Hi Gang, I am in need of help with this calorie thinh.. I went searching how many calories I needed to maintain lose my first 100 pounds. And this is what I got. It will be a copy and paste below. I feel like thae cals are sooo high! I am 30 5'8 and weight 289 according to my scales and my doctor scale claims I weight 296 (was so down yesterday when I came back from the doctor over the weight thing. I slept alot!If I do weigh what they claim I have further to go than I thought.I know it is only a few more pounds, but still!) ..Anyway, I am looking for help.. Please send me links or advice if you can.. Thanks..Here is what I found below..




These results will help you to know how many calories you need to maintain your current weight, and the number of calories needed per day to achieve your goal weight in a healthy, steady manner.

You need 2678.4 calories per day to maintain your current weight without exercise.

You need 2184.9 calories per day to reach your goal weight slowly and maintain that weight without exercise.

If you reduce your current caloric intake to 2178.4 calories per day you will lose one pound per week without exercise.

If you increase your current caloric intake to 3178.4 calories per day, you will gain one pound per week.

Exercise and Calorie Needs

If you exercise for 30 minutes each day, you may increase your caloric intake to 2982.2 calories per day and still maintain your current weight.

If you exercise for 60 minutes each day, you may increase your caloric intake to 3362 calories per day to maintain your current weight.

If you exercise for 30 minutes each day, you will be able to reach your goal weight with 2429.5 calories per day.

If you exercise for 60 minutes each day, you will be able to reach your goal weight with 2735.2 calories per day.

Macronutrients

The United States Department of Agriculture suggests that approximately 50% of your calories come from carbohydrates, about 30% from fats, and approximately 20% from protein sources. 1 gram of protein has about 4 calories, 1 gram of fat has about 9 calories, and 1 gram of carbohydrate has about 4 calories.

You need 334.8 grams of carbohydrates, 88.4 grams of fat, and 133.9 grams of protein per day for 2678.4 calories to maintain your weight of 296 pounds.

You need 273.1 grams of carbohydrates, 72.1 grams of fat, and 109.2 grams of protein per day for 2184.9 calories to maintain your goal weight of 180 pounds.

Opinions vary greatly about the percentages of fats, carbohydrates, and proteins that should make up your diet. About has two great sources of information for Low Carbohydrate Diets and Low Fat Diets.

Where did you get this info? It does look high to me as well....

I did a search on google and it took me to about .com I feel like it is a load!

It does seem just a little high to me as well. I eat about 2000 cals per day and exercise at least 9 1/2 hours a week while maintaining about 2 1/2 lbs per week loss on average. If I was going a different route (adjusting cals as I go along instead of just starting with my ending cals), and I was shooting for 1 lb a week loss, I'd have to increase my cals to 2750 while maintaining the 1 1/3 hours of exercise average each day. To only exercise 30 min a day, I'm pretty sure that I couldn't eat much more than 2200 tops and still lose 1 lb a week.

Of course, every body is different, and part of the "fun" of starting this new lifestyle is the time and effort it takes to find the numbers that are right for ourselves- but I would be a bit more comfortable with my chance of success with a number closer to 2200-2500 max (slow weight loss) at our weight, or less for a moderate-fast loss. The good news, though, is that as long as you monitor yourself and your progression, it's very easy to make changes as you go along that suit you, and there is no need to feel pressured to find the "right" numbers right away. No long-term harm will come if you spend a few weeks eating too much or too little, just be sure to make small adjustments and give them time to take full effect before making decisions about making further changes.

Good luck! I know you'll do great things!

You can always go to fitday.com and plunk in everything you eat on a normal day. That would give you a sense of what you are eating and then you can cut down from that.

I eat between 1600 to 1800 calories a day and sometimes up to 2000 calories. I'm not a calorie counter though but I do it every once in a while to gauge where I'm at. My suggestion would be to start somewhere, perhaps 1800 and see how you feel and see how your body does. You can always adjust from there.

Did it ask you lifestyle activity to begin with?

These do not look high to me, the exercise looks low.

It doesn't look too high to me. I've been pretty lax over the last fortnight, and I've still dropped 2 pounds, averaging around 2,500 kcals a day with low to moderate exercise. YMMV.

Maybe try fitday like pp suggested. I actually use ***********.com, to track my food intake, the site set my calorie range between 1500-1890, and it also set my daily goals for fat, protein and carbohydrates. It took in account my goals and I am about 300 now trying to go to 190, but I have seen sites that give high calorie counts for what I need per day to maintain and what I need to lose...so maybe try *********** and see what it says for you, taking into account what you want to lose (it will of course not allow you to lose over what's healthy per week)

I want to answer the scale question. Every scale is different. You will get different results on different scales. You will get different results at different times of the day. I wouldn't worry too much about those numbers.

My suggestion is to rely on ONE scale (yours). The important thing is going down (not the exact number because it all varies). I would weigh in the morning, after you wake up, after you take your clothes off, and before you step into your bath (and before you've eaten).

Another suggestion is to realize that flunctuations happen daily. I notice (for myself) that my best weight is after I've used the bathroom the day before (I have constipation issues), after I've had 8 or more hours of sleep (yes, sleep affects the numbers), when I'm not on TOM, and when I've had a good diet day the day before. I look at my numbers everyday, but I look for a trend. I record my lowest number of the week and move on.

Don't dispair about the doctor's numbers. My scale never matches theirs.

As far as the calories: Take what the ladies say above. Start at the high end. If after a week you haven't lost anything, take it down a few hundred calories. Every body really is different.

I laugh a little bit there because if we knew we were going to journal our foods, we wouldn't eat what we normally eat on a given day because just by journaling we are already aware of what we are eating (therefore it isn't mindless eating like so many of us do).

I think you make a valid point, but I wish I had journaled for a few days before I started counting calories. Of course, if I were having to be aware of what I was eating, I wouldn't have eaten so much, but I would like to know what my calorie input was at that time.

The "required calories" formulas you find online are designed and based upon data from normal-weight people. I believe that once you get higher, especially into the morbidly obese category, our bodies just don't work as well on that basis. We're more efficient, we hoard every calorie, every molocule of extra fuel stored in a fat cell. We don't want to give it up.

It also REALLY depends on your body. I can maintain at 1800 calories a day, sedentary. I can't lose. My body is insulin resistant, and absolutely MUST be moved (exercised) to get the weight loss going. That's just how it is for me. Cutting back enough to lose weight would mean cutting back to 1200 calories or so, and that makes Synger a very cranky, not-nice-to-live-with woman. So we don't even try that anymore.

What I did when i first started counting calories was to record in Fitday for a week or so, to get an idea of where I WAS (about 2500 a day). Then, taking into consideration some of those calorie formulas (which told me 2200), I shaved a few hundred calories off of my "normal" intake to find a daily goal. I started with a daily goal of 2000. It was a nice, round number, and something I figured I could live with. After a month or so I lowered it again, until I found a level I could a) live with and b) give me at least SOME loss over a month's time.

So I aim for between 1500 and 1800 a day. I like having the range, for flexibility. When I stay within that range, I lose .5 - 1 pound a week (averaged).

Hope that helps.

Age matters here, too. Metabolism slows down for everyone as we get older, so they say, and as I've experienced.. The last time I counted calories I lost really well at 2200/day with 30 min. of exercise, and I started from around the same weight I'm starting at this time--but I can't lose at 2200 now, 7 years later (I was 32 then, I'm 39 now). As others have said, I think you just have to start somewhere, see how it works, and then adjust.

Keep in mind, too, that these calculators are based on your weight, so as you lose weight you need to re-calculate and re-adjust (cutting more calories or adding more exercise or both).