Hardest Time with my Calories

laurenebargar

Can someone please help me figure out how many calories I should truly be eating?

I was at 1200 and was way too hungry during the day, and I have gone over my calories two days in a row at 1,360. I just changed my fitness level to lightly active and now its 1,600 calories a day. For activity I go for an hour walk every night and on top of that go to the gym maybe 3 times a week, its finals week at college so I plan on upping this more when I have a little bit more free time. I only eat 25% of my calories back from exercise. Ive done about 100 calculators online and they all have different answers. I lost at the same rate when I was at 1200 & 1360, but now im scared that 1,600 is too high. I havent picked the best foods lately, and I realize that could be a big part of it, right now im only focusing on being in a calorie deficit and slowly incorporating better nutrition into my diet, I have already cut out all beverages that arent water except the occasionally skinny latte and regular cup of coffee but I dont want to be over eating, my stats are below someone please help

Female
Age 23
Exercise listed above
CW 207
GW 143
Height 5'4

laurenebargar

Oh and so far I have lost 11 lbs and have been on MFP for 43 days.

KM0692

I'm 5'6 and 156 lbs (female), and I lost 1 lb/week last year on 1650 cal/day. I walk a few times a week for an hour each time, and eat back my exercise calories too.

And congrats on the weight loss!!

Tried30UserNames

I'd try the 1600 calories for a few weeks and see how it works.

vivelajackie

Thirding the experimental run of 1600. Lightly active seems like a good level for what you've listed here.

laurenebargar

Im going to give it a try and see what happens! I just dont want to be sabotaging my weight loss for a few weeks, so if I set my activity to lightly active and today I went hiking for about 2 hours, should I still be recording those work outs? even though my activity level went up? If it helps ive walked 15,000 steps today.

allyphoe

If it's any help, I'm 20 years older than you, 50 pounds lighter than you, work a desk job, and maintain at ~2,100 calories plus intentional exercise.

If you've lost 11 pounds in 43 days, that's about a 900 calorie per day deficit. Adding 400 more calories isn't going to make you gain weight.

spiffychick85

Honestly I think you'll still lose with 1600 at a good rate. I'm 5'2.5 134lbs and I lose at 1500 which is not much lower than your given amount and I average 10-14k steps a day and do about 30-40minutes bodyweight strength exercises 3x a week using the NTC app.

deannalfisher

laurenebargar wrote: »

Im going to give it a try and see what happens! I just dont want to be sabotaging my weight loss for a few weeks, so if I set my activity to lightly active and today I went hiking for about 2 hours, should I still be recording those work outs? even though my activity level went up? If it helps ive walked 15,000 steps today.

record the hike - if its outside your normal daily activity then it counts as purposeful working out