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Originally Posted by PhotoStic When Determining how many calories one should consume, should you use your current weight as a guide or your goal weight?
I am 18yr old male, 6'3" 255lbs, and according to most of those BMP calculators I should be consuming 2550 calories minimum. I don't think this is true. Should I subtract fat weight from the equation and use my goal weight of 210 or is the 2550 calories correct?
As I know caloric intake depends on physical activity, I will say I am moderately active and I started to lift weights five days a week on March 1st.
Someone help me out here, thanks. |
You use your current weight -- if you use your goal weight, your calorie intake would be too low.
Based on your stats, I calculated your BMR to be ~2480, which is the amount of calories your body needs just to sustain itself. This figure does not take into account any physical activity.
Another figure, known as your total daily energy requirement, is the estimated number of calories you need to maintain your weight when you account for your activity level (and BMR is only one component of your total energy requirement). The activity level classifications actually refer to the amount of aerobic activity you do, not how often you weight train. So, being moderately active you would be doing at least one 30-minute exercise bout, at an intensity that leaves you slightly out of breath, on most days of the week.
Anyway, if you were moderately active, you'd need ~3840 (meaning you're burning 1360 calories a week through exercise) to ~4200 to maintain your current weight. So, if you're going with a daily energy requirement of 3840 calories, then for a weight loss of 1-2 pounds a week, you would need to keep your intake down between 2840-3340 calories a day. You'd have to play around with the numbers if you're not losing after a few weeks.
Alternatively, you can figure out exactly (or as close as possible) how many calories you burn during exercise and then just add it to your BMR to get an estimate of your total daily energy requirement for weight maintenance.