1750 vs 1550 cal/day for 6'0 220 lb man?

Did you fill out your profile and get MFP's recommendation for 1 lb/week loss?

I am a 5'4 female who started at 145 lbs and lost weight on 1550. I can't imagine that is the right calorie goal for you. If you set your goal to lose 2 lbs per week, that's really only appropriate if you are obese, plus your mfp goal assumes you will log your exercise and eat back those cals too.

lonestarwings wrote: »

Yeah, it says 2300 per day for 1 pound per week so I guess I should go with 1750 if I was deciding between the two, which is the answer I expected.

If mfp said 2300, why would you eat 550 calories less? Sounds like a prescription for losing muscle and feeling awful.

lonestarwings wrote: »

All right, can the moderators please delete this. Don't need the lectures and snark.

I would actually ask the moderators to not delete this.

That's not a jab at you, but your response actually demonstrates a common fundamental misunderstanding of how this stuff works. There are most likely way more lurkers than posters, and the responses here to your question can benefit them.

If you put in a goal of 1 pound per week, which is absolutely reasonable, then you should be eating 2300 calories PLUS whatever amount you exercise.

To give you a point of reference, I'm 5'11". I started at 240 in February of 2017. I landed at 192 about 34 weeks later. I averaged eating about 2400 calories per day during that span. And I believe at that time I may have been on the aggressive side. If I had it to do over again, I would have eaten more protein and started lifting heavy much sooner.

There is no good reason for you to be eating 1550 (or 1750 for that matter) calories. You can do it if you want to, but there are ramifications to LBM loss. 12 pounds of it, as @pierinifitness mentions above, is pretty substantial. Rapid and weight loss are two terms that should not go together in your case.

@lonestarwings there's no snark, one pound per week is a perfectly decent rate of loss for your stats and 2300 is a good starting point.

I am 4 inches shorter than you and female and lose one pound per week on around 1900 + exercise calories.

Your maintenance at Sedentary would be around 2470 per day, so if you add an hour of cardio per day you're talking probably at least a TDEE of 2870. 1 pound per week loss is 500 calorie deficit from your TDEE (3500 calories/7 days). Which would put you at around 2370 to lose.

You can surely see why people would suggest 1550/1750 is too low, no?

lonestarwings thanks for this post, I clicked on it because I was also eating 1750. I am 5'11'' 205, goal 190. I do a lot of cardio and would eat back calories. Now I am adding 4 days of weights to my routine.

After reading responses I am upping my daily calorie goal and more protein. Thanks everyone for good responses.