Newbie Goal Questions

LastPrime

Hi,

So I've been using MFP very informally for the past few months, more or less to keep a record of exercise and occasionally check how many calories I'm eating on an average day. I haven't been very strict with it, but I'm only just now realising that I need to take this calorie counting business seriously so I can actually start to lose some weight.

My question is coming down really to how many calories I should eat? I set up the app a while ago and it had me at 1900 calories, but I was eating ~2500 a day because I wasn't too concentrated on sticking to it. However the past couple of days I thought I would give it a go, but 1900 just seems a little low. Maybe it's just that I'm eating the wrong kinds of food, but I was actually pretty hungry by the end of the day, so always kept nudging over to around the 2500 mark.

I also had a look online and calculated my BMR which is 2080; which I understood to translate to me burning 2080 calories/day by doing nothing? Now I don't have a very active lifestyle (I work a desk job) so I chose the sedentary option. But I do go to the gym 4-6 times/week to lift weights (just a small session at lunchtimes) and play badminton for an hour a week. I also play pool and snooker for 7-12 hours a week, along with basically walking everywhere I go, which is about 40 minutes walking per day. I'm wondering if the above is all just sapping my energy, and im not really taking it into account when calculating my calories? Basically should I be taking into account walking, pool, strength etc when inputting my calories, and just stick at 1900? Or should I up that and not take them into account?

Sorry if the above is confusing. I can clarify anything that needs to be if I wasn't so clear.

Thank you for your help

Lickma

I recommend you go with a lower calorie count than that even. I use a vivosmart that tracks my daily activity and (before all the problems that started on 1 DEC they are working to fix) it would calculate my activity levels. I too have a sedentary job and I am currently at the 1300 calorie allowance a day and yes it seems low but I get by and this is how. I make myself get up and walk around a lot throughout the day to up my step count and not let my metabolism go to sleep. If I am hungry I work out and the vivosmart, runtastic app, or my garmin 910xt calculate the burn and allows me to eat more. I usually intake around 1900 calories a day but my net intake is usually right at or below 1300 a day. If you want to lose weight it is going to take work and if you like to eat like I do then you have to earn it. It has helped me a lot (loss of 28 lbs in 9 weeks so far). The initial drop to 1300 calories was kind of tough but it made me realize how many liquid calories I was actually consuming and when I went to mostly water with either a crystal light packet or propel packet it left a lot calories to be had via food. I do the "cheat day" once a week that I binge on whatever I want sometimes in the range of 3000-3500 calories similar to what is talked about in the 4 hour body book. It doesn't seem to hurt that bad in the weight loss category and it gives me an opportunity to just go crazy on all the foods I used to eat daily.

dopeysmelly

I would just go the sexypants sticky posting at the top of this forum. It's full of great advise on how to get to where you want to go.

Blueseraphchaos

The sexy pants thread is good.

Going down to 1300 for a man is too low.

Maybe set your goal for a 1lb a week loss...and even if your job is sedentary, if you're getting a lot of other exercise like walking everywhere, you may want to set mfp to lightly active.

Also, to help prevent hunger, try eating more protein and some healthy fats. They tend to help you stay full longer.

Lasmartchika

Well, even tho you have a desk job, it seems like you do have an active lifestyle with the amount of exercise you do daily. Since your BMR is 2080, then yeah 2500 sounds about right. Check out the info on this page to see more about BMR and TDEE.

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/680246/tdee-bmr-what-they-are-and-what-to-do-with-them/p1

loulamb7

Blueseraphchaos wrote: »

The sexy pants thread is good.

Going down to 1300 for a man is too low.

Maybe set your goal for a 1lb a week loss...and even if your job is sedentary, if you're getting a lot of other exercise like walking everywhere, you may want to set mfp to lightly active.

Also, to help prevent hunger, try eating more protein and some healthy fats. They tend to help you stay full longer.

+1 on this one. If you want to us MFP instead of TDEE, change your activity level to lightly active and weight loss to .5 to 1lb/week. Accurately track your food, use a scale, eat back 50-75% of exercise calories, wait two weeks and reassess.

I started MFP at 1850 and kept upping my calories until I reached 2250 and losing about 1 lb/week.