What is the best site to set daily cal goal?

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I have my daily cal goals set in mfp but I'm hoping that they are correct.

What is everyone's preferred way to check on their estimated calorie goals?!

Replies

  • cityruss
    cityruss Posts: 2,493 Member
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    Accurately monitor intake, measurements and weight over a sustained period, observing trends.

    Anything else is just a non-personalized best guess.

    Use these sites and calculators as a starting point, but you should always be tailoring them to your own observed data.
  • amusedmonkey
    amusedmonkey Posts: 10,330 Member
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    Any site is not going to be as accurate as your personal experience. All calculations are population averages. The easiest way to get your own personal calories is to follow what MFP is giving you to lose 1 pound (in many cases setting it to 2 pounds won't produce accurate results due to the 1200 lower limit) then roll with that for a couple of months, logging as accurately as possible, and observe how much you lost. If it's more than what MFP predicted (1 pound a week), your body likely burns more than average. If your weight loss trend happens to be slower than what MFP predicted, your body burns fewer calories than average. From there you can establish your own calories.

    This website is useful to establish your weight trend:
    https://trendweight.com

    IF you are number driven, very curious, and enjoy the process of collecting data, you could use scooby's calorie calibration tool to find out your exact calories
    http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator-calibration/

    Personally I wouldn't stress too much about calorie goals. A loss of anywhere between 0.5 and 2 pounds a week is still a loss. It doesn't have to be one specific number for now. These numbers become more important as you approach your goal weight because you have less room for error there. For now, I'd just take what I get.
  • Orphia
    Orphia Posts: 7,097 Member
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    I've always gone by MFP, and I get extra calories from exercise burns from Fitbit.

    I eat back 50-75% of my exercise calories to allow for overestimation of burns and underestimation of calories eaten.

    I've lost 70 lbs since April.
  • kay_norton
    kay_norton Posts: 23 Member
    edited March 2016
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    Hi!

    What an easy question, I can help you figure that out. However I'm going to need a few pieces of information from you:
    1.) How much do you weigh?
    2.) How old are you?
    3.) How would you describe your daily activity level, not counting planned exercise (not very active, moderately active, or extremely active)?
    4.) How many calories on average do you burn per day through planned exercise?

    Cheers,
    Kay

    [Edited by MFP Staff]
  • Lounmoun
    Lounmoun Posts: 8,426 Member
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    I just went with what MFP told me and it was fine.
  • queenliz99
    queenliz99 Posts: 15,317 Member
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    I like MFP, pretty danged easy.
  • MammaC66
    MammaC66 Posts: 132 Member
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    MFP is great, but you might also try Spark People and Fat 2 Fit Radio.