Some advice about calorie intake please!

roseyelephant

Sorry if this is in the wrong section!

I've lost about 30 pounds so far since I've moved in January. Most of my weightloss was due to mostly the fact that I walked to work (5 miles total a day) in a city with lots of hills and just plain eating healthier because the options were available to me. I feel more comfortable with myself ever since I've gone under a 25 on the bmi calculator. I'm currently 145 pounds at 5'5, female. I've noticed however, that I'm started to look "mushy" in places where the weight was lost and I would really like to start toning my body.

I usually eat about 1200 - 1400 calories a day, and work five days a week. I have a physical job and I'm usually always moving and carrying heavy boxes between 20 - 40 pounds. According to MFP, it burns around 500-700 calories a shift per six hours. I lose about 1-2 pounds a week.

I want to start going to the gym, lifting, working out more to become more fit. What would my recommended calorie intake be?

estherdragonbat

Your recommended calorie intake doesn't include exercise, so whatever you burn through exercise, you're expected to eat back. I'd start with eating back 50%, since MFP can over-estimate exercise burns. If you find you're losing too much, increase that percentage.

kimny72

If you've lost 30 lbs since Jan, you've been losing 2-3 lbs per week, which is really fast considering your stats. I'm guessing you don't have more than maybe 20 lbs to lose, maybe less? You should be looking to lose no more than 1 lb per week, so if you're losing faster keep adding calories to your goal until it slows down.

As @estherdragonbat said, you should additionally log your purposeful exercise and eat back at least some of those calories. Ironically, losing fast when you are already a healthy weight can lead to you getting more "mushy" as you get smaller, so try not to rush it. Lifting will help too :drinker:

malibu927

On top of what they said, you should adjust your activity level to account for your job. I have a fairly active job and I know I couldn’t keep up with it on just 1400 calories.

olong

Your calorie intake doesn't truly change until you stop the weight-loss portion of your plan and move into the maintenance phase. You are meant to eat back the calories you exercised because you are already creating a calorie deficit before you add exercise to the equation. It seems, with this weight loss since January, you actually underestimated the calories you burn at your job and, therefore, you have a greater calorie burn than is typically recommended. If I were you, I'd eat back half of my calories burned from the job. That will slow down your weight loss. A slow weight loss is actually beneficial -- rapid weight loss has a tendency to be regained quickly, slow weight loss tends to stay off as the "shock" to the system is not felt as a "shock", so the body doesn't send signals for "recovery" with weight gain. (I realize I'm not being very scientific with this explanation.)

elisaeff1128

I'd up my calories to 1750 or even 1800 . High protien /moderate carbs.
Start weight training to build back some of the muscle you've lost while losing weight.

You are losing muscle with fat because you're calories are too low. That's how you end up getting skinny but fat.