What is my daily calorie intake?

Breakingupwithfatty
Breakingupwithfatty Posts: 13 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
So i love myfitnesspal, but wanted to check out some of the other apps.
So here is my frustration, they all produced a very wide range of daily calorie allotment.

Myfitnesspal: 1200
Itrackbites: 1460
Loseit: 1826
Mynetdiary:1504

All of these were based on:
Female
32
5'7"
Weight:200
Sedentary lifestyle
and to lose 2 pounds a week.

So, my question is what number do i go off of?
Should i just pick a number and go?


Replies

  • tinkerbellang83
    tinkerbellang83 Posts: 9,128 Member
    Different sites use different ways to calculate your calorie intake, for example MyFitnessPal uses the NEAT method which does not include any exercise only calories based on your Home/Work/School life activity, a lot of other sites use the TDEE method which includes exercise.

    I looked at Lose It and got much the same as MFP when I input your stats with my own date of birth, are you sure you chose the same rate of loss? That perhaps looks like 1 pound per week rather than 2 pounds per week.

    I also got a much lower calorie allowance from netdiary (1105) for the same stats, which is pretty bad considering 1200 is the lowest recommended for a lighter, older, sedentary woman not an obese, younger woman. I'd starve!

    The only way you will find out what will work for you is to pick one and evaluate after 4-6 weeks. Consider also dropping your rate of loss to 1-1.5lbs per week, sustainability in the long term is far more important than seeing fast results in the short term.

    I would question as to whether you are actually sedentary though, few people are, sedentary would be someone who spends the majority of their days sitting down and only getting a low number of incidental steps (Around 3000 across the day - for me I exceed this even on days I drive to/from work and sit at my desk all day purely from things like walking to/from the printer, going to the canteen a couple of times, getting ready for work and doing a little light housework in the evening).

  • steveko89
    steveko89 Posts: 2,223 Member
    These are the typically recommended loss rates (daily deficit in parentheses):
    If you have 75+ lbs to lose 2 lbs/week is ideal (-1000 cal/day)
    If you have 40-75 lbs to lose 1.5 lbs/week is ideal (-750 cal/day)
    If you have 25-40 lbs to lose 1 lb/week is ideal (-500 cal/day)
    If you have 15-25 lbs to lose 0.5 to 1.0 lb/week is ideal (-250-500 cal/day)
    If you have less than 15 lbs to lose 0.5 lb/week is ideal (-250 cal/day)

    Through my personal data I find TDEECalculator.net to be accurate. Given your stats it yields a maintenance level of 1980 with a target "ideal weight" range of 134-138 lbs. So with ~60 lbs to lose, I suggest starting with a loss rate of 1.5 lb/week which would equate to 1230 calories/day. However, you can still lose on any of the numbers the other sites provided, just not as quickly. MFP bottoms out its recommendations at 1200 regardless of selected loss rate as that's the minimum recommended intake for adult women.

    Once you hit 180 lbs you would increase calories to 1370 and shift to 1 lb/week. Going from 200 to 180 drops your maintenance calories from 1980 to 1871 since there's fundamentally less of you to fuel, subtracting 500 gets you to 1370.

    Good luck! Hope that helps.
  • hmhill17
    hmhill17 Posts: 283 Member
    Those other numbers seem really high.

    For comparison:
    MFP - sedentary 2lbs a week 5'10" 224 my calorie goal is 1500. My .5 lbs a week is ~1800.

    If you've been using MFP and it's working, then stick with that.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,409 Member
    edited September 2019
    What they said ^^
    Female
    32
    5'7"
    Weight:200
    Sedentary lifestyle
    and to lose 2 pounds a week

    I started at 200, 5'7" too.

    I tried the 1200 PLUS Exercise calories Myfitnesspal suggested. Most days that put me at 1400-1500 total calories eaten. I truly WAS sedentary, as I'm single and retired and live in a tiny place. If you have any kind of job or go to school or care for kids or a house, you're not Sedentary, so change that part first and you'll get more calories.


    With that said, I only stuck with 1200+Exercise cals for a couple months, it was just too low and I was crashing or binging, neither of which were good, so I switched to 1600 PLUS Exercise cals (which had me eating a total of 1800-1900 every day) till I got to within 15 pounds of my goal (so I was 160ish by then) - when I changed to 1500 PLUS Exercise cals for the rest.

    1500-1700 is what I'd suggest for you, PLUS eat the extra calories earned by exercise. So 1500-1700 Net.

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1080242/a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants/p1



  • NovusDies
    NovusDies Posts: 8,940 Member
    phillipssarah948 wrote: »
    So i love myfitnesspal, but wanted to check out some of the other apps.
    So here is my frustration, they all produced a very wide range of daily calorie allotment.

    Myfitnesspal: 1200
    Itrackbites: 1460
    Loseit: 1826
    Mynetdiary:1504

    All of these were based on:
    Female
    32
    5'7"
    Weight:200
    Sedentary lifestyle
    and to lose 2 pounds a week.

    So, my question is what number do i go off of?
    Should i just pick a number and go?



    That is exactly what you should do. I would suggest sticking with the MFP number because otherwise every 10 pounds or so you will be manually updating your calorie goal as it will decline with your weight.

    In about 6 weeks you will need to crunch your numbers and determine if you are losing weight as expected. Once you have your own numbers you will not need use online estimations until something changes like your NEAT increases or decreases. Chances are your own number will match MFP close enough that you won't need to make manual adjustments.
  • Breakingupwithfatty
    Breakingupwithfatty Posts: 13 Member
    Thank you guys for all the input!!!
  • scarlett_k
    scarlett_k Posts: 812 Member
    I'm about the same stats as you (or I was 10 kilos ago) and I ca 100% vouch that 1200 will leave you painfully hungry and prone to falling off the wagon as you'll be so sad and hungry. I'd definitely go for 1700-1800, log accurately and then reassess how that's working for you after a few weeks.

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