Calories for weight-loss

Abner1

New member
Hi.

I know I saw the answer to this somewhere but can't seem to find it out. How do I calculate how many calories I should be eating to lose weight?

I'm a female, 5'1" and 135. I want to get back down to 120.

I'm currently working out 3-4 times a week. Moderate exercise.
 
Someone may chime in with a more scientific formula, but a general rule I have seen is this. For cutting body fat, multiply body weight by 12. For maintaining, multiply by 15. For bulking, multiply by 18. It usually comes pretty close to the number cunching methods.

So, for you, I'd say 1600-1700 calories, absolutely no less.
 
That is great advice! That way I can keep track of my calories as I lose weight too since those numbers will go down as my weight goes down.

Thanks!!!
 
That is generally a good place to start for an estimation, the only thing I personally don't like much about the basic 12x BW method is that it doesn't really take into account a person's lifestyle or exercise levels. I mean, lets face it, if you are a 10 hour a day construction worker, then your calorie needs are going to be more than double that of someone similar size and weight. If you have an average lifestyle, say you work in an office, do much of your work seated, but do some standing movement here and there, and your exercising is moderate as you say, then BW x 12 is probably a good place to start. What I think is even more important to remember is that you cannot just rely on any formula to get you exactly where you need to be right off the bat. Use a formula to get a good starting point, and then adjust your calories based on which way the fat is going. Coming off well? stay where you are. Coming back on? maybe you should lower your calories.
 
Hi Abner,
There is a way to figure out the calories you need to lose weight. You can (FREE) and then add your calories burned through daily activity to get total calories used each day.

Then in order to lose weight, simply burn more calories than you use, either by reducing food intake or increasing activity level. You can use an online calorie counter to keep track of your calories and learn more about caloric values in food. There are free online calorie calculators to keep track of what you've eaten at and . I've used them both and they do not send spam.

I recently wrote a post about this entitled , you can also use this .

I hope this was helpful.

To you success!
Jes
Hi.

I know I saw the answer to this somewhere but can't seem to find it out. How do I calculate how many calories I should be eating to lose weight?

I'm a female, 5'1" and 135. I want to get back down to 120.

I'm currently working out 3-4 times a week. Moderate exercise.
 
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