How Many Calories Do You Really Need?
November 6, 2007 by Claire
Filed under Women's Health
When it comes to losing weight, I’ve always thought of 1200 calories as the magic number. It’s the number not to go below, so I’ve always equated it with the maximum amount of weight lost. However, this “magic number” can vary from person to person depending on activity level, weight, age, etc.
I was looking around to see if I could find an estimate of how many calories I should be taking in when I found this: It’s a calculator that takes all the factors I mentioned to figure out the ideal number of calories you would consume to both lose (an amount you specify) and maintain.
I found out that I should not go below 1400 calories, or above 1600 if I want to lose about 1 – 1.5 pounds a week.
What’s your magic number?
Claire
Cool little calculator. I thought 1200 was the magic number too but just learned that if I want to lose at a reasonable rate that my max is 1327 (kind of an odd number but OK).
Yeah, I thought it was cool too
Now I’m going to do my best not to go below my lower number, because apparently that’s how much your body needs just to maintain itself when you’re doing nothing.