Can Someone Help Me With Calories I Need?
 

I've been using MFP and to lose 2lbs a week it gave me a caloric goal of 1780.
I messed with it last night and to lose 1 1/2lbs a week it gave me a goal of 2030.

I'm really not sure how much i should be eating, i've been doing the 1780 for almost two weeks(haven't lost a thing-sometimes i'm slightly over my goal.. sometimes under) but after reading through some stuff last night i feel like maybe that's too low for me..idunno..

My stats I'm 5'9..right now i'm at 275 which i think is from TOM creeping through. I workout every other day now..have been consistent with this for about 16 days with a little extra thrown in between days at times. I push myself pretty hard when i workout..i do weights and cardio. Usually around 45/50minutes of cardio. Sometimes 35 at the least really pushing it..then the rest of the time i do different weight training either on the machines or free weights.

So any help would be appreciated :)

I'm 5'8, and i started at 323 pounds. I ate 2000 cals and lost about 2 pounds a week, for about 40 pounds. I did not exercise then.

Then I dropped to about 1850 cals and stayed there for about year, dropping another 60-70 pounds with some light exercise.

The lowest I went was about 1600.

But it took a LONG time to find the 'right' calorie balance. At 1500 i was starving, miserable, and the scale simply did not move. At 1800 the loss was getting to be painfully slow so I went a bit lower.

You have to play with it a while, be sensible and don't go too low. Ane one or two weeks isn't enough time for your body to adjust to the calories, I'd give it a bit longer. I'm interested to see what everyone has to say.

how old are you?

I'm 20.

Thanks for the response Trazey. I was thinking i may need to give it more time..will do that.

I agree, play with it, but in case you were still curious:

I always think it's a good idea to slightly underestimate your activity level, to make up for most of our sedentary non-exercise lives. I listed you as moderately active and with your height and age and weight it says to lose two lbs a week you could be eating around 2225 cals.

Wow, I need to be more active ;) I eat about 15-1600 and am lightly active. (I exercise about 5 days a week and about 30-45 mins most days, for perspective.) I'm 241 and I lose about 2 lbs a week, sometimes more, sometimtes less, on average though, about 2. I DO need to up my activity though. Today I am trying for 8 miles on the bike.:)

Pay attention to your appetite, physical and mental as well. I find if I eat over 1600 cals (when exercising) I kind of want to binge. if I eat under 1300, I want to binge. I try and keep things at about 13-1600, I bounce around depending on how active I am, but even if it's recommended it's too dangerous for me to break those numbers. It's getting easier though, that top number used to be 1500.

My advice would be to experiment and find the highest level of calories that you can still lose on. That way you have some where to go if you need to shave a few calories off later on. I started at 288, 5'9" and I dropped to 1500 cal right away. I wish I had tried 2000 first to see if it would still give me a loss. Remember that it will take awhile for your body to adjust, be patient! Also, if you are new to exercising that will have a big impact on the scale. Increased muscle mass will weigh more. I lost 60lb without any exercise, then I started walking/jogging a lot over the last month and my weight stayed pretty much the same... BUT I lost two inches each off my bust, waist, and hips. Take measurements in addition to the scale -- you need both to tell the whole story.

I really appreciate everyone's responses! Since i've been tracking my calories for 2 weeks on this 1780 plan i'm going to keep it up another 2-3 weeks and see how things are progressing. If no change, i'll adjust.

I guess i gotta keep remembering my body is going to be different from someone else and i have to keep trying a variety of things to be successful.

the muscle thing is true, but don't fool yourself, for women it takes months to gain muscle mass, but you can gain/maintain at a certain weight due to stressing muscles and gaining water weight/glycogen while they repair themselves. Basically if you are really sore and your weight is the same, assume your water packing in your muscles.

I've been wondering about the muscle thing for a while...do some women gain muscle faster?

Like, for example..my mother. She's about 5'4..maybe a little shorter and has always been on the thin/petite size but she can put on muscle like crazy. When that bowflex first came out and she ordered it within a month her body was really packing on the muscle..so much when she saw a picture of herself she got a lil spooked and laid off it for a while l0l.

So do some women gain muscle easier? Maybe i should do a search...

maybe, it's generally more difficult because we dont' have the hormones, but I think everyone is different.

Also if she was already thin she didn't have fat to cover up any definition she may have been gaining, so 1-2 lbs of muscle on her might look like a lot more than 1-2 lbs of muscle on me.