How high can you go?

There are 3,500 calories in a pound. So to loose one pounder week Your average calories per day need to be 500 less than your maintenance level. Two pounds equals a 1,000 calories under your maintenance level per day. So depending on your goals some people can eat more than others. Also don't feel like a failure if your goal is two pounds a day and you go over your goal slightly because anything under 1000 calories is still leading to weight loss and should be considered gain. It will just take longer to get to your goal.

I set my goals based on the formulas I was taught in my nutrition classes since it was my minor. Specifically, I go with the formula that uses lean body mass instead of total body weight and activity level not counting exercise so that I can add more for exercise per MFP. My maintenance calories for a highly active person not counting exercise is 2957, which is what I have set as my goal on here. I set it as my goal so that after I add my exercise calories I can do one calculation (multiplying the total goal after exercise by 80%) to get the minimum number of calories I need for the day. I haven't been logging recently because I'm getting into my routine of my internship for my exercise physiology major so time has been scarce, but I'm pretty consistent with what I eat so I'm not worried about it. While I've only lost 14 pounds on the scale in the last year, I've also cut my body fat by 15% so the difference in what I lost in fat and what I lost on the scale is the addition of lean tissue, so obviously a high calorie intake is working great for me.