I am nervous about eating all of my calories

ladybug4233

I am a 46 year old female. I am 5'3" and I started out at 155.5 pounds and I am down to 145 in 6 weeks. I work out 6 days a week and log everything using a food scale. I use a heart rate monitor and give myself my cardio calories each day. I don't log my weight lifting. I chose light activity do to being a stay at home mom. Some days I am on my feet all day and some days I am not so this seemed the best choice. I feel good and I am happy with my progression. My goal is 135 by June and 125 by December. I started by leaving 200- 300 calories uneaten most days. I never dipped below 1200 (maybe once). I don't deprive myself of anything. I have used calories for alcohol and sweets at times. But lately I have felt more hungry and it is getting harder to leave calories. Should I be trying so hard to be leave calories uneaten each day? I would love to know what you do.

Thanks

ZoneFive

Eat the calories.

You're eating back your exercise calories? Make sure you eat half of them, too.

Speed isn't your friend here. You lost 10 pounds in 6 weeks, which is very very fast when you have as little to lose as you do. Weight loss will slow down the closer you get to your goal, and there's no percentage in trying to make the weight go away faster. Especially not at the cost of nutrition your body needs.

ETA: congratulations on your weight loss! Sounds like you've got the mechanics down solidly. Just don't try to outfox your body -- one way or another, the body always wins.

TavistockToad

Eat the calories.

Secretnotes

I eat about 75% of the extra calories MFP "gives" me and I've been dropping pounds faster than I ever have! Think of the 1200 as a "net calories" goal rather than an absolute. http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10569458/why-eating-too-little-calories-is-a-bad-idea/p1 has an excellant explanation.

veganbaum

ladybug4233 wrote: »

Should I be trying so hard to be leave calories uneaten each day?

No, you should not. It's a goal, which already has your deficit, and should be met.

If you are sloppy with your logging, that might be a reason to leave a couple hundred calories, but you've lost quite a bit of weight in short amount of time and say you are using a food scale (make sure you are also choosing correct entries). Eat your exercise calories (or at least a portion, such as 50-75%) and see if your loss weight matches your goal (which shouldn't be more than a pound a week), then adjust in 4-6 weeks if necessary.

sijomial

ladybug4233 wrote: »

Should I be trying so hard to be leave calories uneaten each day?

Of course not.
Your goal is giving you the deficit you selected (which may also be too aggressive in the first place).
And the goal is also only for a non-exercise day.

You can log your weights as "strength training" (under CV part of your diary). It's a very modest amount but still significant when you have such a tiny calorie goal.

Why make weight loss more difficult and unpleasant than it has to be?
A lot of us don't have great hunger signals but it sounds like yours are working properly - they are telling you not to lose weight so fast!

ladybug4233

Thanks for the responses. I have no idea how to calculate weight lifting burn. Also should I leave say 20% of exercise calories?

sijomial

ladybug4233 wrote: »

Thanks for the responses. I have no idea how to calculate weight lifting burn. Also should I leave say 20% of exercise calories?

Log entire duration of your strength workout (under CV section of the diary) under category "Strength training (weight lifting, weight training)". It's a rough estimate based on studied METS. Definitely don't be tempted to try and use your HRM to estimate as it's not going to work (not an aerobic exercise for a start).

Why leave 20% of exercise calories? That's the equivalent of what you have been doing with your food intake and that wasn't a good idea. At least give the tool a chance to work as designed, after a period of weeks you will have some consistent data to go on and make adjustments from.

The way to estimate is to give it your best shot - not take random chunks off the estimate.
If you have a reason to believe your estimate is off by 20% then take 20% off - but have a reason first.
If you are just twiddling about with super light dumbbells then that would be a sensible reason to adjust (that's an example not an accusation! ).

An example - the cycling estimates in this database are very high for a road cyclist so I use a different and more accurate way to estimate, I use the category but overwrite my own data.
But strength training there is no way to measure it outside of a laboratory so a reasonable estimate is the best you can do.