How many calories should I have?

Hi

I started at 265, I am now 214.

How many pounds do you want to loose a week.
I started at zero, got control of my calories (2000 a day), moved it down to 1 lb a week, got control of my calorie intake (1800). Tryed to stop fav comfort food intake.)

Then accepted 2 lb a week I now do 1450 calories a day, as a base. Loose 2 lbs every week so far. I have also started biking 10 miiles every other day, which adds 500 to 600 calories allowed. I try not to get above 1600, so it burns off lbs with the extra.

Glad you feel full at 1800 calories. Push to 2lbs a week weight loss. Learn what you eat, snap peas are my friend, give me finger food to snack on.

Good luck in reaching your goal, it is a life change, not a diet.

Cheers
Jim

Doesn't sound low to me......especially since you bike. To work.....I eat 1830-2600 r more and it work well for me. I am set to lose .5 a week now, started out @ 1# a week......got better results then that by following what mfp says.....give it a "trial run" then tweak it if necessary.....that is the beauty of this site....it allows you to figure out what YOUR body needs

sounds pretty close to me. youre tall, a man, and heavier. all increasing your allowance maybe check your activity setting if you feel its high..

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/61706-guide-to-calorie-deficits

thanks banks, I was looking for this.


OP-good luck!

Thanks all for your replies and the posted article, very helpful. I know it says 1850 for myself but i'm finding myself managing well on less. At this stage should I up my calories or should I just eat what feels ok?

Luke, in all probability there is no one right answer for this question. Eating what "feels ok" is a dangerous game to play for people without advanced knowledge of nutrition. I say that because of the supreme ability of our body to adapt to almost any situation. That means that your body will try to make what ever you take in work, which means sooner or later you'll feel "ok" no matter what level of nutrition you eat. This is good for survival in extreme conditions, where being distracted by hunger is a detriment, but it's bad for someone who can eat enough but isn't. Because in the process of adapting, your body is shutting off or slowing down metabolic functions, which means what you "should" need to burn isn't necessarily what you are burning, and what you are burning typically, is a higher percentage coming from lean tissue (FYI, this is the basic idea of starvation mode, and starvation mode is something that happens when your deficit is too high for an extended period, somewhere between 3 days and a few weeks is when it begins in earnest, and it is progressive)

So the idea is to keep it in the sweet spot. By that I mean, a big enough deficit to burn the extra calories your body has stored up (I.E. body fat) but not so big that you outpace your body's ability to deliver those extra calories you need to make up the difference. If you go to big, your body can't liberate enough fat to make up the difference and it does 2 things, it starts pulling protein from lean tissue, and it tries to slow down the amount of calories burned by reducing the systems that burn calories.

Unfortunately, there's no scientifically easy way to determine your sweet spot, which is why I created that link above about the guide to calorie deficits, it's intended as a starting point for figuring out your deficit. It's not a perfect tool, and a lot of minor tweaking will be necessary, but it's a good start. If you use that tool, find a reasonable amount, then want to tweak for specifics, that's a good way to go about it.

regards,

-Banks

Thanks for taking the time to reply Banks. I can see what your saying. I don't really want to be losing my hard earned muscle so i'll keep my calories around the 1800 mark and see how I go from there. In regards though to eating my earned calories is that something I should be doing? I would really struggle to eat another 900calories on the days I work out. Is that what I should be doing or can I just ignore these for the moment?

yes it is, if you choose to follow the MFP model. Think about it. The 1800 is you at a deficit, exercise increases the deficit, so not eating those calories back leaves the deficit higher, which means you could fall out of that sweet spot area I talked about. Not only will this have physical ramifications, it could also have hunger related and psychological ramifications. I.E. when we don't get enough energy to perform, we risk fatigue and depression, which can reduce our desire to exercise and possibly even make us hate the exercise itself (with good reason, who would want to exercise if it just made them feel run down and depressed?). I, on the other hand, eat between 2700 and 3300 calories a day (to maintain, depending on my exercise) and I a haven't gained a pound in about 3 years, AND I have more energy, look far better, and my doctors visits have all been phenomenal. I'll let you make the decision on whether you should eat your exercise calories (I broke my own rule by listing myself as an example, sorry for that), but just know that for thousands of people on MFP, this method has worked and continues to work even well after the weight loss period ends.
No, it's not as fast as a "crash" diet, but it's easier to do, and more sustainable, which translates into a higher success rate in the long term.