5'2.5" (Goal 120) looking for Calorie Number Advice

wanderlustlover

Hi, I'm Amanda, and my story is little backwards from a lot of other people. I joined the MFA to get myself *up* to eating three meals a day and at least 1000-1200 calories a day. Which is a fight I've been fighting with my attention and body for about 15 years now as I don't get hungry and I just forget to eat (rather than choose not to).

Which means, yes, my body has lived a good half of my life in starvation mode -- and I'm doing my best in the last year to two years to change that. It's been hard, but it's helpful that for the last decade I have eaten very cleanly because of the above. Making sure whatever went in, if it was going to be too little was always *only* healthy food.

Across the last year, and especially the last few months I've been getting really, really great at getting up to these two numbers. I'm about 139 and I'm aimed at wanting to get to 120-125. So I can be both eating and looking healthy. I've never known where exactly to look/research for my numbers (other than what the app offered me originally which was 1000 or 1200), but I saw a post recently with women in my range eating toward 1300-1400 for more loss.

So, I'm putting out a curious call to women around my height.

How many calories do you average a day? How many on a sedentary day? How many on a workout day? How many of your exercise points do you eat back? How many while you were losing vs. now that you are maintaing?

TheHorribleBlob

I don't count calories, but if I had to guesstimate, I'd say I eat anywhere from 1000 to 1500 calories on an average day, give or take. Pretty much everyday is a sedentary day for me, but I'm probably going to join a gym very soon. I imagine, to maintain, I would have to eat back all my exercise calories, no?

I'm 5'3" and 106 lbs.

BluthLover

Bfa

stargazer008

I am 5'4 and 110 lbs, my maintenance is about 1800 calories or so. This number does not account for the exercise I do. If I do exercise, I eat the calories back.

kattaw

I'm substantially taller than you, so my own numbers wouldn't be much help, but here's the equation I use to figure a ballpark goal:

Step 1:
Figure out your BMR, how many calories your body burns just by. You know. Existing.
For WOMEN: 655 + (4.35 x Weight in pounds)+(4.7 x Height in inches) - (4.7x Age) = BMR

Step 2: Take that number and multiply by your activity level:
If you're not sure exactly which activity level you are, take the average of the two that sound most like you.
1.2 Sedentary (little to no exercise)
1.375 Lightly Active (1-3 days a week)
1.55 Moderately Active (3-5 days a week)
1.7 Very Active (6-7 days a week)

Step 3:
The modifying number here is 500 because 500 * 7 = 3500 and 3500 calories is equivalent to a pound. So this would be to lose/gain a pound a week. If you want to lose or gain weight more slowly (or more quickly, though that's not necessarily sustainable), feel free to use a different number.
To LOSE weight: Subtract 500
To MAINTAIN weight: keep the number the same
To GAIN weight: Add 500

The final number is the amount of calories you should eat a day, regardless of exercise. So if this is the approach you use, do not eat back your exercise calories because these are already figured in with activity level. Oh, and, if the number you end up with is below your BMR, you should use a smaller number than 500 in Step 3 because you don't want to be eating below BMR. Though I suppose you're already doing that, so do what feels right to you.

As always, an equation can't calculate exactly what you need to eat in a day to reach your goals, but I found this to be a good starting place. I've been using it and tweaking it based on results and how I feel since February and have lost 29 pounds so far (it could have been more, I think, were it not for the occasional slip up. Whoops.).

Hope this helps. Keep up the work and good luck with your goals!

wanderlustlover

Step 1: Figure out your BMR, how many calories your body burns just by. You know. Existing.
For WOMEN: 655 + (4.35 x Weight in pounds)+(4.7 x Height in inches) - (4.7x Age) = BMR

655 + (4.35 x Weight in pounds)+(4.7 x Height in inches) - (4.7x Age) = BMR
655 + (4.35 x 139.4) + (4.7 x 62) - (4.7x30) BMR
655 + 606.39 - 141 = BMR
1,120.39 = BMR

Step 2: Take that number and multiply by your activity level:
If you're not sure exactly which activity level you are, take the average of the two that sound most like you.
1.2 Sedentary (little to no exercise)
1.375 Lightly Active (1-3 days a week)
1.55 Moderately Active (3-5 days a week)
1.7 Very Active (6-7 days a week)


1,120.39 x 1.2 = 1,344. 468
1,120.39 x 1.375 = 1,540.53625

Step 3: The modifying number here is 500 because 500 * 7 = 3500 and 3500 calories is equivalent to a pound. So this would be to lose/gain a pound a week. If you want to lose or gain weight more slowly (or more quickly, though that's not necessarily sustainable), feel free to use a different number.
To LOSE weight: Subtract 500
To MAINTAIN weight: keep the number the same
To GAIN weight: Add 500

Sedentary = 844 Calories
Lightly Active = 1,040


So, based on that, at the bottom (if I figured it out) I should change to staying between 800 and 1,000 now, instead of between 1000 and 1200, then?

wanderlustlover

What is BFA and how to I figure it out?

felcandy

I'm 5'2.25" and I eat 1590 to steadily lose. Maintenance would be a much higher number for me... My TDEE is about 2200

wanderlustlover

How steady is the drop off/has it been going since you started eating 1500?

I'm curious about the whole eating more (thus, I imagine getting your metabolism moving faster?) thing, because that's what I saw a lot of a few posts earlier, too. So i'm wondering if I'm still too far below what my body needs, and looking for all sorts of information on how to see to that.

Sjenny5891

I am 5'3". I was eating 1200 calories.... eating back around half of my exercise calories.
I bumped it up to around 1300+ exercise when I got down to 125 or so.
Now I'm at around 1500+ exercise to maintain.

kirstyfairhead

If you have only been eating 1000 to 1200 cals per day (or less) for the last 15 years then I think you are in a different place to most of us. I assume, as you now want to lose weight, that you have gained weight eating at that level or at least maintained for a period of time at a weight you consider too high. This is not normal, you should be losing weight at this level.

I would be concerned that much of the standard advice and standard BMR calculations are not going to be effective for you as you are already eating at a level that most people would be using to lose weight and reducing that level is not only unhealthy but, it would seem, is unlikely to help someone who is trying to break bad eating habits.

My suggestion would be as follows:

Eat 1200 per day for a month, at least - make sure you do this, counting every calorie REGARDLESS of what happens with your weight.

There are no circumstances under which you should be gaining at this level and if you do it can only be because your body is trying to adjust to the intake.

Then slowly increase your intake by 100cals per day i.e 700 per week (for a week or two at a time) and keep doing this until you gain weight.

At that point look at cutting your cals back by a maximum of 20% (but no lower than 1200 per day) and keep doing that until you hit your goal weight. If you exercise, eat your exercise cals back too.

I know that this seems long winded and may feel like you are doing things backwards but you need to get your system functioning normally and your eating habits back to some kind of normal before you can regulate your weight in a healthy way.

Cutting back and cutting back will not work in the long run and can do you some real harm.

kattaw

Step 1: Figure out your BMR, how many calories your body burns just by. You know. Existing.
For WOMEN: 655 + (4.35 x Weight in pounds)+(4.7 x Height in inches) - (4.7x Age) = BMR

655 + (4.35 x Weight in pounds)+(4.7 x Height in inches) - (4.7x Age) = BMR
655 + (4.35 x 139.4) + (4.7 x 62) - (4.7x30) BMR
655 + 606.39 - 141 = BMR
1,120.39 = BMR

Step 2: Take that number and multiply by your activity level:
If you're not sure exactly which activity level you are, take the average of the two that sound most like you.
1.2 Sedentary (little to no exercise)
1.375 Lightly Active (1-3 days a week)
1.55 Moderately Active (3-5 days a week)
1.7 Very Active (6-7 days a week)


1,120.39 x 1.2 = 1,344. 468
1,120.39 x 1.375 = 1,540.53625

Step 3: The modifying number here is 500 because 500 * 7 = 3500 and 3500 calories is equivalent to a pound. So this would be to lose/gain a pound a week. If you want to lose or gain weight more slowly (or more quickly, though that's not necessarily sustainable), feel free to use a different number.
To LOSE weight: Subtract 500
To MAINTAIN weight: keep the number the same
To GAIN weight: Add 500

Sedentary = 844 Calories
Lightly Active = 1,040


So, based on that, at the bottom (if I figured it out) I should change to staying between 800 and 1,000 now, instead of between 1000 and 1200, then?

I'm not sure you got the math quite right, those numbers are very low. I think you missed one of the additions in your initial BMR calculation. Here's what I got:

Step 1:
655 + (4.35 x 139.4) + (4.7 x 62) - (4.7x30) BMR
655 + 606 + 291.4 - 141 = 1411.1

Step 2:
1411.1 x 1.2 = 1,693.32
1411.1 x 1.375 = 1940.26

Step 3:
Sedentary: 1193.32
Lightly Active: 1440.26