Counting Calories question!
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FitnessFreak1821
Posts: 242 Member
I'm 5'5 female, 143-144 pounds. Lost 31 pounds so far in 7 months and want to lose another 12 pounds. My fitness pal suggests I consume 1200 calories. Some days I can do it, other days I'm under but today I ate 1455 calories. I worked out for 45 minutes and burned 233 calories.(I use to eat 1800-2000 a day before I started eating healthier and working out ).
Do I minus 233 from 1455 to get my total calories? Does that mean I consumed 1222 really if that's the case and I'm still okay to say I'm in that 1200 calories goal ? Or is this day a write off because I went over the 1200 in food?
Do I minus 233 from 1455 to get my total calories? Does that mean I consumed 1222 really if that's the case and I'm still okay to say I'm in that 1200 calories goal ? Or is this day a write off because I went over the 1200 in food?
2
Replies
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You're meant to eat your exercise calories in addition to what MFP gives you. You're fine. Even if you were a couple of hundred calories over, you'd still be at an overall deficit for the day.
Re that 1200 cals - what do you have your weekly weight loss target set to? With only 12 lbs left to lose, 0.5lb is an appropriate goal.9 -
Nony_Mouse wrote: »You're meant to eat your exercise calories in addition to what MFP gives you. You're fine. Even if you were a couple of hundred calories over, you'd still be at an overall deficit for the day.
Re that 1200 cals - what do you have your weekly weight loss target set to? With only 12 lbs left to lose, 0.5lb is an appropriate goal.
Thanks! I got it set to 2 pounds a week. I'm really hoping to lose 2-3 pounds a week and lose the 12 pounds fast but we will see. I know trying to lose to fast is not good. I'm just frustrated I have been trying so hard and I have stalled for a month.2 -
XoXashleighXoX wrote: »Nony_Mouse wrote: »You're meant to eat your exercise calories in addition to what MFP gives you. You're fine. Even if you were a couple of hundred calories over, you'd still be at an overall deficit for the day.
Re that 1200 cals - what do you have your weekly weight loss target set to? With only 12 lbs left to lose, 0.5lb is an appropriate goal.
Thanks! I got it set to 2 pounds a week. I'm really hoping to lose 2-3 pounds a week and lose the 12 pounds fast but we will see. I know trying to lose to fast is not good. I'm just frustrated I have been trying so hard and I have stalled for a month.
It's not that losing weight fast isn't good. It's that losing weight fast for the most part doesn't work. People spend decades losing weight fast because they're too impatient to spend a year. Losing weight fast is the fastest way to not lose weight.22 -
You have very little to lose, and are already at a healthy weight, so it's really unlikely you will be able to lose weight "fast", and you will most likely end up frustrated and feeling defeated if you try. At your weight, I would probably aim for closer to 1lb a week or even 1/2 a lb a week, as that is far likely to be sustainable and manageable. If you are only eating 1200 a day and exercising on top of that, you are going to end up very hungry and cranky, which is a recipe for failure.8
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XoXashleighXoX wrote: »I'm 5'5 female, 143-144 pounds. Lost 31 pounds so far in 7 months and want to lose another 12 pounds. My fitness pal suggests I consume 1200 calories. Some days I can do it, other days I'm under but today I ate 1455 calories. I worked out for 45 minutes and burned 233 calories.(I use to eat 1800-2000 a day before I started eating healthier and working out ).
Do I minus 233 from 1455 to get my total calories? Does that mean I consumed 1222 really if that's the case and I'm still okay to say I'm in that 1200 calories goal ? Or is this day a write off because I went over the 1200 in food?
1200 + 233 = 1433.
You overate by 22 calories.
Not a big deal.
7 -
XoXashleighXoX wrote: »Nony_Mouse wrote: »You're meant to eat your exercise calories in addition to what MFP gives you. You're fine. Even if you were a couple of hundred calories over, you'd still be at an overall deficit for the day.
Re that 1200 cals - what do you have your weekly weight loss target set to? With only 12 lbs left to lose, 0.5lb is an appropriate goal.
Thanks! I got it set to 2 pounds a week. I'm really hoping to lose 2-3 pounds a week and lose the 12 pounds fast but we will see. I know trying to lose to fast is not good. I'm just frustrated I have been trying so hard and I have stalled for a month.
Well, enjoy the fatigue, hair falling out, brittle nails, insomnia, muscle loss...14 -
Regarding the 2lbs/ week: I'm near your height at 5'6" and last year I went from 155 in January to 125 at the end of the year. At the end, when I was getting to those last 5-10 lbs like you are, I went really slow - for the last 5 lbs I was losing only about 1 lb a month. This is good actually. It is practicing for what you are going to do when you go into maintenance, eating only at a very slight deficit compared to what you will eat in maintenance and getting used to what that will be like to maintain that. When you lose that slow, you also have to learn to watch the long term trend like you would in maintenance and get over the daily fluctuations - when you are losing at 1 lb/month you can't tell you are losing at all most days, but the really long trend line will show it. That is also something you'll have to learn for maintenance to keep the weight off - how to keep an eye on your long term trend and realize there is a weight range you are maintaining as day-to-day there are a lot of fluctuations.
So I would say instead of trying to speed through those last 12 lbs, slow down a bit as good practice for maintenance. It also is really nice to eat a little bit more and this will have you trying that out without going overboard back to old ways. Enjoy it and make life a little easier for yourself.11 -
Echoing the others to say that you do not/should not lose 2lbs/week
I am the same stats as you....
If you have 75+ lbs to lose 2 lbs/week is ideal,
If you have 40-75 lbs to lose 1.5 lbs/week is ideal,
If you have 25-40 lbs to lose 1 lbs/week is ideal,
If you have 15 -25 lbs to lose 0.5 to 1.0 lbs/week is ideal, and
If you have less than 15 lbs to lose 0.5 lbs/week is ideal.2 -
I'm 5'4, and it took me almost a year to go from 135lbs to 125lbs. I would've been a hot mess if I had gone faster. The muscle loss and hormone disruption from losing so fast with so little to lose would also still be haunting me to this day. Screwing up your hormones and TDEE for years to lose vanity lbs aggressively fast seems like a short-sighted plan.
To your question, you don't ever "write off" days. Your body doesn't determine what it does today solely by what you do today. It's a rolling process, and many people look at their calories by the week rather than the day. Regardless, considering the steep deficit you are in, you could eat over your goal by quite a bit and still be in a deficit. MFP calculates your calorie goal assuming you will log your exercise and eat back those calories. So your goal isn't 1200, it's really 1200+exercise.10 -
Thanks everyone! I'm just so anxious to be 130 pounds and I feel like I'm doing something wrong when I know I'm still giving it my all. Guess I really should step back like you all said and not be so hard on myself. I will get there in time. Took me 7 months to lose 31 pounds, going to take me few more months to lose the rest and that's just the reality. I need to relax lol I can do this!6
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XoXashleighXoX wrote: »I'm 5'5 female, 143-144 pounds. Lost 31 pounds so far in 7 months and want to lose another 12 pounds. My fitness pal suggests I consume 1200 calories. Some days I can do it, other days I'm under but today I ate 1455 calories. I worked out for 45 minutes and burned 233 calories.(I use to eat 1800-2000 a day before I started eating healthier and working out ).
Do I minus 233 from 1455 to get my total calories? Does that mean I consumed 1222 really if that's the case and I'm still okay to say I'm in that 1200 calories goal ? Or is this day a write off because I went over the 1200 in food?
1200 + 233 = 1433.
You overate by 22 calories.
Not a big deal.
Oooh I thought it meant I went over 233 ? I'm confused how that works cause if you do 1433-22 its 1411 cals?1 -
XoXashleighXoX wrote: »I'm 5'5 female, 143-144 pounds. Lost 31 pounds so far in 7 months and want to lose another 12 pounds. My fitness pal suggests I consume 1200 calories. Some days I can do it, other days I'm under but today I ate 1455 calories. I worked out for 45 minutes and burned 233 calories.(I use to eat 1800-2000 a day before I started eating healthier and working out ).
Do I minus 233 from 1455 to get my total calories? Does that mean I consumed 1222 really if that's the case and I'm still okay to say I'm in that 1200 calories goal ? Or is this day a write off because I went over the 1200 in food?
No, you add 233 to 1200 calories to get 1433 calories, so you only went over by 22 calories. But, as everyone else has said, your base calories should be more than 1200 - your weekly weight loss goal is too aggressive.
Unlike other sites which use TDEE calculators, MFP uses the NEAT method (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis), and as such this system is designed for exercise calories to be eaten back. However, many consider the burns given by MFP to be inflated for them and only eat a percentage, such as 50%, back. Others, however, are able to lose weight while eating 100% of their exercise calories.
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/818082/exercise-calories-again-wtf/p11 -
XoXashleighXoX wrote: »XoXashleighXoX wrote: »I'm 5'5 female, 143-144 pounds. Lost 31 pounds so far in 7 months and want to lose another 12 pounds. My fitness pal suggests I consume 1200 calories. Some days I can do it, other days I'm under but today I ate 1455 calories. I worked out for 45 minutes and burned 233 calories.(I use to eat 1800-2000 a day before I started eating healthier and working out ).
Do I minus 233 from 1455 to get my total calories? Does that mean I consumed 1222 really if that's the case and I'm still okay to say I'm in that 1200 calories goal ? Or is this day a write off because I went over the 1200 in food?
1200 + 233 = 1433.
You overate by 22 calories.
Not a big deal.
Oooh I thought it meant I went over 233 ? I'm confused how that works cause if you do 1433-22 its 1411 cals?
MFP is designed for you to eat back the calories you burn through exercise. So you are still bang on for the day if you take your total calories consumed and mine exercise calories burned. 1455 - 233= 12222 -
XoXashleighXoX wrote: »Thanks everyone! I'm just so anxious to be 130 pounds and I feel like I'm doing something wrong when I know I'm still giving it my all. Guess I really should step back like you all said and not be so hard on myself. I will get there in time. Took me 7 months to lose 31 pounds, going to take me few more months to lose the rest and that's just the reality. I need to relax lol I can do this!
I totally hear you! I am 5'4" and I'm at 133 and my goal is 130 (I started at 162 in mid-September and I have lost at a pretty consistent and frankly fast rate (per my "happy scale" app my overall rate of loss is 1.61 pounds a week and my current rate is 1.93 pounds a week). I know that is too fast and I am trying to eat more calories to lose these last 3 pounds slowly and make sure I am satiated and enjoying life and food, but if I am being candid I am terrified of gaining weight and I am excited to get to goal. I did good upping my calories (still eating at a deficit) for Monday and Tuesday and then yesterday I ate way too few calories for how many I burned that day. I am working on my mind set and keep reading these message boards to remember that I need to take it slow for these last few pounds but it isn't always easy. You are not alone!1 -
I am a 5'5 28 year old female, currently 140ish lbs. My activity is set at slightly active because I work a desk job but am fairly active outside work hours. I would like to lose about 10-ish pounds, so my goal is set at .5 lb/week. Some weeks I lose more like .3 lbs, some weeks about 1 lb; weight loss won't be linear anyway. My starting calories are 1680 per day, and I can get anywhere from 100-300 cals from exercise depending on the day. I generally eat about 3/4 my exercise calories back and I've never had a problem losing weight consistently based on my goals. IMO it's not realistic to try to lose the last 10 lbs quickly and I'm not going to put myself through that misery even if it was realistic... I like to feel good!2
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