"ideal" daily caloric intake? (21-year old female, 1,75m / 5'9'', 66kg / 146 lbs)

njaalla
njaalla Posts: 39 Member
edited November 30 in Health and Weight Loss
I know that there's probably lots of this posts, but I'm questioning my daily caloric goal and would like to hear some thoughts about it.

I've calculated my ideal caloric intake on another website before, based on my gender (female), age (21), height (1,75m), current weight (66kg), body fat percentage (I estimated 25% based on the pictures given there), my occupation (university student, thus not very active), my goal (to loose weight) and how active I am in my free time (added 2h of walking per week as I'm going everywhere by foot). I didn't add any other exercises, as I was not working out at that point.
The calculator told me that to maintain my weight, I'd need a caloric intake of 1772 and to loose weight, I should go for 1596 calories per day (54 g protein, 35 g fat, 257g carbs).

I also tried to calculate my daily goal on mfp, but the results vary a lot according to how active I say I am (sedentary or lightly active) and what my goal is (how much weight I want to loose per week). I am unsure about my activity level and I also don't want to set a weekly goal for weight loss. I'd like to loose some 5kg (about 11lbs), so loosing some 0,25-0,5 kg a week seems legit, but depending on which one I pick, I get very different results for my daily goal ranging from less than 1300 to over 1800 calories.

For now, I've set 1500 as my daily caloric intake.
However, I've seen that many females have set 1200-1300 calories only as their daily goal. And even though I don't want to compare myself to others (I'm kinda tall-ish after all), I started wondering if 1500 actually works for me.

Replies

  • jemhh
    jemhh Posts: 14,261 Member
    What is your goal?
  • njaalla
    njaalla Posts: 39 Member
    For now, I'd like to loose some 5kg / 11lbs and then just see how I feel about it. I also want to become fitter which is why I started working out recently, but not on a daily basis.
  • Seffell
    Seffell Posts: 2,244 Member
    edited March 2016
    I think setting it to 1500 might be a bit risky. Your Basal Metabolic rate is probably around there so this means that all you lose will be from your exercise. If you do plan to start working out it could work very well but if you stay on the walking exercise only it could be inefficient. I don't exercise for health reasons except walking, I'm on 1300 calories, 173cm tall and 73 kg and barely losing any weight with this intake. You might be different of course.

    Edit: Thought I should add - I've set MFP to lose 0.5kg per week.
  • middlehaitch
    middlehaitch Posts: 8,486 Member
    Set your activity level to sedentary and your weight loss goal as .5lbs a week.

    As a student you are not very active, and 2 hr walking a week is also a sedentary amount. MFP counts anything under 5000 steps per day as sedentary.
    Because you only need to lose 5kg/11lbs .25kg/.5lbs is a reasonable amount to lose.

    Try a month with the calories at those settings. If you are losing too fast or too slow move your calorie goal up or down. All calculators are just estimates and a lot of people need to adjust.

    Cheers, h.
  • Dvdgzz
    Dvdgzz Posts: 437 Member
    ^Good advice right there. Give yourself at least a month before adjusting like she said. If you don't already have one, buy a scale to weigh your food and count every bite.
  • Yi5hedr3
    Yi5hedr3 Posts: 2,696 Member
    I come up with 1513 for 1lb week loss. Your carbs are way too high. Keep below 100 grams/day. Macros prob 18/22/60.
  • njaalla
    njaalla Posts: 39 Member
    Thank you to all of you for your input! :)

    @gebeziseva: I didn't even count the walking as an exercise, that first calculator just asked how active I am in my free time, so that's why I added the two hours of walking per week.
    I started working out, though, but I log my workouts on mfp, so it raises my daily caloric goal according to how much I worked out, so altogether the net intake would still be 1500 calories.
    But thank you a lot for posting your height, weight and caloric intake - it's interesting to compare. I guess I might be similar to you. I only started tracking what I eat rather recently, but it's quite easy for me to stay under 1500 calories, so it might be that it's not enough of a deficit to start loosing weight.

    @middlehaitch: Thanks for the advice. With the activity level on sedentary and the weight loss goal on 0,25kg/0.5lbs I actually get a daily goal of 1580 calories, which is about the same as I've had until now (1500 calories).
    With the weight loss goal on 0,5kg I get 1330 calories as a daily goal.

    I've been logging for only a week now, so I guess it's really too early to make any assumptions. However, I often stay way under 1500 calories per day anyway (I usually have around 1400, but even less when I work out), so maybe I'll adjust my daily goal according to that? That is, 1400 as the golden mean.

    @Dvdgzz: I have a scale to weigh my food and log my food quite accurately, I'd say.
    I don't have a body scale where I live right now, though. And there's not much sense in buying one atm either (moving back to my old flat in two months, have a scale there).
    So while I can track how much I eat, I can't track how much it effects my body weight, at least not now. I take measurements, though, but I'm not sure if I'll see much of a change within one month.
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