How many calories in a day?
SisepuedeLinda
Posts: 132 Member
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
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Just enter these stats and your goals into your MFP profile and it will set your goal for you. Super easy10
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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.
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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?
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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?2 -
So since it's supposed to be around 2200, have I done bad by starting at 1500?0
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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.1 -
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.2 -
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"
but you probably don't have to go that low. 2 -
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.3
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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.2 -
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.0
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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.3 -
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.2 -
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.4 -
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" but you probably don't have to go that low.
MFP didn't give her that number, that crazy formula posted above did.1 -
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
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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..1 -
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!1 -
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.2 -
rileysowner 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)1 -
Also, just because the scale doesn't move doesn't mean you aren't losing inches. Some folks are scale obsessed even with ounces that they focus their whole journey on the scale. You can weigh the same and still wear smaller clothes and look smaller because muscle takes up less space than fat especially if you are weight training.0
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1400 to 1500 calories is what worked for me.
I am 5'6" and needed to lose at least 40 lbs -- who am I kidding, I need to lose another 15!
Anyway, I try to hover around 1400 calories but do go over about 25% of the time and I still lost weight and continue to lose. I also kept my weight loss / maintenance calories the same.
I also incorporated the following macros into my plan: 45% protein, 40% fat and 15% sugar / carbs. (Paleo / Keto - ish) and lost about 40 lbs over a 6th month period.
I knew from my own past experience that carbs and sugar are the devil. If I eat one sweet thing, then, I can't stop. I know that if I eat simple carbs (like bagels / white potatoes) my heart will race. If I eat complex carbs (like canned white beans) then I feel okay, but I don't really lose weight. I have restricted sugar and carbs before and knew that by restricting them, I am not craving them and I feel better. I liked that I wasn't hungry and that I had energy. If you chose to try this know that you have to eat healthy fat (to feel full / satiated).
Check out keto / paleo websites (and MFP forums) for some ideas on food macros and recipe ideas.
Ref: http://paleoiq.com/best-paleo-diet-blogs/
BTW, people are very passionate about either loving or hating keto / paleo. When I did it, I incorporated the "lifestyle" changes one meal at a time over three weeks. Breakfast during week one; Breakfast and lunch during week two; and, Breakfast, lunch and dinner during week three. (I didn't really get the "keto flu" doing it that way.)
Note:
The Weston A Price foundation states that people need 100 g of carbs per day to keep the thyroid in good working order. So, do keep that in mind over the long term.
Ref: https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/abcs-of-nutrition/why-we-need-carbs/
Good luck!
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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.
Except that your body can only burn off a certain amount of fat per day, and I am fairly sure a pound a day of fat is more than that upper maximum. Albeit, from what I have read, determining what that upper maximum is is still a matter of research. This is not saying the formula above holds any validity. I really have no idea.
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lsanchez910 wrote: »So since it's supposed to be around 2200, have I done bad by starting at 1500?
No. You have to make your own judgments. Do you feel good? Are you healthy? Are you losing weight? Stay on it. Some hunger is normal, but if you're ravenously hungry about sabotaging yourself, try eating a little more.0 -
lsanchez910 wrote: »So since it's supposed to be around 2200, have I done bad by starting at 1500?
No. You have to make your own judgments. Do you feel good? Are you healthy? Are you losing weight? Stay on it. Some hunger is normal, but if you're ravenously hungry about sabotaging yourself, try eating a little more.
Agreed. The idea behind starting with a higher number is that you're trying to build habits that will last a lifetime and keep the weight off - starting with a big drop in calories can be really miserable and difficult to maintain. But if you're finding it comfortable to eat at 1500 a day, enjoy! I've got that as my daily goal even though my TDEE is about 2400 (although I usually have two big days a week so average more like 2000 - still, I don't feel miserable on the 1500 days).0 -
mrspett323 wrote: »It takes 1200 calories for a 3 year old to function. ... Nobody's BMR is 1200 unless you are 3 years old.
Our bodies evolved to function on few or new calories when necessary. Some people do very well on Intermittent Fasting or Calorie Reduction programs. Depending on the program, they eat nothing during long periods or 500 calories a day on selected days. They are carefully worked out and they're not for everyone, but it is not true that everyone must eat a minimum of 1200 calories a day to lose weight.
Some people, like myself, are just small. I have to be under 1000 calories a day to lose weight.
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mrspett323 wrote: »It takes 1200 calories for a 3 year old to function. ... Nobody's BMR is 1200 unless you are 3 years old.
Our bodies evolved to function on few or new calories when necessary. Some people do very well on Intermittent Fasting or Calorie Reduction programs. Depending on the program, they eat nothing during long periods or 500 calories a day on selected days. They are carefully worked out and they're not for everyone, but it is not true that everyone must eat a minimum of 1200 calories a day to lose weight.
Some people, like myself, are just small. I have to be under 1000 calories a day to lose weight.
Our bodies did not evolve to survive on few or no calories for extended periods of time - that's why people die of malnutrition and starvation. 1200/1500 is just an approximation of when a diet starts to get possibly unhealthy. Certainly people can safely lose weight on less than that, but because of the potential side-effects (difficulty in reaching minimum nutrition on so few calories being a big one) it's best to be under a doctor's care if you're going to do the extremely low calorie thing.3 -
MegaMooseEsq wrote: »mrspett323 wrote: »It takes 1200 calories for a 3 year old to function. ... Nobody's BMR is 1200 unless you are 3 years old.
Our bodies evolved to function on few or new calories when necessary. Some people do very well on Intermittent Fasting or Calorie Reduction programs. Depending on the program, they eat nothing during long periods or 500 calories a day on selected days. They are carefully worked out and they're not for everyone, but it is not true that everyone must eat a minimum of 1200 calories a day to lose weight.
Some people, like myself, are just small. I have to be under 1000 calories a day to lose weight.
Our bodies did not evolve to survive on few or no calories for extended periods of time - that's why people die of malnutrition and starvation. 1200/1500 is just an approximation of when a diet starts to get possibly unhealthy. Certainly people can safely lose weight on less than that, but because of the potential side-effects (difficulty in reaching minimum nutrition on so few calories being a big one) it's best to be under a doctor's care if you're going to do the extremely low calorie thing.
Agreed MegaMoose!0 -
1200 is CRAP. I'd advise to aim for 1350 minimum to 1500.0
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If you eat 2200, you will likely maintain...so, 1500 is a good number, depending on the amount and type of exercise you do. I'm also 5'5 and I burn 1650ish on a sedentary day and 2000-2500 on regular days with some exercise. Best of luck!0
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