How many calories per day?

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kellypohle
kellypohle Posts: 3 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
hi! I have done ever diet known to life. My doctor suggests counting calories after I told him that I have been the same weight for a month and a half and I'm getting annoyed. I started counting today and this app recommends that I eat 1200 calories per day. Is that pretty standard? I was on Nutisystem for awhile and still have some food left so I'm trying to finish those meals but on average I eat pretty much the same thing every day. Yogurt or egg white for breakfast, granola car for snack, salad for lunch with hard boiled egg. Unsweetened apple sauce for a snack and a nutrisystem meal for dinner. Any advice would be great and appreciated!

Replies

  • natalieamaral
    natalieamaral Posts: 12 Member
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    Hi there! I started watching my calories and excersing I lost 10 pounds in 15 days. I pretty much each everything I just burn it off later.
  • kellypohle
    kellypohle Posts: 3 Member
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    That's awesome!!! Are you eating 1200 a day?
  • ffbrown25
    ffbrown25 Posts: 110 Member
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    I'd strongly recommend against eating 1200 calories a day. It is very difficult to maintain, and won't support exercise. I work out five days a week, which would be a lot for some, but I managed to lose 10 pounds in three months (starting at an already normal BMI) eating 1800-2000 calories a day.

    A lot of people here disagree, but in my experience, managing the quality of your food and your macronutrient balance while increasing your exercise level is the most effective way to lose weight. Cutting calories down to 1200 calories a day is not sustainable for most people.
  • juggernaut1974
    juggernaut1974 Posts: 6,212 Member
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    What is your current height & weight and how active are you?

    1200 may be appropriate...or it may not be. But it depends on your answers to the above questions
  • ncboiler89
    ncboiler89 Posts: 2,408 Member
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    1200 calories is at the low end but it depends on your activity level. It seems like you have a lot to learn about the process and there are many resources here to make that happen.

    To sum it up it is all about CICO. Calories vs calories out. You can recite what you eat all you want but if you don't know how much then it doesn't matter. I can lose weight by eating nothing but Peanut M&M's.

    You need to weigh your food in order to count your calories.

    You need to be able to estimate how many calories you burn in a day.

    You need to lean about weight fluctuation so you don't freak out and change your plan after a month of the scale not moving.

    If after six weeks or so you find nothing changing or not changing as fast as it seems, you may have over estimated the number of calories you are burning in a day, not counting calories accurately or both. The equation is very simple.

    Calories burned - Calories eaten = weight loss

    It's as simple as that. Nothing more.





  • sunandmoons
    sunandmoons Posts: 415 Member
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    Dont worry too much. Keep counting and weighing your food. I only lost 3 pounds in three weeks. Stick with it.. Maybe try walking and or biking or just something you like to do. One thing I learned is that condiments are high in calories also dont drink your calories. You can easily meet that goal with colas and some of the drinks at starbucks. I also learned that eating over your budget a bit dont hurt either. I am always against the standards of anything. So I always go over 20 to 50 calories once a week. Try not to eat fast food.. If you do .. get something small like broiled chicken and eat only half. Drink a lot of water.. I struggle with this.. but am learning to. Just dont give up ok?
  • OsricTheKnight
    OsricTheKnight Posts: 340 Member
    edited September 2015
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    It is really impossible to answer your question without knowing more about you. So I'll assume a bunch of things, you can fix them and work it out for yourself.

    Assuming you are 34 years old, female, 5' 4" tall, and currently weigh 160 lbs, you'd like to lose 30lbs at a rate of 1lb/week, and you work a desk job:

    - your TDEE is 1625 kcals/day - this is how much you can eat and stay 160 lbs.
    - if you don't exercise, and you want to lose 1lb/week, you need to cut 500kcals/day
    - therefore, you can eat 1125 calories per day, and that will lose you 1lb per week for the first few weeks.

    After 10 weeks, you'll weigh 150. Very approximately speaking, every 10 lbs you lose you will burn 50 calories less, so you will need to reduce your diet by 50 calories in order to keep losing 1lb/week. So you'd then need to be down at 1075.

    At 1200 kcals/week, you would lose weight at a rate of 0.85 lbs/week instead of 1. If that's fast enough, great. If you're willing to lose slower - say 0.5lbs/week, then you could eat 1625-250 = 1375 kcals/day.

    Once you get to your goal weight of 130 lbs, your TDEE will be down to about 1470 kcals. You will be able to safely eat about 1400 kcals/day, and errors in logging should keep you at maintenance with that as your logging target. Or if you're sloppier about logging, you might want to keep targeting 1200/day for maintenance.

    My personal experience logging is that I'm off by about 200-300kcals/day. So if I was aiming for 1400 for maintenance I'd target 1100 logged.

    In answer to your question, under my assumptions, 1200 kcals/day is a reasonable target for the 5'4" female who is trying to lose 30 lbs to get to a weight of 130, and most women following this weight loss plan will hit the wall with somewhere between 5 and 15 lbs to go depending on how accurate they are with their logging.

    This is, quite simply, why those last 10lbs are so hard to lose.

    Good luck, happy logging,

    Osric

    [edit for spelling]
  • marciaholland77
    marciaholland77 Posts: 85 Member
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    ffbrown25 wrote: »
    I'd strongly recommend against eating 1200 calories a day. It is very difficult to maintain, and won't support exercise. I work out five days a week, which would be a lot for some, but I managed to lose 10 pounds in three months (starting at an already normal BMI) eating 1800-2000 calories a day.

    A lot of people here disagree, but in my experience, managing the quality of your food and your macronutrient balance while increasing your exercise level is the most effective way to lose weight. Cutting calories down to 1200 calories a day is not sustainable for most people.

    I agree MFP gives me 1200 calories to start out with. The calories are increased by me walking 15,000 steps everyday to at least 1900 calories. I usually eat around 1500-1600 calories a day. I don't think I could stick with a 1200 calories a day and lose the 43 pounds I have.
  • mperrott2205
    mperrott2205 Posts: 737 Member
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    http://iifym.com/iifym-calculator/ - Do this.
  • louise5779
    louise5779 Posts: 82 Member
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    It all depends on your stats, I'm 5"3, 32 years old my cw is 124lbs I have 12 lbs to lose. If I select maintain weight I get 1560 cals per day so cutting to 1200 is about 0.5 lb per week loss. I exercise most days but only eat back if I achieve a certain level. Most people say 25% to 50% because of inaccuracies. I will be able to do this more accurately when in get my Fitbit charge hr on Friday.

    The main thing is logging everything and weight everything even items from packets. For explain I opened a packet of fresh egg noodles, the packet said 410g actual contents 432g. I make thing noddle dish as a family meal regularly and the noddles are normally over in weight.
  • kellypohle
    kellypohle Posts: 3 Member
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    I'm 34 and 5 foot one. I have a desk job most of the time but on weekends I probably walk at least 10,000 steps. I don't think 1200 calories is too low to eat. I want to lose 30 more pounds and would like to lose 2 pounds per week.
  • PinkPixiexox
    PinkPixiexox Posts: 4,142 Member
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    1200 is the lowest amount recommended. I too was given 1200 when I first started here. I think MPF is assuming you will be eating your exercise calories back - hence the low figure.

    I don't bother eating my exercise calories back, instead I went for the TDEE approach. I put my details in to here: http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/ as accurately as I could and it gave me a solid number to stick to. I didn't have to worry about calculating how many exercise cals I could use because it's all included. I'm on 1500 calories a day and still losing weight.

    I would suggest eating more than 1200 - chances are if you are exercising, you will be allocated a substantial amount more :) I USED to eat 1200 and I was weak, fatigued and ill.

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