How many calories
Iansmommy123011
Posts: 872 Member
How many calories should I be eating a day to loose weight? Right now my calories to eat a day is 1,200. But I think it's way too less for a day. I am just playing around what works for me. But I went on this Calculator online and this is what it gave me 3 different options but I am not sure what to put down. I
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I am 4"11 and weigh 133 right now. My goal weight is to be 110lbs0
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Are you saying that MFP gave you a goal of 1,200 calories? What did you put for your activity level and how many pounds did you say you wanted to lose per week?0
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I would start with a 10-20% deficit. I have no idea if the 2300 figure is correct considering your height. You have yourself listed as very active--what do you do that makes you very active?0
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you enter your stats into MFP and activity level without exercise and how much you want to lose a week
If you have 75+ lbs to lose 2 lbs/week is ideal
If you have 40-75 lbs to lose 1.5 lbs/week is ideal
If you have 25-40 lbs to lose 1 lbs/week is ideal
If you have 15 -25 lbs to lose 0.5 to 1.0 lbs/week is ideal
If you have less than 15 lbs to lose 0.5 lbs/week is ideal
MFP will do this calculations for you...
Then enter in exercise and eat back some of those calories...not sure why you are using another website for this when MFP is designed for that purpose.1 -
How did you pick "very active?" Unless you play daily sports with long practices, or have a physical job, most people arent' actually "very active."
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I go to the gym 5 times a week. I do cardio and I do weights. I go to Zumba and I go swimming. I put down very active and I set that I want to loose 0.5 to 1.0 a week and it actually keeps jumping around how many calories I should eat a day. Right now the setting is at 1,200 a day. It doesn't seem right so I am figuring out what's best to loose weight and how many calories I should be eating a day and yes the days I workout I eat more. The days I don't workout I eat the amount I should be eating a day.0
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How did you pick "very active?" Unless you play daily sports with long practices, or have a physical job, most people arent' actually "very active."
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Savithny it's because I have a 4 year old son who has Autism and I have to run after him everyday to just get him out of the house, play with him, get him ready to go to school or whatever. He is constantly running around and since he is very young I have to go after him. So I am running a lot0 -
Iansmommy123011 wrote: »
Savithny it's because I have a 4 year old son who has Autism and I have to run after him everyday to just get him out of the house, play with him, get him ready to go to school or whatever. He is constantly running around and since he is very young I have to go after him. So I am running a lot
Did you put "Very Active" as your activity setting on your MFP account? This wouldn't include any exercise, so if you truly think that your childcare puts you into that category, you would choose that and then log your additional exercise at the gym and eat those calories back. If you're doing this and have chosen a reasonable weight loss goal (like .5 or 1 pound a week), I find it hard to believe that you would only have 1,200 calories. 1,200 is the very lowest MFP should go for women, so you should have more than that just from logging your additional exercise.0 -
I am afraid that what you described as being very active is not what this means.. In my opinion your setting should be set to light active or possibly active for your particular situation.. this might be a more appropriate setting.
For now, go back to the setup and put in sedentary and maintain (along with your personal stats).. What did this give you for a TDEE (a non exercise TDEE)? This is the calories you burn being completely sedentary and no exercise.
Now enter in light active and to maintain.. ... What did this give you? This will give you additional calories for taking care of your active child, and doing alot more in the day that is not sedentary (sitting around) and no exercise.
Now enter in light active and to loose .5 per week.. What did this give you? You will add your exercise calories each day to this amount for example.
"MFP calorie allotment per day" + Exercise = NET Calorie Goal. So if you are truly active, meaning you have a very demanding job such as construction, or you are an elite athlete per se, leave your setting to something around the light active to maybe active and you will add your exercise separately.. So it will look like this for example on a typical day you exercise. 1400 MFP goal + exercise.
Daily calories 1400 + exercise = NET calorie goal
1700 (calorie you eat for example today) - 300 (exercise calorie burn) = 1400 NET GOAL.
If you need more details you can go to the stickies at the beginning of the forums, particularly to find a link regarding this is under "Getting Started".0 -
janejellyroll wrote: »Iansmommy123011 wrote: »
Savithny it's because I have a 4 year old son who has Autism and I have to run after him everyday to just get him out of the house, play with him, get him ready to go to school or whatever. He is constantly running around and since he is very young I have to go after him. So I am running a lot
Did you put "Very Active" as your activity setting on your MFP account? This wouldn't include any exercise, so if you truly think that your childcare puts you into that category, you would choose that and then log your additional exercise at the gym and eat those calories back. If you're doing this and have chosen a reasonable weight loss goal (like .5 or 1 pound a week), I find it hard to believe that you would only have 1,200 calories. 1,200 is the very lowest MFP should go for women, so you should have more than that just from logging your additional exercise.
That's what I am saying. What you just said is what I put in and like I said MFP keeps jumping around on me and I don't know why. The last time I logged on here it told me to eat 1,800 something a day than it changed on me this week to 1,200 something a day. Like I said 1,200 isn't enough. I am trying to figure out what is the best answer for woman to eat a day when you are active. 1,200 a day is striving yourself. Sometimes I have to enter my stuff manually because I feel like MFP isn't always right when you have to change your settings
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I always follow MFP for a standard.0
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Iansmommy123011 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »Iansmommy123011 wrote: »
Savithny it's because I have a 4 year old son who has Autism and I have to run after him everyday to just get him out of the house, play with him, get him ready to go to school or whatever. He is constantly running around and since he is very young I have to go after him. So I am running a lot
Did you put "Very Active" as your activity setting on your MFP account? This wouldn't include any exercise, so if you truly think that your childcare puts you into that category, you would choose that and then log your additional exercise at the gym and eat those calories back. If you're doing this and have chosen a reasonable weight loss goal (like .5 or 1 pound a week), I find it hard to believe that you would only have 1,200 calories. 1,200 is the very lowest MFP should go for women, so you should have more than that just from logging your additional exercise.
That's what I am saying. What you just said is what I put in and like I said MFP keeps jumping around on me and I don't know why. The last time I logged on here it told me to eat 1,800 something a day than it changed on me this week to 1,200 something a day. Like I said 1,200 isn't enough. I am trying to figure out what is the best answer for woman to eat a day when you are active. 1,200 a day is striving yourself. Sometimes I have to enter my stuff manually because I feel like MFP isn't always right when you have to change your settings
On that previous 1800 calorie day did you log exercise? The only way your calories change is if you change your settings or log exercise.
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Iansmommy123011 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »Iansmommy123011 wrote: »
Savithny it's because I have a 4 year old son who has Autism and I have to run after him everyday to just get him out of the house, play with him, get him ready to go to school or whatever. He is constantly running around and since he is very young I have to go after him. So I am running a lot
Did you put "Very Active" as your activity setting on your MFP account? This wouldn't include any exercise, so if you truly think that your childcare puts you into that category, you would choose that and then log your additional exercise at the gym and eat those calories back. If you're doing this and have chosen a reasonable weight loss goal (like .5 or 1 pound a week), I find it hard to believe that you would only have 1,200 calories. 1,200 is the very lowest MFP should go for women, so you should have more than that just from logging your additional exercise.
That's what I am saying. What you just said is what I put in and like I said MFP keeps jumping around on me and I don't know why. The last time I logged on here it told me to eat 1,800 something a day than it changed on me this week to 1,200 something a day. Like I said 1,200 isn't enough. I am trying to figure out what is the best answer for woman to eat a day when you are active. 1,200 a day is striving yourself. Sometimes I have to enter my stuff manually because I feel like MFP isn't always right when you have to change your settingsIansmommy123011 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »Iansmommy123011 wrote: »
Savithny it's because I have a 4 year old son who has Autism and I have to run after him everyday to just get him out of the house, play with him, get him ready to go to school or whatever. He is constantly running around and since he is very young I have to go after him. So I am running a lot
Did you put "Very Active" as your activity setting on your MFP account? This wouldn't include any exercise, so if you truly think that your childcare puts you into that category, you would choose that and then log your additional exercise at the gym and eat those calories back. If you're doing this and have chosen a reasonable weight loss goal (like .5 or 1 pound a week), I find it hard to believe that you would only have 1,200 calories. 1,200 is the very lowest MFP should go for women, so you should have more than that just from logging your additional exercise.
That's what I am saying. What you just said is what I put in and like I said MFP keeps jumping around on me and I don't know why. The last time I logged on here it told me to eat 1,800 something a day than it changed on me this week to 1,200 something a day. Like I said 1,200 isn't enough. I am trying to figure out what is the best answer for woman to eat a day when you are active. 1,200 a day is striving yourself. Sometimes I have to enter my stuff manually because I feel like MFP isn't always right when you have to change your settings
I provided how it works above... there are two things,
1) if you put very active and to lose .5 or 1/lb and you still are getting 1200.. this is a bug in the system.. you may need to report this to the Tech Team.
2) If you already know what works for you and this 1800 calories you mentioned for example was used to lose weight in the past, you can just setup your own that you know from the past that worked and tweak it.
I ran your stats on a calculator (not the one you used) and that one looks really out of proportionate however I did not put your typical stay at home mom as very active, as in MFP works in the way you add exercise to your daily calorie goal.1 -
I am afraid that what you described as being very active is not what this means.. In my opinion your setting should be set to light active or possibly active for your particular situation.. this might be a more appropriate setting.
For now, go back to the setup and put in sedentary and maintain (along with your personal stats).. What did this give you for a TDEE (a non exercise TDEE)? This is the calories you burn being completely sedentary and no exercise.
Now enter in light active and to maintain.. ... What did this give you? This will give you additional calories for taking care of your active child, and doing alot more in the day that is not sedentary (sitting around) and no exercise.
Now enter in light active and to loose .5 per week.. What did this give you? You will add your exercise calories each day to this amount for example.
"MFP calorie allotment per day" + Exercise = NET Calorie Goal. So if you are truly active, meaning you have a very demanding job such as construction, or you are an elite athlete per se, leave your setting to something around the light active to maybe active and you will add your exercise separately.. So it will look like this for example on a typical day you exercise. 1400 MFP goal + exercise.
Daily calories 1400 + exercise = NET calorie goal
1700 (calorie you eat for example today) - 300 (exercise calorie burn) = 1400 NET GOAL.
If you need more details you can go to the stickies at the beginning of the forums, particularly to find a link regarding this is under "Getting Started".
Okay I am not quite understanding what you are saying but I am sorry. But are you saying that when a person goes to a gym 5 days a week doing cardio, weight lifting and doing HITT or Zumba class that's consider very light activity or light activity? So in order to be very active you have to be an athlete?
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Iansmommy123011 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »Iansmommy123011 wrote: »
Savithny it's because I have a 4 year old son who has Autism and I have to run after him everyday to just get him out of the house, play with him, get him ready to go to school or whatever. He is constantly running around and since he is very young I have to go after him. So I am running a lot
Did you put "Very Active" as your activity setting on your MFP account? This wouldn't include any exercise, so if you truly think that your childcare puts you into that category, you would choose that and then log your additional exercise at the gym and eat those calories back. If you're doing this and have chosen a reasonable weight loss goal (like .5 or 1 pound a week), I find it hard to believe that you would only have 1,200 calories. 1,200 is the very lowest MFP should go for women, so you should have more than that just from logging your additional exercise.
That's what I am saying. What you just said is what I put in and like I said MFP keeps jumping around on me and I don't know why. The last time I logged on here it told me to eat 1,800 something a day than it changed on me this week to 1,200 something a day. Like I said 1,200 isn't enough. I am trying to figure out what is the best answer for woman to eat a day when you are active. 1,200 a day is striving yourself. Sometimes I have to enter my stuff manually because I feel like MFP isn't always right when you have to change your settings
If you put "Very Active" and that you wanted to lose .5 a week and you are logging exercise and it is just giving you 1,200 then I would assume there is a bug somewhere and report that.
That said, I think it's worth considering that you may not be "Very Active," you may want to choose a more moderate activity level to see if that works for you.0 -
Iansmommy123011 wrote: »I am afraid that what you described as being very active is not what this means.. In my opinion your setting should be set to light active or possibly active for your particular situation.. this might be a more appropriate setting.
For now, go back to the setup and put in sedentary and maintain (along with your personal stats).. What did this give you for a TDEE (a non exercise TDEE)? This is the calories you burn being completely sedentary and no exercise.
Now enter in light active and to maintain.. ... What did this give you? This will give you additional calories for taking care of your active child, and doing alot more in the day that is not sedentary (sitting around) and no exercise.
Now enter in light active and to loose .5 per week.. What did this give you? You will add your exercise calories each day to this amount for example.
"MFP calorie allotment per day" + Exercise = NET Calorie Goal. So if you are truly active, meaning you have a very demanding job such as construction, or you are an elite athlete per se, leave your setting to something around the light active to maybe active and you will add your exercise separately.. So it will look like this for example on a typical day you exercise. 1400 MFP goal + exercise.
Daily calories 1400 + exercise = NET calorie goal
1700 (calorie you eat for example today) - 300 (exercise calorie burn) = 1400 NET GOAL.
If you need more details you can go to the stickies at the beginning of the forums, particularly to find a link regarding this is under "Getting Started".
Okay I am not quite understanding what you are saying but I am sorry. But are you saying that when a person goes to a gym 5 days a week doing cardio, weight lifting and doing HITT or Zumba class that's consider very light activity or light activity? So in order to be very active you have to be an athlete?
Your activity level is based on what you do outside the gym (unless being in the gym is your job.)
Are you a stay at home mom? Put Lightly Active.
Log your exercise separately. Many consider the calories burns to be inflated and only eat back 50% of the calories earned from exercise.0 -
kshama2001 wrote: »Iansmommy123011 wrote: »I am afraid that what you described as being very active is not what this means.. In my opinion your setting should be set to light active or possibly active for your particular situation.. this might be a more appropriate setting.
For now, go back to the setup and put in sedentary and maintain (along with your personal stats).. What did this give you for a TDEE (a non exercise TDEE)? This is the calories you burn being completely sedentary and no exercise.
Now enter in light active and to maintain.. ... What did this give you? This will give you additional calories for taking care of your active child, and doing alot more in the day that is not sedentary (sitting around) and no exercise.
Now enter in light active and to loose .5 per week.. What did this give you? You will add your exercise calories each day to this amount for example.
"MFP calorie allotment per day" + Exercise = NET Calorie Goal. So if you are truly active, meaning you have a very demanding job such as construction, or you are an elite athlete per se, leave your setting to something around the light active to maybe active and you will add your exercise separately.. So it will look like this for example on a typical day you exercise. 1400 MFP goal + exercise.
Daily calories 1400 + exercise = NET calorie goal
1700 (calorie you eat for example today) - 300 (exercise calorie burn) = 1400 NET GOAL.
If you need more details you can go to the stickies at the beginning of the forums, particularly to find a link regarding this is under "Getting Started".
Okay I am not quite understanding what you are saying but I am sorry. But are you saying that when a person goes to a gym 5 days a week doing cardio, weight lifting and doing HITT or Zumba class that's consider very light activity or light activity? So in order to be very active you have to be an athlete?
Your activity level is based on what you do outside the gym (unless being in the gym is your job.)
Are you a stay at home mom? Put Lightly Active.
Log your exercise separately. Many consider the calories burns to be inflated and only eat back 50% of the calories earned from exercise.
OP this.. Lightly Active..Iansmommy123011 wrote: »I am afraid that what you described as being very active is not what this means.. In my opinion your setting should be set to light active or possibly active for your particular situation.. this might be a more appropriate setting.
For now, go back to the setup and put in sedentary and maintain (along with your personal stats).. What did this give you for a TDEE (a non exercise TDEE)? This is the calories you burn being completely sedentary and no exercise.
Now enter in light active and to maintain.. ... What did this give you? This will give you additional calories for taking care of your active child, and doing alot more in the day that is not sedentary (sitting around) and no exercise.
Now enter in light active and to loose .5 per week.. What did this give you? You will add your exercise calories each day to this amount for example.
"MFP calorie allotment per day" + Exercise = NET Calorie Goal. So if you are truly active, meaning you have a very demanding job such as construction, or you are an elite athlete per se, leave your setting to something around the light active to maybe active and you will add your exercise separately.. So it will look like this for example on a typical day you exercise. 1400 MFP goal + exercise.
Daily calories 1400 + exercise = NET calorie goal
1700 (calorie you eat for example today) - 300 (exercise calorie burn) = 1400 NET GOAL.
If you need more details you can go to the stickies at the beginning of the forums, particularly to find a link regarding this is under "Getting Started".
Okay I am not quite understanding what you are saying but I am sorry. But are you saying that when a person goes to a gym 5 days a week doing cardio, weight lifting and doing HITT or Zumba class that's consider very light activity or light activity? So in order to be very active you have to be an athlete?
To answer your question directly, for your particular current lifestyle and day to day activities, in MFP you do not meet the "very" active classification. You fit the lightly active.. remember add your exercise on top of this.. this is where you are getting confused.0 -
Iansmommy123011 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »Iansmommy123011 wrote: »
Savithny it's because I have a 4 year old son who has Autism and I have to run after him everyday to just get him out of the house, play with him, get him ready to go to school or whatever. He is constantly running around and since he is very young I have to go after him. So I am running a lot
Did you put "Very Active" as your activity setting on your MFP account? This wouldn't include any exercise, so if you truly think that your childcare puts you into that category, you would choose that and then log your additional exercise at the gym and eat those calories back. If you're doing this and have chosen a reasonable weight loss goal (like .5 or 1 pound a week), I find it hard to believe that you would only have 1,200 calories. 1,200 is the very lowest MFP should go for women, so you should have more than that just from logging your additional exercise.
That's what I am saying. What you just said is what I put in and like I said MFP keeps jumping around on me and I don't know why. The last time I logged on here it told me to eat 1,800 something a day than it changed on me this week to 1,200 something a day. Like I said 1,200 isn't enough. I am trying to figure out what is the best answer for woman to eat a day when you are active. 1,200 a day is striving yourself. Sometimes I have to enter my stuff manually because I feel like MFP isn't always right when you have to change your settings
When I ran your stats, activity level Very Active, weight loss goal of 0.5 pound per week, I got 1940 calories.
But I think you should select Lightly Active, log 50% of your exercise, and eat those calories as well as your base calories.
At Lightly Active and a weekly weight loss goal of 0.5 pound per week, your base calories before exercise will be 1,450 Calories / Day.
If I drop the weekly goal to a pound per week, then I get 1200 calories (before exercise.)0 -
Okay so I changed to to lightly active since I am a stay at home mom. It automatically changed back 1,200 calories a day. So I manually put in 1,845 a day. Let's see how this works0
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Iansmommy123011 wrote: »Okay so I changed to to lightly active since I am a stay at home mom. It automatically changed back 1,200 calories a day. So I manually put in 1,845 a day. Let's see how this works
You must have put in a weekly weight loss goal of a pound a week.
I suggest you leave it at 1200 calories and eat back 50% of the calories you log for Zumba, etc.0 -
I'm 5'1 and MFP has me on 1200 a day, I thought that was normal for short people. I put down sedentary since I have a desk job.0
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smurph1968 wrote: »I'm 5'1 and MFP has me on 1200 a day, I thought that was normal for short people. I put down sedentary since I have a desk job.
How many pounds do you want to lose and what is your weekly weight loss goal set to?0 -
Iansmommy123011 wrote: »Okay so I changed to to lightly active since I am a stay at home mom. It automatically changed back 1,200 calories a day. So I manually put in 1,845 a day. Let's see how this works
I see exactly what and why it is confusing to you and this is ok.. I think maybe the methods we have tried to explain how it works is getting lost somewhere.. however, if you know you lose weight at 1845 a day that's all good.. HOWEVER if you eat back exercise calories that MFP will add to this total everyday, tweak it, or choose to lower the amount of exercise you eat back per day on the days that you exercise. This 1845 you are putting in as your goal does NOT include the exercise calories.
Perhaps read up on this link...
http://fit101.org/the-step-by-step-guide-to-losing-weight-with-myfitnesspal/#tee0
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