Help!! I am so confused!

Hi! :bigsmile: MFP gives you the amount of cals you would need to stay under in order to achieve your weight loss goal within a certain time frame. It doesn't give a general amount you should be eating per day to maintain your current weight unless you enter that you just want to maintain your weight and not lose. It looks like your weight loss goal is 30lbs (with a 9 lb weight loss so far! GREAT job so what MFP does, is tracks your calories and subtracts any exercise to give you your deficit of cals and tracks your cals throughout the day to let you know how many cals you can consume to achieve the weight loss within X amount of weeks. Hope that helps!

:huh: :sad: I want to know how many calories I should be eating! MPF says 1210, but I'm reading otherwise on other sites? How do you figure out how many to eat? I'm 5'6, female, and weigh 153. I have a desk job but I workout 3-4 days a week.

ANY help or suggestions would be great! THANKS! :flowerforyou:

Based on your stats you should eat about 1800-1900 calories per day. I generally aim for 35% carbs, 40% protein and 25% fats. I would also suggest at least 3 days of weight training. And if you can fit a cardio day in that works too. If you want more cardio then turn one ST day into a lower and upper body workout for the anaerobic effect. Example is squat and overhead press.

What are your ultimate goals - to tone not get too muscular. When I workout i usually do Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred or Leslie Sansone Walk Away The Pounds.

What I really need to know is if 1210 enough calories for me or should I raise my intake?

1. Stop listening to Jillian Michaels.
2. Calculate maintenance caloric intake.
3. Set caloric deficit as a percentage of #2.
4. Set protein
5. Set fat
6. Set carbs

ohh...that's funny...we both posted the same info at the same time. Take a look you won't be wasting your time.

What are your ultimate goals - to tone not get too muscular. When I workout i usually do Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred or Leslie Sansone Walk Away The Pounds.

What I really need to know is if 1210 enough calories for me or should I raise my intake?

An update to my numbers since you do JM and you don't burn tons of calories with those programs. You should be eating 1600 calories. Also, you won't get muscular with those programs and there is NO way to even get close to look like JM herself who is a professional and trains like 3 hours a day and eats like 3000+ calories with a weight training program to back it. Also keep in mind she sells science. You can't believe everything she says.