Hey everyone,

I see a lot of posts here from people jumping straight into a 1200-calorie limit without knowing if it’s the right starting point for their specific height, weight, and activity level.

While 1200 is a great baseline for many short, sedentary women, it can actually be too low and unsustainable if your body naturally burns a lot more at rest.

To do this safely and avoid stalls or extreme hunger, the best first step is to calculate your exact BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) and TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) using the Mifflin-St Jeor formula.

Why the Mifflin-St Jeor Formula?

Most modern health professionals and dietitians consider this specific formula to be the most accurate for estimating calorie needs. It takes your gender, age, weight, and height to tell you exactly how many calories your body needs just to stay alive, and how much you burn moving around.

If your TDEE is around 1700, then a 1200-calorie goal gives you a perfect 500-calorie deficit. But if your TDEE is higher, you might need to start at 1400 or 1500 first.

How to calculate it?

You can use standard math formulas manually, but there are specific Mifflin-St Jeor calculators online that do the exact math for you in seconds.

I’ve been looking closely at the math behind this formula lately to optimize my own journey. If anyone needs help figuring out their exact numbers or wants to know where to find a clean calculator that uses this exact formula without all the annoying ads, let me know!

How many of you actually calculated your TDEE before starting, or did you just jump straight to 1200? Let’s discuss!