1500 calories...Too Much or Too Little?

I'm curious as to why you would think it is too many. Do you think the website has given you an inaccurate goal for any specific reason?

When you signed up, what was your desired amount of weight loss per week? 1 lb? 2 lbs?

BeccaGail222 wrote: »

Yes, I thought they might stick to the side of cautionary as to not low-ball calorie goals so people don't give up and get discouraged.

Your calorie goal is going to be closely tied to the amount of weight you tell MFP you want to lose per week. If you choose an aggressive goal, you will get a smaller number of calories per week. But the goal is always going to be designed to result in the amount of weight loss you indicate per week.

It's an estimate, of course, like you will find on all websites offering a calorie goal. But it's designed to result in weight loss -- assuming you put in accurate information, it's never going to recommend a goal that is too high to result in weight loss for an average person with your stats.

Edit: An exception would be for smaller people who pick aggressive goals. If I weigh 120 and tell MFP I want to lose 2 pounds a week, there's no safe way for me to create the 1,000 calorie a day deficit I need to make that happen so my goal won't result in the weight loss that I requested. But for larger people and/or more reasonable goals, MFP is always going to give you a goal that is designed to result in the weight loss you are requesting.

I'm 5"8, 44 and 147lbs, and I'm set at 1500 to lose 0.5lbs a week. I cant go a calorie under this amount without failing eventually...

I put this on another thread like this...

Calorie range is very individual. How tall you are, how much you weigh, how active you are, and any medical issues must be considered. You cannot compare your calorie range to anyone else's. You have to figure out yours. How? By weighing your food (preferably in grams) and logging everything. Determine if that amount of calories makes you lose, maintain or gain.

With that said, I'm a 41-year-old female, 5'9, 177 pounds. I maintain on ~2200 calories. As long as I eat fewer calories than that, I will lose. I prefer to shoot for about 1960 calories per day, because if I make my deficit too big, I feel hungry. If I feel hungry, I eventually crash and burn and binge.

I'm 5'4 sorry got that wrong!!

While 2 lb per week is very ambitious, starting out with so much to lose it's quite doable for a while.
When you get down to maybe 60 to go, slow your rate to 1 lb or less.
Also realize that if you're struggling, feeling hungry or like you can't keep doing this, aim a little lower and it will be easier. You'll still be losing (0.5 lb a week is still losing), just more slowly.
And as you lose weight, maybe every 20 lb or so or when you hit a plateau, recalculate your energy needs.

This calculator from the Baylor College of Medicine will show you how many calories you need to maintain any weight, for any combination of height / age / activity level, as well as how many servings of each food group.
https://www.bcm.edu/cnrc-apps/healthyeatingcalculator/eatingCal.cfm

I think an important question is - is 1500 calories a day something you can stick to over a long period of time?
On my personal example - I seem to need to eat about 1,600 calories per day minimum. I've now been eating 1,600-1,800 per day for over a year, and I've lost about 17kg, slowly but surely. I wouldn't last a single day on 1,200 which so many women on this site default to, and I couldn't last more than a week on 1,400-1,500. I found my personal threshold, and that helped me succeed.

TavistockToad wrote: »

try it for 4-6 weeks, see what the scales do....

This. Try it, weigh yourself daily/weekly and track your weight so you can see any trends. If it is about 2lbs a week, you're fine. If it's more, you could potentially add a few more calories in if you feel like you need it.

mlinci wrote: »

I think an important question is - is 1500 calories a day something you can stick to over a long period of time?
On my personal example - I seem to need to eat about 1,600 calories per day minimum. I've now been eating 1,600-1,800 per day for over a year, and I've lost about 17kg, slowly but surely. I wouldn't last a single day on 1,200 which so many women on this site default to, and I couldn't last more than a week on 1,400-1,500. I found my personal threshold, and that helped me succeed.

^^^ this.

I'm around 5' but I don't have much to lose, and 1500 NET is my goal. I can stick to it easily enough, and have enough energy for my workouts. I eat ALL of my exercise calories (measured by my fitbit) and am losing at a happy rate.

You may actually find you need to set your calories slightly HIGHER. But try 1500 for a month or so, and see what moves.

Is it too high? It's calculated based on what you asked for - 2 pounds a week. The math says you can probably eat that much and lose 2 pounds a week. They're not going to "lowball" the actual math.

What they DO lowball is people's expectations on how much you can or should try to lose per week. People come on and say "I want to lose 50 pounds by next Tuesday! Why can't I set it for 5 or 10 pounds per week?" THAT is where the "lowballing" happens, because the calculations are based on reasonable expectations of how long it takes to lose weight.