Is calorie intake correct?

Hi,

I am a 25 year old female, I weight 246 lbs and I work mainly on my feet as my full time job. I marked myself down as “lightly active” since I haven’t been consistently going to the gym in recent months. I ideally would like to lose 1 lb per week. My calorie intake is over 2,000. Could I have done this incorrectly? Any insight would be great, I’m afraid 2000 would be too high to start with.

Replies

  • quiksylver296
    quiksylver296 Posts: 28,439 Member
    You don't say how tall you are, but yeah, that could be about right. I'm 5'9, 177 lbs, and lose about 0.5 pounds per week on 2000.
  • sdolan91
    sdolan91 Posts: 250 Member
    How tall are you? It sounds about right. I'm 5'4, 145lb and lose at 1,400. Eat at 2k for a month and see if you lose. :blush:
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    Going to the gym is irrelevant to your MFP activity level, it's designed to be set on your daily activities not including intentional exercise. If you work mainly on your feet, "lightly active" or even "active" would probably be a good place to start.

    I have no idea if you set your account up incorrectly (I didn't see you do it), but 2,000 for a lightly active 246-pound woman to lose 1 pound a week seems reasonable to me.

    Why do you think 2,000 is too high?
  • AliceDark
    AliceDark Posts: 3,886 Member
    Yeah, that sounds like it's in the right ballpark.

    Make sure that you're not logging any of the activity you estimated to get to "lightly active" as extra exercise, because that'll be double-counting it. If you do start going to the gym or doing any additional activity that wasn't included in your day-to-day activity, you can log that separately.
  • skinnyjingbb
    skinnyjingbb Posts: 127 Member
    When you weight more, you body actually burn more calorie that's probably why you can lose 1lbs per week on 2000 now, but after you lose some weight, you might need to lower the daily calorie intake if you still want to lose 1lbs per week.
  • I weigh 30 pounds less than you and MFP gave me 1870 to lose a pound per week and I was maintaining. Try it out for about 3 weeks at 2000, and see what happens.
  • The_Ta
    The_Ta Posts: 59 Member
    ^^what megamoose said^^
  • claritza0922
    claritza0922 Posts: 2 Member
    My height is 5’7”
  • MegaMooseEsq
    MegaMooseEsq Posts: 3,118 Member
    edited February 2018
    My height is 5’7”

    Generally speaking, the taller you are the more calories it takes to maintain your weight, but it’s really not significant until you become much leaner.
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,342 Member
    At your height 2000 sounds good for losing... give it a whirl and see. After 4 weeks you can then adjust cals if necessary.
  • Angierae75
    Angierae75 Posts: 417 Member
    I could never lose weight until I accepted that eating at 1200 calories and starving myself was not going to work, because I can't keep that up. These days I eat between 1500-1700 (I'm 5'1" and 182 at the moment, down from 225.) Once I realized that I didn't have to starve myself to lose weight, the weight came off.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,200 Member
    Go Moose!

    And evaluate your progress using a trending weight app or website and after a period of 4 to 6 weeks