How many calories in a day?

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SisepuedeLinda
SisepuedeLinda Posts: 132 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Guessing most of you aren't dietitians or trainers but if anyone can help me figure out how many calories I should be eating daily to lose a good amount. I'm 5'5 and 229 pounds. My goal is to be under 200 and my official goal is to be 140-150. 80 pounds total. I'm calorie counting and trying not to go over 1,500 which I normally don't but is this number ok for me to start off with? I read that when people typically plateau is because they're calories need to be adjusted and I know 1,200 is the minimum you should have. So overall, just need help in the right direction to figuring out my calorie goal along with how much protein and carbs I should have too. Thanks everyone!
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Replies

  • SisepuedeLinda
    SisepuedeLinda Posts: 132 Member
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    Salera_west wrote: »
    So for weight loss they recommend not trying to lose more than 2lbs per week (without talking to your doctor first) so a caloric deficit of 7,000 for the week. To determine how many calories you neex it's

    1) Weight multiplied by 11

    2) multiply answer from one by
    .3 for slow metabolism
    .4 for average
    .5 for fast
    3) add answers from step 1 and 2 plus any excersize calories.

    That would be the amount you need to maintain so if you take off 1000 per day from that you would lose two pounds per week.

    Wow! I'm kind of horrible at math but if I did it right it's 2,274 calories! It seems like a lot but I guess you can eat a lot of calories by choosing the right things to eat right?

  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,013 Member
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    lsanchez910 wrote: »
    Salera_west wrote: »
    So for weight loss they recommend not trying to lose more than 2lbs per week (without talking to your doctor first) so a caloric deficit of 7,000 for the week. To determine how many calories you neex it's

    1) Weight multiplied by 11

    2) multiply answer from one by
    .3 for slow metabolism
    .4 for average
    .5 for fast
    3) add answers from step 1 and 2 plus any excersize calories.

    That would be the amount you need to maintain so if you take off 1000 per day from that you would lose two pounds per week.

    Wow! I'm kind of horrible at math but if I did it right it's 2,274 calories! It seems like a lot but I guess you can eat a lot of calories by choosing the right things to eat right?

    No, the only thing that determines how much weight you will lose is calories. Since you're here, why not just put your stats into mfp and start out with that calorie goal?
  • SisepuedeLinda
    SisepuedeLinda Posts: 132 Member
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    So since it's supposed to be around 2200, have I done bad by starting at 1500?
  • ksbharath
    ksbharath Posts: 1 Member
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    Do what the others suggested and enter all your information in to the system and it will tell you what to do.

    Just for reference, I'm a 6 foot male and I'm told to have about 2200 calories a day to maintain. This means I need 1700 calories to lose 1 pound a week. (500 calories a day = 3500 calories a week = 1 pound a week)

    1500 a day for you seems fine to me, maybe slightly less wouldn't be bad but I'd just follow what MyFitnessPal tells you to do and re-*kitten* in a few weeks.
  • rileysowner
    rileysowner Posts: 8,123 Member
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    ksbharath wrote: »
    Do what the others suggested and enter all your information in to the system and it will tell you what to do.

    Just for reference, I'm a 6 foot male and I'm told to have about 2200 calories a day to maintain. This means I need 1700 calories to lose 1 pound a week. (500 calories a day = 3500 calories a week = 1 pound a week)

    1500 a day for you seems fine to me, maybe slightly less wouldn't be bad but I'd just follow what MyFitnessPal tells you to do and re-*kitten* in a few weeks.

    I am a 50 year old 5'10" male and I lose at 2000 calories a day. How in the world would you maintain at 2200?

    To the original poster, enter your information into the goal setter and eat the calories it gives you carefully measuring all that you eat and drink.
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,013 Member
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    lsanchez910 wrote: »
    So since it's supposed to be around 2200, have I done bad by starting at 1500?

    If mfp gave you 2200 then aim for that starting tomorrow and tweak after a few weeks if you need to. I don't think 1500 is "bad" :smile: but you probably don't have to go that low.
  • Ready2Rock206
    Ready2Rock206 Posts: 9,488 Member
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    Use the calorie goal MFP gives you. People plateau because they're bad at logging - either they don't know better or they're sloppy or they start to lose so they slack off logging. Also can be because they don't drop their calories as they lose weight but the biggest reason is inaccurate logging.
  • xvolution
    xvolution Posts: 721 Member
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    Salera_west wrote: »
    So for weight loss they recommend not trying to lose more than 2lbs per week (without talking to your doctor first) so a caloric deficit of 7,000 for the week. To determine how many calories you neex it's

    1) Weight multiplied by 11

    2) multiply answer from one by
    .3 for slow metabolism
    .4 for average
    .5 for fast
    3) add answers from step 1 and 2 plus any excersize calories.

    That would be the amount you need to maintain so if you take off 1000 per day from that you would lose two pounds per week.

    I'm not sure how accurate it is (I did the calculations and it said my maintenance calories is 3800). If it was fully accurate, then I'd be losing a pound every 2 days.
  • SisepuedeLinda
    SisepuedeLinda Posts: 132 Member
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    Well I followed the advice of doing it through the mfp way and got 1820 which I'm ok with. It's just hard for me to find good things to fill in that number! Lol honestly I liked 1500 because I knew I couldn't overeat or think I had extra calories to goof off but I also don't want my body to freak out if it's not enough either.
  • amtyrell
    amtyrell Posts: 1,449 Member
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    Mfp is about a making eating habits you can stick with.
    So weigh and log what you eat before you eat it but the wonderful thing is you can eat whatever as long as you make it fit your calories and still lose weight.
  • Ready2Rock206
    Ready2Rock206 Posts: 9,488 Member
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    lsanchez910 wrote: »
    Lol honestly I liked 1500 because I knew I couldn't overeat or think I had extra calories to goof off but I also don't want my body to freak out if it's not enough either.

    You're definitely not going to starve to death on 1500 calories. People who are actually starving eat far less than that.
  • nutmegoreo
    nutmegoreo Posts: 15,532 Member
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    Salera_west wrote: »
    So for weight loss they recommend not trying to lose more than 2lbs per week (without talking to your doctor first) so a caloric deficit of 7,000 for the week. To determine how many calories you neex it's

    1) Weight multiplied by 11

    2) multiply answer from one by
    .3 for slow metabolism
    .4 for average
    .5 for fast
    3) add answers from step 1 and 2 plus any excersize calories.

    That would be the amount you need to maintain so if you take off 1000 per day from that you would lose two pounds per week.

    No, this is complete bunk. I'm pretty good with math, this gives me 1600 plus exercise calories for 2lbs/week. There is no way. That's also presuming a slow metabolism, would have been higher otherwise. How is someone supposed to determine if their metabolism is slow? There is much less variability than you think.

    OP, if you do this, you will be back posting in a couple weeks wondering why you aren't losing. Enter your data into the program and start there. Give it 4-6 weeks and adjust up or down based on results.
  • nutmegoreo
    nutmegoreo Posts: 15,532 Member
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    kimny72 wrote: »
    lsanchez910 wrote: »
    So since it's supposed to be around 2200, have I done bad by starting at 1500?

    If mfp gave you 2200 then aim for that starting tomorrow and tweak after a few weeks if you need to. I don't think 1500 is "bad" :smile: but you probably don't have to go that low.

    MFP didn't give her that number, that crazy formula posted above did.
  • SisepuedeLinda
    SisepuedeLinda Posts: 132 Member
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    Yeah I'm gonna stick with the mfp numbers and see how it goes :) thanks everyone for your input. I didn't even let it calculate when I started I just figured 2000 is what is usually calculated on nutrition facts so I subtracted 500 but I'll see how it works out for the month. Wish me luck :sunglasses:
  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
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    lsanchez910 wrote: »
    Guessing most of you aren't dietitians or trainers but if anyone can help me figure out how many calories I should be eating daily to lose a good amount. I'm 5'5 and 229 pounds. My goal is to be under 200 and my official goal is to be 140-150. 80 pounds total. I'm calorie counting and trying not to go over 1,500 which I normally don't but is this number ok for me to start off with? I read that when people typically plateau is because they're calories need to be adjusted and I know 1,200 is the minimum you should have. So overall, just need help in the right direction to figuring out my calorie goal along with how much protein and carbs I should have too. Thanks everyone!

    Mfp will tell you..
  • mrspett323
    mrspett323 Posts: 85 Member
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    I just wanted to put a little info out for folks who may not understand BMR vs TDEE calories. BMR is the amount of calories it takes for your body to function as if it was in a coma. TDEE calories are the amount of calories it takes for your body to handle everyday functions including the intensity and amount of exercise included. I read alot of people are under eating, hitting plateaus and exercising intensely. It takes 1200 calories for a 3 year old to function. You can find online calculators to compute your BMR and TDEE numbers if it confuses you. Look at your TDEE numbers and do a 20% deficit to lose weight the healthy way. Nobody's BMR is 1200 unless you are 3 years old. Most are between 14-1500 especially for women but remember that's not including once you start calculating exercise and daily functions. That's when TDEE calories need to be calculated and looked at. If you are only eating 1200 calories before even exercising which causes a bigger deficit, your body is struggling to survive. You may be losing weight NOT fat on the scale but it's probably muscle, bone tissue and even brain matter. There is a difference between weightloss vs fat loss. I read alot of stories of folks cheering people on for eating 1200 calories and working out for hours. I want longterm and wish you all the same because I believe everyone hates starting over. This usually happens because we are trying to stick to programs or habits that are just crazy. I use to be a believer in eat less and work out more but once my Trainer educated me and I gave his plan a try I started to lose and look smaller even if the scale didn't move because muscle takes up less space than fat. I eat between 1800-2100 calories a day. Before I was stuck on the 1200-1400 calories thinking this was sustainable until I was educated about BMR vs TDEE. Please eat folks because your body needs valuable nutrients to function properly. Long term you can be damaging your health by undereating. Believe it or not some people are actually offended by this advice. If this helps just one person, it's one person more now that will have long term results to end the Yo-Yo dieting phase. Enjoy you all's day and hope this helps somebody have a better understanding because I was once confused by all these numbers but educated and researched that made it make sense to me!
  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
    edited August 2017
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    mrspett323 wrote: »
    I just wanted to put a little info out for folks who may not understand BMR vs TDEE calories. BMR is the amount of calories it takes for your body to function as if it was in a coma. TDEE calories are the amount of calories it takes for your body to handle everyday functions including the intensity and amount of exercise included. I read alot of people are under eating, hitting plateaus and exercising intensely. It takes 1200 calories for a 3 year old to function. You can find online calculators to compute your BMR and TDEE numbers if it confuses you. Look at your TDEE numbers and do a 20% deficit to lose weight the healthy way. Nobody's BMR is 1200 unless you are 3 years old. Most are between 14-1500 especially for women but remember that's not including once you start calculating exercise and daily functions. That's when TDEE calories need to be calculated and looked at. If you are only eating 1200 calories before even exercising which causes a bigger deficit, your body is struggling to survive. You may be losing weight NOT fat on the scale but it's probably muscle, bone tissue and even brain matter. There is a difference between weightloss vs fat loss. I read alot of stories of folks cheering people on for eating 1200 calories and working out for hours. I want longterm and wish you all the same because I believe everyone hates starting over. This usually happens because we are trying to stick to programs or habits that are just crazy. I use to be a believer in eat less and work out more but once my Trainer educated me and I gave his plan a try I started to lose and look smaller even if the scale didn't move because muscle takes up less space than fat. I eat between 1800-2100 calories a day. Before I was stuck on the 1200-1400 calories thinking this was sustainable until I was educated about BMR vs TDEE. Please eat folks because your body needs valuable nutrients to function properly. Long term you can be damaging your health by undereating. Believe it or not some people are actually offended by this advice. If this helps just one person, it's one person more now that will have long term results to end the Yo-Yo dieting phase. Enjoy you all's day and hope this helps somebody have a better understanding because I was once confused by all these numbers but educated and researched that made it make sense to me!

    its probably worth adding though that MFP uses NEAT calculations, not TDEE to calculate a persons calories. that's why if you follow MFP you should eat back exercise cals.
  • deannalfisher
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
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    rileysowner wrote: »
    ksbharath wrote: »
    Do what the others suggested and enter all your information in to the system and it will tell you what to do.

    Just for reference, I'm a 6 foot male and I'm told to have about 2200 calories a day to maintain. This means I need 1700 calories to lose 1 pound a week. (500 calories a day = 3500 calories a week = 1 pound a week)

    1500 a day for you seems fine to me, maybe slightly less wouldn't be bad but I'd just follow what MyFitnessPal tells you to do and re-*kitten* in a few weeks.

    I am a 50 year old 5'10" male and I lose at 2000 calories a day. How in the world would you maintain at 2200?

    To the original poster, enter your information into the goal setter and eat the calories it gives you carefully measuring all that you eat and drink.

    I'm 5'3", female, 148 and maintain on about 2500cal a day - I workout 5-6 days a week (endurance triathlete), but even on weeks when I resemble a sloth, my weight is fairly stable

    I'm working with a RD and they slowly increased my calories over the period of about 6months to get me to this level (I started around 1800 a day in November last year)

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