How much to eat?

jdleanna

MFP has me at 1280 a day (I'm female, 42 y.o, 5'3, 136 working towards 125, with lightly active as my setting, 1 lb loss a week). I've been sticking to my calorie limit - well, sometimes a tad under, sometimes a tad over - and though at first I felt energized, the past few days I've been starving with totally failing energy.

I decided to look at online TDEE calculators and they give me much higher calorie needs than MFP.

So... what would you go by? How accurate are, say, the scoobysworkshop and the like vs MFP?

I do exercise daily now, but not for a long time. At least 30 minutes, sometimes 60-70. I'm on my feet all day chasing after 2 preschoolers and caring after a physically disabled baby (which means a lot of carrying a quite heavy small person). Still, I'm not doing tons of exercise- I'm following dailyburn's cardio sculpt program in the morning and doing whatever additional workout from daily burn is appealing in the evening.

I've lost a lot of weight in the first 3 weeks of this. 8 pounds. So I'm assuming I ought to be eating more. Just having trouble figuring out how much more.

mccindy72

Online TDEE calculators figure in your exercise, MFP doesn't, as it expects you to add it in as you complete it. So if you're using MFP as your calorie guide, don't worry about the online calculators, just log your exercise as you do it, and eat some of your exercise calories back.

Are you weighing your solid foods on a digital food scale?

dredremeg

Are you eating back your exercise calories (MFP)? TDEE your exercise calories are calculated in your total calories for the day. I am in maintenance, so I use TDEE method and workout 5-6 days a week.

jdleanna

I'm not weighing. I know it's the thing we need to do, but the chance that I'll be able to take the time to weigh while holding above-mentioned disabled kid is low. I know it doesn't add a lot of time to cooking but I'm not kidding when I say I am scrambling every day to make it through as it is! So I do my best for now.

Liftng4Lis

mccindy72 wrote: »

Online TDEE calculators figure in your exercise, MFP doesn't, as it expects you to add it in as you complete it. So if you're using MFP as your calorie guide, don't worry about the online calculators, just log your exercise as you do it, and eat some of your exercise calories back.

Are you weighing your solid foods on a digital food scale?

This. They basically turn out the same.

jdleanna

How much do you eat back? I'm assuming not 100%. Is 50% a good guideline?

mccindy72

jdleanna wrote: »

I'm not weighing. I know it's the thing we need to do, but the chance that I'll be able to take the time to weigh while holding above-mentioned disabled kid is low. I know it doesn't add a lot of time to cooking but I'm not kidding when I say I am scrambling every day to make it through as it is! So I do my best for now.

http://smile.amazon.com/Infantino-Flip-Front-Carrier-Black/dp/B003I867WQ/ref=sr_1_5?s=baby-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1438650682&sr=1-5&keywords=baby+carrier

mccindy72

weigh your food. if you don't know how much you're eating, you don't know how much to eat back, or how to meet your calorie goals... or if you'll lose weight at all.

jdleanna

Mccindy, the carrier is great (we have one, used for the older kids) but my child has no head control at all and at over a year is too heavy for most carriers even if he were able to hold his head up. Thanks for passing along baby carrier ideas but nope. (I'd rather not go into it but when I say disabled I mean seriously. I mean cannot hold his head up. Cannot see. Cannot sit. Cannot crawl. Does not babble. Uses a g tube. And etc., etc. I'm sure if sounds like excuses when I say my child takes up every second of the day. But we're lucky the days I can cook anything at all. Hopefully I'll be able to weigh eventually but it is so not in the cards now.)

mccindy72

jdleanna wrote: »

Mccindy, the carrier is great (we have one, used for the older kids) but my child has no head control at all and at over a year is too heavy for most carriers even if he were able to hold his head up. Thanks for passing along baby carrier ideas but nope.

Do you have to hold your child constantly? You can't put him in a child seat or anything? I just feel like you are using your child as an excuse not to weigh your food, I'm asking... It really takes no more time to weigh food than it does to open a jar or stir something in a pan.

jdleanna

He does have a special wheelchair with a head support and lateral supports. He can tolerate that chair for small bursts. I cook, when I cook, in the cracks of time I can get from the wheelchair. He's asleep now... if we could all eat at 9 pm I'd be golden.

As mentioned, I'm losing weight. Getting up at 4:30 am to workout and working out again at 8 when he goes to bed. Logging everything. Cut out junk food. Doing what I can. Lost lots of weight so far.

kimny72

OP, with so little left to lose, you should only be set to half a lb per week. And you should be eating back some of your exercise calories. If you are concerned about trusting the numbers, add 100-150 calories a week until your weekly loss slows down a little. And regardless of the numbers, if you are starving and feel lethargic, eat something . Yes, you should be weighing your food for accuracy, but considering you are losing weight so quickly, I just wanted to emphasize that regardless, you should eat more. Good luck!

jdleanna

Thanks kimny, I'll reset to .5 (didn't think to change that!). I'll try adding 100 a week. And eating back exercise calories.

rushfive

Just be sure to eat back your exercise calories if you use the mfp way..... maybe not all the calories but at least half. This would probably get you close to the tdee amount you seen.

OR, you could change to activity level in mfp, this will give you more calories without having to log exercise.
As long as you are losing weight I wouldn't worry about the weighting food. But do eat more if you are not feeling right.
After reading your post again, I would up the activity level on mfp settings.

MKEgal

jdleanna wrote:

MFP has me at 1280 a day
(I'm female, 42 y.o, 5'3, 136 working towards 125, with lightly active as my setting, 1 lb loss a week).

For your height, a healthy weight range is 105 - 140. So you're already OK.
Weight loss is going to be slow. 0.5 lb per week would be lots.



According to this calculator from the Baylor College of Medicine, if you're active less than 1 hour / day, you
need 1260 calories to maintain 125 lb.
It will also give you how many servings of the various food groups you should be eating.
https://www.bcm.edu/cnrc-apps/healthyeatingcalculator/eatingCal.html

enkiemonkey

This is a helpful graph. Thanks for sharing

MKEgal

Here are some helpful "getting started" posts. Especially read sexypants.

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1080242/a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10012907/logging-accuracy-consistency-and-youre-probably-eating-more-than-you-think

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/819925/the-basics-dont-complicate-it/p1

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/872212/youre-probably-eating-more-than-you-think/p1

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/833026/important-posts-to-read/p1

Dnarules

MKEgal wrote: »

jdleanna wrote:

MFP has me at 1280 a day
(I'm female, 42 y.o, 5'3, 136 working towards 125, with lightly active as my setting, 1 lb loss a week).

For your height, a healthy weight range is 105 - 140. So you're already OK.
Weight loss is going to be slow. 0.5 lb per week would be lots.



According to this calculator from the Baylor College of Medicine, if you're active less than 1 hour / day, you
need 1260 calories to maintain 125 lb.
It will also give you how many servings of the various food groups you should be eating.
https://www.bcm.edu/cnrc-apps/healthyeatingcalculator/eatingCal.html

You obviously didn't read the OP.

Ang108

jdleanna wrote: »

Mccindy, the carrier is great (we have one, used for the older kids) but my child has no head control at all and at over a year is too heavy for most carriers even if he were able to hold his head up. Thanks for passing along baby carrier ideas but nope. (I'd rather not go into it but when I say disabled I mean seriously. I mean cannot hold his head up. Cannot see. Cannot sit. Cannot crawl. Does not babble. Uses a g tube. And etc., etc. I'm sure if sounds like excuses when I say my child takes up every second of the day. But we're lucky the days I can cook anything at all. Hopefully I'll be able to weigh eventually but it is so not in the cards now.)

Maybe this idea is far-fetched, but it comes from a desire to help you in what is no doubt a very difficult situation.
Do you have someone who could spend 5-10 minutes ( when needed ) to measure and weigh your food into portion containers ?

This is what someone did for me a few month ago after I had two heart attacks ( the second one with cardiac arrest) and one of the meds gave me vision problems and I could not recognize the numbers on the scale. It helped my recovery to eat heart healthy home cooked meals I liked and it really helped my spirits to continue with my planned calories and not give up any of the 65 pounds I had already lost.

My neighbor put some containers for quick use in the fridge and others in the freezer and things worked out well for me.
I hope the same will happen to you, because I think it is not only important that you take good care of your family , but also a little bit of yourself.
Good Luck !