Cals to lose weight - Need help

Soldato
Joined
12 Dec 2005
Posts
14,569
I know their are calculators online but I'm having a hard time understanding this.

I'm 5ft 6 and 195lbs - To lose 2lb a week how many cals do I need? I'm confused because one site said 1800, one said 1400 and the other said 2200. :confused:

Please can I get some clarification from someone who knows this stuff?

Cheers
 
In the most simplistic, basic terms, in order to lose 2lb a week you'd need a defecit of 7000 calories; 1000 per day. If your basal metabolic rate is 1800 calories and you do enough exercise to burn off 1000 calories, you'll have burned 2800 calories for that day. In this example, you'd need to eat 1800 calories that day in order to achieve your defecit. According to this calculator, a man of your height and weight at the age of 25 has a BMR of about 1950.
 
So it's simple... 1800 cals a day for me to lose 2lb a week. Anything over that and I maintain my current weight?

Thanks
 
I lost a fair bit of weight from just eating clean and healthy and exercising 3/4 times a week, cardio (cycling, running, swimming) weight lifting (working different body groups) its not easy but once you have been doing it for a month it gets easier.

I didn't count calories, just made sure I was eating 5 small meals a day, cant think of nothing worst than looking up cals and keeping track every day, just make sure you know the right foods to eat and how much.
 
So it's simple... 1800 cals a day for me to lose 2lb a week. Anything over that and I maintain my current weight?

Thanks
It depends on how active you are. Your BMR is the amount of energy your body needs to sustain normal life processes; "the number of calories you'd burn if you stayed in bed all day." If you do more than lie down all day, you'll burn more calories than your BMR. I don't know how many calories you burn through work, exercise etc so I can't say 1800 calories would be a 1000 calorie deficit or not for you. There are various calculators available online that'll estimate your total calorie requirement per day; http://nutritiondata.self.com/tools/calories-burned for example.
 
I didn't count calories, just made sure I was eating 5 small meals a day, cant think of nothing worst than looking up cals and keeping track every day, just make sure you know the right foods to eat and how much.

It's not that bad. After a week or 2 you start to know most things roughly anyway so just tot it up as you go
 
Saundie that link you give me... Came back with this

Calories Burned
Your Calories Burned
Daily Energy Expenditure: 2770 kcal ( 11597 kJ)

I'm just confused again... That means with no exercise, I'll burn 2770 cals a day?
 
I really don't know why you're complicating things.

Eat 1800kcals a day for a week or two and see what happens. Adjust accordingly.
 
But I'm just failing to understand why 1800? How does one work this out? Why not 1200? 1400? 2200? etc? I'm just having trouble understanding it. :p
 
I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong. But I believe to lose 1 pound in weight you need to shortfall on you calorie intake to use by 3000 kCals. So a target of 1800 might be 400 cals under target for your weight and height and lifestyle so you'll lose 2800 kCals a week approximately 1 pound.
 
But I'm just failing to understand why 1800? How does one work this out? Why not 1200? 1400? 2200? etc? I'm just having trouble understanding it. :p

People dont just make up a number, you need to work out your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) to begin with and then you need to work out your TEE (Total energy expenditure) you can use this calculator here to workout both for yourself:

http://www.health-calc.com/diet/energy-expenditure-advanced

Thats the best one I've ever found and have used it for past year, its really good and simple to use, I doubt you'll find a better one then that, all the others on other sites are just drop down menu's, this one has a proper GUI (graphical user interface.

Lets say your BMR is 2500 and your TEE is 3500 then you could start at 3000 calories or even 2500 calories and then stick to that everyday and be consistent.

Some people suggest 300-500 calories less then your TEE will be enough to lose weight but others suggest 1000 calorie deficit, but at the end of the day, we're all different, you have to listen to your body.

So if you eat 2500 calories every day for 1 month and you weigh yourself everyday and you see that you're losing around 2-3 pounds a week then your doing well, if your weight isnt moving or you're gaining weight then you would cut your calories back another 300-500.

It's about listening to your body.

I've been cutting for past three months on around 2500 calories a day and my weight is going down nice and slow, the reason its good to drop weight slow is so you dont lose muscle.

You'll hear a lot of people talk about BMR but its not often you hear people mention TEE is but you need to know both your BMR and TEE to make your own calculations and crunch the numbers. Your TEE can be drastically different depending on your lifestyle and how active you're and what kind of job you work in.

Also its important to remember not to starve the body of calories, if you eat way too low, say 1000 a day, that would be kind of daft because your body would go into starvation mode which is referred to as a catabolic state and it would break down muscle and use anything it could for energy and you'd find that you don't lose weight, you might at first but then you'll hit a brick wall, plus you'd have no energy to go to the gym either, these extremely low calorie diets don't work.

Also another tip from me is to manipulate carbs and learn about carb cycling, in my experience dieting isnt just about a calorie deficit, its also about the types of food you eat and how much protein/carbs/fat you eat, you should keep your protein high, carbs and fat low whilst dieting/cutting. You can find articles online on bodybuilding.com and elsewhere though that will explain all this to you.

Also if you write up your diet and all the meals you consume each day, you can then post it on bodybuilding.com and they will critique your diet and perfect it for you. It's best to eat small meals more frequently, I'd say 5 meals minimum, but some will recommend anything from 8-12 per day. When we use the word meal, we dont mean a massive plate full of food like a sunday dinner, we just mean you eat something every 2-3 hours per day to keep your metabolism at a faster rate which will result in your body burning off calories faster. Someone who eats 8 times a day every 2-3 hours will have a faster metabolism then someone who only eats 3 times a day, its been scientifically proven. All those fat people who complain and say they're only fat because they have a slow metabolism are talking rubbish and making excuses, your metabolism is dictated by how frequently you eat.

I hope that helps. :)
 
Last edited:
You can loose that amount easily without counting calories, have a search for the Harcombe diet. In simple terms it is about not mixing carbs and proteins, enjoy a roast but no potatoes, have an egg, ham and chicken salad piled high but no bread. Eat pasta but only with quorn or homemade sauce. You can have carbs and proteins on the same day but you must leave a 4 hour gap between them.

You must also cut out anything processed, basically if it is fresh out of the ground or off a tree you can eat it and if it had eyes (or would have in the case of an egg) you can eat it. So bacon, chicken, steak, fish, pork are all fine fine - sausages, pork pie, scotch egg etc NO.

Anyway, I needed to lose a stone, did it in 5 weeks, father-in-law put me onto it he has lost a good few stone. I tried weight watchers and a few others and this was by far the easiest and most pain free way.
 
Back
Top Bottom