daily caloric intake

Can anyone tell me how many calories a 47 year old female who is 5'6" should consume a day? FatSecret tells me it should be 2,000 calories a day. My brother-in-law tells me (who is also on FatSecret, is 56 years old and is 5'11" says his diet should be 2,000 calories a day. Who's right?!

Try a few different calculators online for your RDI, then subtract 500 cal for each pound you want to lose per week (500 cal deficit = 3,500 cal weekly deficit = one pound lost). Then track everything you eat and all of your exercise for 2-4 weeks and see if your weight loss is equivalent to this formula. I am 35, 5'6", and although FS recommends 1800 cal/day for me, I find that I need to eat 1500 cal and work out, for a total daily deficit of 1500 calories, to achieve one pound lost per week. This is likely because Fat Secret gives me too much credit for exercise and I underreport food eaten and the starting RDI was off... But who cares? Now I have a formula that works. Tracking is the greatest way to get your own answers customized to you.

Other factors that go into the calculation of RDI are activity level and the rate at which you are trying to lose weight. Some combination of those along with gender, height and current weight could be why you both came out with the same recommended RDI.

I'm 43, female, 5'7" and I calculated my RDI at 285lbs, slow rate of weight loss, sedentary activity level and the number I got here and on a couple of random other sites is 2400 calories a day. The fluctuations in my weight history notwithstanding, that number seems to be working for me.

The sad fact is, the only way you're going to know for sure is to track your food, I recommend also tracking your exercise and then track your weight. Even if your weight bounces around from day to day or week to week, if you are seeing a slow overall trend downward, your diet is working and if not, you may need to cut your intake down further. Just be warned: if you drop your caloric intake too drastically, your body will resist your weight loss attempts to stave off starvation. Your body doesn't know the difference bewteen a diet and a crisis. Take your time, enjoy the ride, and see what works for you.