Don't know how much to eat

salygrl

im 5'6" 154 lbs. been doing this since April. Lost 8 lbs so far and now I'm gaining. I work out up to 5 days a week doing body pump and combat. Started walking 4.5-5 miles once a week. I'm tired and frustrated. I tried eating 1200 calories a day but always overeat a bit but because I exercised, I still ended up going over my calories, including exercise calories. I checked my tdee and increased my calories to 1357, and now I'm gaining. I don't know what to do. I go on one site it tells me to eat 1200, another says 1700-1800. I need help figuring out how many before exercise calories to eat. I have a desk job too.

PixelPuff

Are you logging everything correctly? And I mean, measuring EVERYTHING?

Liftng4Lis

Are you using a food scale?

DaCookyMonster

Try intermittent fasting...look it up. It's where you don't eat for like 16 hours, and then you have an 8 hour eating window.

PixelPuff

DaCookyMonster wrote: »

Try intermittent fasting...look it up. It's where you don't eat for like 16 hours, and then you have an 8 hour eating window.

Doesn't help anything if they eat past their calories in that window, too.

salygrl

Liftng4Lis wrote: »

Are you using a food scale?

I am. I just don't know how many calories to eat. I thought with 1200 I wasn't eating enough and was putting my body in starvation mode and I was still hungry too. If I ate 1300 calories and earned say, 300 calories exercising, do I eat the "extra" 300 I earned? Ultimately, I need someone to tell me how many calories to eat. I'm just very frustrated and seriously confused.

Liftng4Lis

salygrl wrote: »

Liftng4Lis wrote: »

Are you using a food scale?

I am. I just don't know how many calories to eat. I thought with 1200 I wasn't eating enough and was putting my body in starvation mode and I was still hungry too. If I ate 1300 calories and earned say, 300 calories exercising, do I eat the "extra" 300 I earned? Ultimately, I need someone to tell me how many calories to eat. I'm just very frustrated and seriously confused.

First, there is no starvation mode.
If you have a base of 1200 and you earn 300 doing exercise, then you would eat the 1200 plus a portion of the exercise calories (most eat half to accommodate miscalculations in burns). 1200 and 150, that day you would eat 1350.
Remember, the caloric value given to you by MFP, already includes your deficit. Exercise is for health, to help the deficit and bonus food!

Faithful_Chosen

For personalized advice, please open your diary. It sounds like you are eating more than you think, no matter your caloric goal.