Calories

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tristingjones1
tristingjones1 Posts: 3 Member
edited July 2023 in Health and Weight Loss
Hello I am a 25 year old male. I am 5'11" tall and I weigh about 217. I am trying to understand how many calories I should be consuming. I work as a medical assistant and I walk about 10-13 thousand steps a day at work. I also work out about 3-5 times a week. Where should my calories be to lose weight. I reas that males should be between 2200-2500 calories but that doesn't work for me. Should I be at around 1500 calories? Unsure about all this. Thanks in advance.
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  • musicfan68
    musicfan68 Posts: 1,126 Member
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    Did you set up your stats in MFP when you joined? If you follow the directions, it will give you a good estimate to start.
  • tomcustombuilder
    tomcustombuilder Posts: 1,666 Member
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    Start at 2,000 and review progress or lack of it in a month. A big factor will be how accurate your weekly calorie counting and tracking will be.
  • tristingjones1
    tristingjones1 Posts: 3 Member
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    tomcustombuilder wrote: »
    Start at 2,000 and review progress or lack of it in a month. A big factor will be how accurate your weekly calorie counting and tracking will be.

    Thank you I appreciate it. I'll start there then.
  • tristingjones1
    tristingjones1 Posts: 3 Member
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    musicfan68 wrote: »
    Did you set up your stats in MFP when you joined? If you follow the directions, it will give you a good estimate to start.

    Yeah but i think it was quite a bit off.. so I wanted to manually set my calories.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,267 Member
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    tristingjones1 wrote: »
    musicfan68 wrote: »
    Did you set up your stats in MFP when you joined? If you follow the directions, it will give you a good estimate to start.

    Yeah but i think it was quite a bit off.. so I wanted to manually set my calories.

    Because someone else's guess would be a better starting point than the research-based estimate MFP will give you? I'm doubtful.

    What makes you think MFP is quite a bit off? That's a sincere question.

    MFP will be close for most people, noticeably off (high or low) for a few, and materially off for a rare few. That's the nature of reasonable statistical estimates, which is what MFP is giving you.

    Follow it for 4-6 weeks (since you're male) then adjust based on actual results. That will work, even if you turn out to be statistically unusual.

    If you start with someone else's guess, trying it for a few weeks will still give you a personalized answer, but their guess has no statistical likelihood of being close for most people. It's effectively random.
  • musicfan68
    musicfan68 Posts: 1,126 Member
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    I took your stats and assumed 1 lb of loss per week, and set to lightly active. It gave 2280 calories. Is this around what you were given? If so, start there.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,679 Member
    edited July 2023
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    10-13 is active not light
    He who eats the closest to eventual maintenance calories while losing weight at a reasonable enough rate and while also developing and embedding as many long term relevant choices as possible during the time period of weight loss.... that person will rack up a ton of bonus points for maintenance... maybe even an extra maintenance life! 😜 And who of us cannot use an extra life when things go sideways?😘
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,394 MFP Moderator
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    I started at a similar weight and did 2300 calories. 13 years later and 60 lbs lighter (166 currently) i eat ~2000 calories for weight loss. I exercise (mainly lifting) 5 days a week.
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 9,938 Member
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    PAV8888 wrote: »
    10-13 is active not light
    He who eats the closest to eventual maintenance calories while losing weight at a reasonable enough rate and while also developing and embedding as many long term relevant choices as possible during the time period of weight loss.... that person will rack up a ton of bonus points for maintenance... maybe even an extra maintenance life! 😜 And who of us cannot use an extra life when things go sideways?😘

    Player 1 press start. :D
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 9,938 Member
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    Yeah, I'm 6'1" and when I was at my highest weight of 245 I lost 50 lbs eating around 2400 calories, and I'm an old guy.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,922 Member
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    tristingjones1 wrote: »
    Hello I am a 25 year old male. I am 5'11" tall and I weigh about 217. I am trying to understand how many calories I should be consuming. I work as a medical assistant and I walk about 10-13 thousand steps a day at work. I also work out about 3-5 times a week. Where should my calories be to lose weight. I reas that males should be between 2200-2500 calories but that doesn't work for me. Should I be at around 1500 calories? Unsure about all this. Thanks in advance.

    1500 calories would be a good place to start for a man who is older, shorter, and sedentary. You are none of those things.

    I agree with the others who say that MFP's calculations is a good place to start, and that a pound a week is a good weekly weight loss goal.

    9kjwnia17qv9.jpg

    Using this as a guide for activity level:

    fg7noid5jr6c.jpg

    I'd say you are at least Lightly Active and Possibly Active.
  • Retroguy2000
    Retroguy2000 Posts: 1,529 Member
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    This is a good TDEE calculator.

    https://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/

    Note that MFP will produce a lower number because it only estimates for your regular day to day activity, work etc., *not* your specific workouts can be added separately when they happen.
  • musicfan68
    musicfan68 Posts: 1,126 Member
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    PAV8888 wrote: »
    10-13 is active not light
    He who eats the closest to eventual maintenance calories while losing weight at a reasonable enough rate and while also developing and embedding as many long term relevant choices as possible during the time period of weight loss.... that person will rack up a ton of bonus points for maintenance... maybe even an extra maintenance life! 😜 And who of us cannot use an extra life when things go sideways?😘

    Sorry, I didn't have the definitions of lightly active and active in front of me. I though I would err on the side of caution. :/

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