Advice from others- what’s a good calorie goal for me?

PAV8888 wrote: »

lilmakiroll wrote: »

harper16 wrote: »

Use MFP to calculate your calories. Set your weight loss goal at 1 lb a week. Set your activity level before any added exercise. Log your food and any exercise. Eat back your exercise calories.

Thank you!! I just wanted to make sure that number from MFP was accurate and I wasn’t overestimating too much!

Your food logging (incorrect database entries, not knowing precise ingredients in a dish, not weighting constituents of a dish, forgetfulness, conscious or unconscious estimation errors) is much more likely to be incorrect than the likelihood of your RMR varying too far from the population mean (the last one goes with the definition).

Your activity level estimates (which result in an activity factor estimate which is then multiplied by your RMR to give you a TDEE estimate for the day), especially when you engage in a variety of exercises, is quite likely to be off.

If you're 170.5 cm tall, or taller, you are already within the normal weight range. You would have to be 148 cm or shorter in order to be entering the obese range.

You also sound quite active in addition to purposeful exercise. I've seldom heard of someone making hospital rounds and not hitting general walking levels that by themselves bring their activity up to MFP's very active level (which corresponds to an AF of 1.8 if you ever feel like looking that up)

This is all a very roundabout way of saying you sound like very active and 1700 Cal sounds like very little for a very active 160lb person!

Which means that either you're under-estimating your activity level and you started at 2200 Cal, or you're trying to apply a 2lb a week loss off 2700 Cal. Which you probably shouldn't! BTW if you want to run your (unproven by reality) estimates you can go to: https://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/ Your activity level is probably closer to 1.9 than 1.75. Yes, I know what it says in the description. I also know that *most people* hit an AF of 1.8 at somewhere between 13,000 and 16,000 steps in a day. Without additional exercise.

This is not how MFP is designed to work, BTW. MFP expects you to pick a base activity level that you expect to hit EVERY day. And to then log separately AND EAT BACK the actual calories you spent beyond the activity level you initially selected, regardless of how the calories were generated. The mechanism used is logging exercise. The idea is that you're keeping a constant size deficit, and you're learning that the less you do the less you get to eat

You're going to be stressed at work/school. By curriculum design and by life. Especially in today's environment. Weight loss is also a stress. A big stress.

There are a couple of considerations to take into account.

--the effects of a larger deficit as a % of your TDEE during weight loss (reduction of lean mass vs fat mass, difficulty of sustaining the deficit, effect of multiple stressors on you).
and
--how does this set you up for the long term and for maintenance? Do you want to tank your leptin beyond what you have to and hope it recovers before you regain your weight?

Only do things you really believe you will be willing to continue to do after your weight loss effort!

PAV8888 wrote: »

Something you said in another thread majorly enhances my suggestion to avoid subjecting yourself to large deficits, so be even more extremely careful once you start hitting 15% of TDEE.

Steeper and lengthy deficits, particularly when applied to people who carry energy reserves that correspond to what you would expect to find within the normal bmi range, can bring about food ideation in people with no prior ED, and exacerbate existing ED.

PAV8888 wrote: »

changed my wording a bit to be more precise But be careful. You're applying stress on stress on stress (move to new city, amidst pandemic, school/new environment/practicum, diet on top)