How do you set your calorie goal?

I let MFP set my goal by telling it I want to lose 1 lb a week and also telling it I am sedentary. I then eat back 1/2 of exercise calories I burn most days. The days I swim plus do an hour of water aerobics gives me almost 1000 extra calories. I find it really hard to eat 500 more, so I generally eat about 200-300 of those.

I input my stats and goals into this calculator and I let this calculator do it's job and calculate my goal...then I made sure I was as accurate as possible in my logging and also consistent.

For me, a goal of 1 Lb per week was sustainable over the long run...it takes a long time to lose weight, so you have to have a goal that is sustainable for you. It was slow, but steady.

iamburke wrote: »

Well I put active so it said 1550 a week I just lowered it to 1400. I'm not active every day. But I am hungry!! A lot

Try eating more protein and splitting your meals up into multiple snacks instead of large meals. I eat 1300 calories daily and was starving at first. I eventually realized small snacks instead of large meals was the way to go.

I set my MFP goal and stated that I am sedentary (I am not but I would rather overguesstimate then under). When I first began with the goal it started 1500 calories but after testing myself and trying multiple calculators all with different choices I found that 1300 calories was a better alternative. I am able to eat 1300 without starving myself and can still gradually lose weight.

I found my maintenance calories by trial and error - MFP set me too low and I continued to lose weight until I ended up underweight. I set my own limits after that by finding the number at which my weight remained stable if I don't do a heck of a lot beyond incidental walking, and I log and eat back exercise calories on top of that. I'm trying to lose a few pounds gained from Christmas at the moment so I'm just eating 100 calories a day under my maintenance amount so it can slowly drop off.