 pound per week. Try not to make your goal solely about pounds lost. Grab a measuring tape and track your measurements, too.

The nice thing is, you can always adjust. If after a few weeks you're losing too fast or too slow you can always tweak your calorie goal manually to compensate.

If you haven't started strength training yet, now is the time. Many people find when they reach their goal weight their body doesn't look how they envisioned it would. When we lose weight, we lose a combination of fat, water and muscle. Strength training now will help you to maintain your current muscle mass and you'll look more firm and fit once you reach your goal.

Hi! My stats are similar (5'6 currently weighing 143 with my next goal being 135), and my BMR is 1440 Calories. MFP says that I will maintain my weight on 1820 Calories and will need to eat 1320 Calories in order to lose one pound per week; losing 2 pounds per week will require me to eat 820 Calories -which is not a viable option for weight loss (we need to eat at least 1200 Calories a day to guarantee we're getting all the required macros and micros our body needs). According to my TDEE (set as sedentary), I can eat 1730 Calories to maintain my weight without exercise, and I would need to eat 1230 Calories in order to lose a pound per week.

Currently, I have a goal to lose about a half pound per week and eat around 1500 Calories per day. Though I used to be at a 1200 Calorie goal, I noticed that it was difficult to get in most of my micros and was constantly hungry eating that little, so I ended up bumping my minimum daily Calories to my BMR.

Personally, I wouldn't suggest trying to lose more than a half pound per week (250 Calorie deficit). Your BMR is how many Calories you need in order to live while in a coma (it does not factor in activity) and is not how many Calories you need to eat in order to maintain your weight (that is TDEE). I know there is a guide somewhere on the forums that suggests what your weight loss goal should be per week depending on how much weight you need to lose (I think anything under losing 20 pounds total suggested a rate of a half pound per week).

If you use the MFP goals, it does the calculating for you. You can compare this result with several other calorie calculators around the internet. I started by picking a conservative goal (1/2 pound per week) and when I'd got the hang of it, and started getting in more exercise, I increased it to one pound. Remember that even if you go over the daily goal, you are still on the losing side, unless you go way over. But I like to keep it conservative and then see if I can stay under with extra room to spare. The wiggle room helps to make up for the tendency to underestimate calories eaten and overestimate exercise calories burned.

mom2angels27 wrote: »

SueInAz wrote: »

How about just letting MFP figure it out for you? You put in your starting weight and goals and it tells you how many calories to eat each day. Try not to make your goal too aggressive. With 25 pounds to lose you should probably be aiming at 1 pound or even 1/2 pound per week. Try not to make your goal solely about pounds lost. Grab a measuring tape and track your measurements, too.

The nice thing is, you can always adjust. If after a few weeks you're losing too fast or too slow you can always tweak your calorie goal manually to compensate.

If you haven't started strength training yet, now is the time. Many people find when they reach their goal weight their body doesn't look how they envisioned it would. When we lose weight, we lose a combination of fat, water and muscle. Strength training now will help you to maintain your current muscle mass and you'll look more firm and fit once you reach your goal.

It says 1500 to lose .5 a week. Which is fine but I felt like it was a lot and didn't wanna gain or maintain. That was my worry. Then I do not strength train (lift weights any of that). Not my thing. I'll do treadmill jogging and walking and exercise videos. No time for the gym w three little ones and no money either for it. Unfortunately. But thank u for ur help

As I mentioned, you can always tweak it. Numbers are numbers and they're all just an estimate whatever the source. Tracking will help you to determine what you really need to sustain the loss rate you want.

It's your choice on the strength training but when you've reached your goal and you still aren't happy with the way you look I hope you don't look back and regret it. I did which is why I started. Muscle loss is the main reason our metabolisms decrease as we age. You'll see a lot of people talking about being "skinny fat" here and losing weight without adding strength training results in just that most of the time. Also, if you gain some weight back it's all fat so now your body fat percentage is even higher and it makes losing weight the next time that much harder.

Body weight exercises are an option. You Are Your Own Gym has been highly recommended and is available online.