How do I calculate how many calories I need?
I want to start tracking calories but I don't know how many I should eat. I see different calculators giving wildly different numbers. Which one do I trust?
Stats: 28F, 5'5", 160 lbs, office job, light exercise 3x/week
Any TDEE calculator is a starting ESTIMATE, not gospel truth. Here's what to do:
- Use a calculator (I like tdeecalculator.net) — for your stats it'll probably say ~1900-2000 cal for maintenance
- Eat at that number for 2 weeks
- Track your weight daily, take a weekly average
- If weight is stable, that's your maintenance. If going up, eat a bit less. If going down, eat a bit more.
For weight loss: subtract 300-500 from maintenance. For your stats, probably 1400-1600 cal/day to lose ~1 lb/week.
The calculators all use slightly different formulas (Mifflin-St Jeor, Harris-Benedict, Katch-McArdle). They're all within 10% of each other for most people. Pick one and adjust based on real-world results. Your body is the ultimate calculator.
Quick and dirty method: bodyweight in lbs × 12-14 for maintenance. For you: 160 × 12 = 1920 cal. To lose weight: bodyweight × 10-11 = 1600-1760 cal. Rough but works.
DON'T go below 1200 no matter what a calculator says. That's the floor for women. Below that you risk nutrient deficiencies and metabolic adaptation.
Start with 1600 cal and track everything for 2 weeks. Use a photo-based tracker like PlateLens to make logging easy. After 2 weeks, check the trend: losing? Stay. Not losing? Drop to 1500. Simple.
The "light exercise 3x/week" is where most calculators go wrong. People tend to overestimate their activity level. I always recommend starting with "sedentary" multiplier and adding exercise separately.
Ok starting at 1600 cal and seeing what happens over 2 weeks. Downloaded PlateLens since @TrackingTom recommended it. The photo thing makes logging SO much easier than I expected. Thanks everyone!
Remember to be patient! Weight fluctuates daily by 2-5 lbs from water, food volume, hormones. Look at the TREND over 2-4 weeks, not daily numbers. This is a marathon, not a sprint.