Calories?

Just curious if anyone has gotten sound guidance on how many calories are really needed for weight loss? I dont trust the online TEE calculators.. I think they're too high. I'm 49/ woman.. peri meni I think.. and I'm 5 years out. I have 40 lbs to lose .. I'd love to lose 10 at this point.

If anyone has gotten professional input on this I'd love to hear it.
Thanks!

It takes roughly 10 calories a day for a woman to maintain one pound. I maintain 136 pounds on 1400 calories a day. To lose weight, I need to cut 500 calories a day. That means one pound a week of weight loss. Multiply your weight by 10 to see what you need to eat to maintain that weight. Subtract 500 per day to lose one pound a week. Subtract 1000 per day to lose two pounds a week. Trying to lose any faster only works for a week of so and is not sustainable.

Weigh****chers, which I have followed for years uses points not calories. A point is roughly 50 calories. They have formulas where they count sugar and fats as more points. Weigh****chers has me on 29 points a day which equals about 1450 calories. When I want to lose I go to 17 points a day or rougtly 850. There is no magic. It is calories in vs calories burned.

There IS an exception to this rule though I find ( and the literature bears it out )

IF you work out long and hard and consistently enough to actually build muscle mass ... you will not only be in much better health in the long run and have a much more attractively shaped smaller body at the same weight... your new muscle cells will continue to burn many more calories than your ( essentially inert ) fat cells ever did ... moving or at rest ... FOREVER!

This is why I essentially can eat like a horse compared to most posters on this website and successfully maintain my lowest weight now ten years post op . Of course I don't challenge my body by eating fatty or sugar laden foods except VERY rarely- there are no miracles lol.

Heres some MORE good news !

Every condition has a good side - in our case ( bariatric patients) we are ( mostly) natural mesomorphs.

That means that like bodybuilders or gifted athletes our bodies put on muscle much more easily and much more quickly than the average population.

There is actually a post op competitive Masters bodybuilder who posts his menus and workouts daily on this forum ! ( and boy can he GO !!! lol)

Ive TRIED CrossFit - let me tell ya - its HARD!!! ( even the baby moves ) - but it goes to show you we CAN excel at sports if we put our minds bodies and make time for it .

There is also a post WLS racing bicyclist ( Mike from Chicago - where are ya? ) and many long distance runners here :) who unfortunately dont post too often since they joined the normies :)