How many calories per day?

drwilkinson84
drwilkinson84 Posts: 12 Member
in Getting Started
So i just wanted to make sure that i have my calories per day set correctly.

I added all of the information into the app when i signed up weight, how much i want to loose, height etc and it said it would recommend 1600 calories per day for me to loose around 1-2lbs per week.

Is this correct or is it to high?

Replies

  • BarbaraHelen2013
    BarbaraHelen2013 Posts: 1,940 Member
    It will be as correct as the information you gave it to work with, basically! It’s just an algorithm based on your statistics.

    So height, weight, gender, age, preferred loss rate and activity level.

    People often find they’ve been given too few calories because they’ve selected an inaccurate activity level. Sedentary, as far as MFP goes, is really very sedentary, for example.

    But as long as you’ve picked the most appropriate activity level for you and your lifestyle and manually add (or link to a health tracker etc) any purposeful exercise calories and eat some or all (your results over time should guide you here) of those exercise generated calories back you should be good.
  • Panini911
    Panini911 Posts: 2,325 Member
    edited August 2019
    1500 is the minimum a short sedentary male should eat to get minimum required nutrition. so no 1600/day doesn't sound HIGH at all, it sounds very low.

    remember MFP gives you calories to eat for the requested rate of loss WITHOUT purposeful exercise. if you work out you need to eat a reasonable estimate of those calories back. A bigger deficit is not better long term.
  • drwilkinson84
    drwilkinson84 Posts: 12 Member
    I have just started doing some general walking and things now as well and i have noticed that my calorie intake is higher than i expected no just by adding excercise.

    So you would recommend me going for more calories than i am aiming for just now then?
  • Danp
    Danp Posts: 1,561 Member
    edited August 2019
    Also bear in mind that the algorithms and calculations the MFP (and any calculator really) use are general estimates and based on averages for the details you've provided. Everyone is a bit different in a dozen different ways so the number for you might be slightly her or lower than the number for someone else with the same stats.

    The number given though is a good starting point but to hone in on the number that's right for you takes a bit of time and experimentation. Take the number you've been given and follow it as accurately as you can for about 4 weeks then check your results. If the numbers you're seeing align pretty closely to what was predicted then you're good to go. If the numbers you're seeing are higher or lower than predicted then you know that you may need to adjust the targets MFP has provided you up or down a little accordingly. Keep the adjustments relatively small, making wild swings up or down will just complicate matters.

    Then just repeat the above. Every 4 weeks or so, check your progress and make any necessary adjustments. Wait, check, adjust, wait, check, adjust.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,093 Member
    drwilkinson84 wrote: »
    So i just wanted to make sure that i have my calories per day set correctly.

    I added all of the information into the app when i signed up weight, how much i want to loose, height etc and it said it would recommend 1600 calories per day for me to loose around 1-2lbs per week.

    Is this correct or is it to high?

    Since MFP doesn't produce recommended calories for vague results like losing "around 1-2 lbs per week" (there's a 500 calorie difference between those two goals), there's something off here. Either you got your results somewhere else or you don't remember what goal you set.

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