I'm consistently below the required calories. How many calories below does it take for weight loss t

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tisharp2
tisharp2 Posts: 1 Member
edited February 2023 in Getting Started
How many calories below the standard required does the body still lose weight at please?

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  • Carriehelene
    Carriehelene Posts: 178 Member
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    Some questions we’ll need answered to answer you. When you say “required calories”, are you talking about the calories MFP recommended when you filled out your info? How long have you been trying? Have you lost anything? Lastly, are you using a food scale, eyeballing, measuring your food?
  • BarbaraHelen2013
    BarbaraHelen2013 Posts: 1,940 Member
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    You need to give us more information!

    ‘required calories’? What number are you talking about, and where did you get that number?

    If you’re talking about the number MFP has suggested based on the information you’ve given it then, if you stick to that number (weighing on a kitchen scale and choosing accurate database entries for all the food you eat then weight loss should occur.

    The number suggested by MFP already includes the appropriate calorie deficit based on the statistics you input and the weight loss rate you selected.

    We could help more if you tell us your gender, age, height. current weight and target weight. Also confirm the daily calorie numbers you’re referring too, and their source.

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,359 Member
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    If you told MFP your personal details including your desired weight loss rate, and are using the calorie goal it gave you, you should be eating approximately the number of calories it told you to eat - not less. (Loosely, that's the number of calories that would be necessary for the average person like you to lose weight at the rate you input.) Close is fine, say plus or minus 50 daily.

    Follow that for 4-6 weeks. Use your results to calculate your average weekly weight change. (If you're female, adult, and not yet in menopause, compare weight at the same relative point in at least two different monthly cycles.)

    Compare your actual loss rate to the loss rate you told MFP you wanted. If it's significantly different, adjust your calorie goal. (Use the assumption that 500 calories daily is one pound a week, and use arithmetic to account for fractions.)

    Don't try to lose weight faster than 0.5%-1% of your current weight per week, for best health, appearance and body composition (fat vs. muscle) results. Choose something more like 0.5% per week unless you're severely obese, and under close medical supervision for nutritional deficiencies or health complications.

    That would be my advice, based on both reading and personal experience. (I have lost around 1/3 of my body weight, obese to a healthy weight, and stayed at a healthy weight for around 7 years since, after previous decades of overweight/obesity, if that matters.)
  • mtaratoot
    mtaratoot Posts: 13,323 Member
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    tisharp2 wrote: »
    How many calories below the standard required does the body still lose weight at please?

    You lose weight if you expend more energy than you consume. This is also called keeping "calories in" less than "calories out." Theoretically, if you eat one calorie less each day than you burn, you will lose fat. It would take you ten years to lose a pound, so that's just silly.

    A deficit of 3500 calories should lead to a loss of one pound of fat. You can do that over time.

    You can use the "Guided Setup" here on MFP to develop a good calorie goal. If you tell MFP you want to lose a half pound per week, it will give you a calorie budget that, before you do any exercise, will have a 250 calorie per day deficit. Technically, you could eat OVER this amount and still lose weight as long as you ate less than 250 calories over it. It also takes some experimentation because these numbers are based on population averages.

    Eat the number of calories in the budget you develop based on how fast you want to lose, and by all means do not try to go too fast. It backfires. Then eat back the extra calories you get assigned from exercise.
  • sjl0210
    sjl0210 Posts: 31 Member
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    It vary for each person. But 250-500kcals below maintaince should be fine. I recommend finding maintaince calories using weightscale weekly, eat the same, see what happens. If nothing happens in 1-2 weeks you are almost sure its maintaince level. If you add or lower your weight, then you know what to do. Calculate on the internet or having methods to calculate will take more time to get close to perfect.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,359 Member
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    stianjl wrote: »
    It vary for each person. But 250-500kcals below maintaince should be fine. I recommend finding maintaince calories using weightscale weekly, eat the same, see what happens. If nothing happens in 1-2 weeks you are almost sure its maintaince level. If you add or lower your weight, then you know what to do. Calculate on the internet or having methods to calculate will take more time to get close to perfect.

    One to two weeks is not going to show whether someone's at maintenance calories. If nothing else, some adult women not yet in menopause only see a new low weight once per month. That's not the most common pattern, but ups and downs over a couple of weeks - even while eating and moving pretty consistently - are pretty common.

    Starting with a calculator estimate - which is essentially a population average need for similar people - is a reasonable strategy, likely to be more time-efficient than some kind of random guess.

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