How many calories do you eat?
 

How many calories should I be eating to lose weight? I have been doing 1200 but I don't know if thats right or not.

I am 5'6, 18 years old, and about 196-98 lbs. I excercise daily as well.

I think that is much too low. As you lose weight, you won't have anywhere else to go. Have you use a formula to figure out your needs?

Based on this http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-ca...dict-equation/, your maintenance level is about 2700. So, in order to lose 1lb per week you could do 2200 calories and to lose 2lbs, you could do 1700 per day. Now of course every body is different and you have to fidget with the numbers but that is a good place to start.

So if my BMR calcualtion is 3005 to maintain, then I need to eat 2,005 to lose weight?
How did you get 1700? That just seems like a lot to lose 2lbs a week.

1700 is an excellent place to start. I would NOT "eat back" my calories or whatever. Just stay under 1700 and get some exercise. See where it lands you in a week and you will know what to do next.

I'm eating 1500-1600calories, it seems like a safe amount that's not too low or too high.

I eat around 1600 calories on average. If I eat below 1300, my body stalls and will not lose weight. You just need to experiment and see what is right for you. Start at 1700 (calorie cycling) and see what your results are after 2-3 weeks. Then add/subtract 200 and do the same.

I usually eat 1200 - 1400. If I eat more than that I stop losing. I have always had a slow metabolism, my entire life, and the yo-yoing has obviously taken it's toll too. That said... on hungry days I will eat up to 1600 if I need to, making up most of the difference in protein. I usually get a hungry day the day after I up my reps or add a new exercise.

... and then there are the days I forget to eat enough and end up only having 500 or 600. Those are rare but I think in the end it balances out.

I eat around 14-1600/day.

I going to start an exact replica of this thread. I weigh 305 I eat between 2500-2200 cal. a day. I'm very active so I get my calorie deficit from exercising.

I read in a magazine(won't mention which one) said to mutiply your weight times 7. So I weight 212 and eat around 1484 calories a day. I usually eat between 1400 - 1600 calories a day. If you exercise alot you might want to eat at the higher end or add more calories. :carrot:

hmm thats about 1358 which is around what I am eating

With moderate physical activity (I ride my bike to and from work a couple times a week about 50 minutes total) and eating between 1300-1600 a day I am losing weight.

Not counting the occassional night out on the town when the sugar and alcohol content of the things I'm consuming are incalcucable :D

I thought we weren't supposed to eat back our calories?

I eat around 1350, sometimes more, sometimes less. It seems to work really well for me. I was eating around 1500-1700 and just could not drop the weight, no matter how hard I was working out. When I dropped to 1400 and then to 1350, the weight finally started coming off.

According to the weight * 7 calculation, I should be eating around 1316, so it seems on target to me.

My weight x7 would only give me 980 calories per day. No way is that anywhere near enough, even for trying to lose weight. I eat 1400-1600/day when I'm trying to lose weight, and as long as I stick to it carefully, I lose weight.

I forgot to mention I wouldn't eat under 1200 calories a day. So if your weight x 7 is less than 1200 don't go below that amount. What does eat back your calories mean?

i can lose on 1600 -1700 I can lose 1 to 2 lbs a week that way

exercising 3 x's a week.

Bmr
 

The way to estimate the # of calories you need to maintain or lose weight is the following for adult females:

Basal Metabolic Heart Rate (BMR) = 655 + (4.3 x weight in lbs) + (4.7 x height in inches) - (4.7 x age in yrs)

When you get that number you multiply it by:
x .2 if you are sedentary
x .3 lightly active
x .4 moderately active (exercise 3-4 days/wk)
x .5 very active (exercise intensely most days/wk or work hard labor)
You add this number to the first number.

The result is how many calories you would take in to maintain your current weight.
So if you multiply that # by 7 that is how much you'd have in a week. For every 3500 calories you cut from your weekly amount, you lose a pound.

Eg. If you need 2500/day to maintain, that means you'd take in 17,500/week. If you want to lose 2 lbs/week you would do: 17,500- (2 x 3500) = 10,500. Then 10,500/7= 1500. So you would eat 1500/day to lose 2 lbs a week. That is just for the example. Calculate your own numbers using the BMR.

May I say that magazines are not the best source of information. :D

Or you can use the link I provided which pretty much gives the same numbers. The Harrison Benedict equation is pretty good.

Thanks for this info. I have been doing a 1200 calorie a day diet for 2 weeks and have lost 10 lbs but was wondering if I was eating enough. I am never hungry but was wondering based on my loss. Thanks!

All of these things are just too much math for me...I hate math and was never good at it. :) I even used the calculators and formulas and none of the numbers seem right. Seemed like too MANY calories. I have trouble some days to eat as much as I am supposed to. I like the idea of multiplying weight x 7 as that brings me below 1200. Not that I would eat less then that EVERYDAY (although there are some days as I am just not hungry).

Anyway...staying at or around 1200 has been working for me, sort of. I would love the weight to come off quicker...I am at a stand still!! If someone told me I would need more than that to lose weight quicker, that would be fine, although I would struggle to do so, as I feel I just can't eat more then I already am...any ideas?

I don't like to go below 1400 calories in a day - on an average week.

Judy

My maintenance intake is right at 2600. I have started counting calories this week and eat no more than 1800 each day. I will weigh in on Sunday and check my results. Thanks for all of the info.

Jacque
I think its great you can eat so few calories but what do you eat a day that fills you up on 1200 calories. I would starve to death lol.

Jacque, when I first started calorie counting, I found out that all my wonderful, healthy eating choices weren't even adding up to 1,000 calories. I was shocked. So I made a concerted effort to go up to 1100 - 1200. I definitely saw the scale start moving again. Then a few weeks ago, I decided to try to go a little higher in my calories, based on what I was seeing other people's intakes were. Now here's the crazy part -- after 3 days of doing this, I saw my weight loss really pick up again. It's stabilized again to a slower rate of loss, but the thing is, now I'm eating 1500 cal / day, not 1200 cal / day.

I figure this is better because it means I'm getting more nutrients, and also gives me some room to play with if I determine that I need to drop down a bit to reinvigorate my loss at some point.

I've realized that if I rely on my hunger signals, I almost never eat. I'm just not usually hungry. So I'm actually grazing throughout the day, and still find that I'm often low on my count after dinner -- hence the nighttime snack which is being discussed in another thread.

It's all really counter-intuitive to me, but it's working so I'm sticking with it.

Did you reach a plateau before you decided to bump up the calories? If so, how long did you stay at that plateau before deciding to make a change? I ask because I lost about 8 pounds last month (first month of exercising/eating well), and this week have lost absolutely nothing, so I'm wondering if I should wait it out another week and stay at 1400 calories or if I should change it up? Thanks!

What does eat back our calories mean?

newleafThanks but I just don't know what else I would eat to bump up the calories. I'm making choices that don't have many...not because they don't have many calories, but more because that is what I have and that is what I want. Any ideas? I do love carbs, but really try to limit those..

I find it hard to get to the 1500. Here's what I ate yesterday, maybe there are some ideas in there for you?

Breakfast: coffee; medium banana; 10 grain hot cereal with chopped nuts, raisins, flax seed, and honey;

Lunch: bowl of butternut squash / sweet potato soup

Snack: non-fat Greek yogurt with pear butter and flax seed mixed it

Snack: 1 pistachio cranberry biscotti

Snack: tomato, tofu, a corn tortilla cracker with light laughing cow cheese and a slice of turkey on top

Dinner: (nothing major because we ran out the door; dinner was at 8:30pm) raisin bran with 2% milk

Snack: fresh blackberries with cool whip and a ginger cookie

I didn't hit a plateau. But I am losing more slowly than you, my average is 6lbs per month. I've also noticed that I tend to lose next to nothing in the week before my period, and then have a big drop the week of my period.

I eat around 1400ish

Thanks newleaf! Guess I just have to get used to those pesky scale fluctuations and try not to freak out every time I gain 0.2lbs! Easier said than done...

I think it just means that some people eat some number of the calories they burned through exercise. So if a person has a target of 1500 calories per day but they burn 500 through exercise they may feel they can eat 2000 and still lose. Thus.."eating back" the 500 calories they burned with the idea that the net result is 1500.

Yes, you definitely do... Do you graph your weightloss? I find that it makes it so much easier to see the big picture... I just looked at my daily graph. I have 94 data points, and -- are you ready? -- I have woken up to a gain 37 times in 94 days!! Yikes! I had never looked at that number before!! But it really does put it into perspective... That means that 35% of the time, I wake up to a gain. But obviously, I'm doing okay... This morning I woke up to having lost 19.7 lbs overall.

ETA: Because of all the daily fluctuations, lots of people prefer to weigh themselves once a week. I also keep a weekly chart, and if I were disciplined enough to only weigh myself on Monday mornings (my start day), then I would have only seen the scale up on 2 Monday mornings out of 13 weeks. Hmmm, there's something to be said for that... I couldn't weigh myself just once a week, but I can definitely understand why other people like that better!

Wow, congrats!! That's really a HUGE accomplishment and you should be so proud of yourself! You have such a positive attitude and that's really inspirational. I've been at 148 (+/- 0.2) for a little over a week now and am pretty frustrated, but am just trying to put things into perspective and know that I'm doing great things for my body in the long run. It's also TOM and I just started strength training right around the time I stopped losing, so I'm hoping my body's just catching up. Do you think I should give it another week or so to try to catch up (if that's what it's doing...who knows!) or should I try switching something up now? I just joined thedailyplate so I'll be graphing from now on and hopefully the big picture will look good! I feel like I'm doing everything right, but if the scale's not moving, it's hard not to doubt yourself and wonder if I'm missing something. Thanks for all of your support!

I am currently 338 pounds, I eat no more than 1700 calories per day (I have random days that I go over but not by much) I have lost 196 pounds since Jan 2008 eating that amount of calories, I exercise daily and my doc agrees that 1700 is where I should be (though I came up with 1700 he just agreed with it) since he is a fairly new doc.

Most of these calculators have me eating way too much food, someone in this thread said "May I say that magazines are not the best source of information" might I add that neither is the internet sometimes :)

I would just experiment with some calorie ranges and see how you do, I would not go below 1100-1200 though but again that's me and this IS on the internet so please refer to my previous paragraph ;)

the opinion here is worth the price paid I think so take it with a grain of salt but the weight x 7 thing seems pretty correct to me, good luck with your weight loss

As Ever
Me

There are so many things listed that I would never even eat!!! I am trying to try new things, but TOFU, I tried that once years ago...no way!!! I do like laughing cow...gonna go get some now and I'm not a big fan of biscotti although my mom makes it and everyone loves it...maybe I can acquire a taste for it...thanks for the ideas.

I am now at 144 # and if I multiply that by 7, it's only about 1000 calories...that is definitely not enough...Wouldn't have a problem with that since most days I struggle to get to 1100-1200.