Calorie confusion

MichMunchkin

Hi!

I'm hoping someone can offer me some advice about this whole calorie thing. I started doing Weight Watchers in January of 2011, and lost 65 pounds between then and May of 2012. Unfortunately, as sometimes happens, I've gained back about 20 pounds.

At this point, I'm a bit "eh" about WW. Don't get me wrong -- the program certainly worked for me at the beginning. But I feel like the number of points I get (26) doesn't give me enough fuel for my activity. I work at a fairly sedentary job (front desk at the local y) but I only work part-time, and I definitely get a fair amount of exercise. I exercise at a moderate level for at least an hour a day, whether it's from power walking outside or cardio at the gym. I've also started weight training as well, three days a week for 45 minutes. From what I understand, 26 WW points equals (roughly) 1300 calories. And though I earn "activity points" when I exercise, the program (or at least my local chapter of the program) discourages eating back those points. Ergo...I don't feel I'm getting enough fuel. I'm also kind of disillusioned by the fact that, in WW, the only real benchmark of progress is the number on the scale. I think that sucks, to be perfectly honest, especially now that I don't have as much to lose.

So I've decided to try calorie counting for a while...but I'm confused about how many calories I should be taking in. MFP is giving me the default number of 1200 calories, and....nope, not going there. That's worse than what WW was giving me.

All the numbers -- BMR, BMI, RMR, TDEE -- are very confusing to me (I was never a big fan of numbers and calculations!) I just would like to know: how many calories would allow me a steady (even if slow) rate of weight loss, while still giving me enough fuel to do what I need to do without feeling like I'm going to die halfway through the day.

Any ideas? I'm 5' and currently weigh 161 pounds. I'm hoping to eventually get down to 140, but my first "goal" is to hit 150.

socioseguro

Hi

welcome to MFP

This link maybe of help

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/912920-in-place-of-a-road-map-3-2013

MFP tool has been very helpful to me. I do hope it helps you too.

Good luck in your journey

leebesstoad

The roadmap the prior poster gave you is a great tool. But let me try to break it down for you. I ran your numbers on a couple of different websites to check for consistency. I checked Scooby's Workshop, Fitness Frog, and IIFYM. All agree your BMR is around 1485. Even assuming your workout is fairly moderate at 3 days a week, your TDEE would be somewhere around 2000 calories/day. To lose a moderate amount, about a pound a week, you would need to be at a deficit of 500 calories a day, so you would need to be eating around 1500 calories/day. If you exercise more you can either eat more or lose weight faster.

I don't like the online TDEE calculators for that reason -- what is moderate exercise to one person is intense to another. Quanitifying that is impossible. But it is trial and error. But that should put you in the area to begin with.

MichMunchkin

So just to clarify -- based on the numbers you've provided in your reply, I should be netting 1500 calories a day, right? So if I ate 2000 calories a day and burned 500 calories through exercise, that would land me at 1500 calories and leave me with a deficit of 500. Is that right? Or am I not understanding it quite the right way?

Francl27

So just to clarify -- based on the numbers you've provided in your reply, I should be netting 1500 calories a day, right? So if I ate 2000 calories a day and burned 500 calories through exercise, that would land me at 1500 calories and leave me with a deficit of 500. Is that right? Or am I not understanding it quite the right way?

If you use MFP, eat your exercise calories back. If you use a set calorie amount with TDEE-20%, you don't eat it back as it's included in the total.

MichMunchkin

So just to clarify -- based on the numbers you've provided in your reply, I should be netting 1500 calories a day, right? So if I ate 2000 calories a day and burned 500 calories through exercise, that would land me at 1500 calories and leave me with a deficit of 500. Is that right? Or am I not understanding it quite the right way?

If you use MFP, eat your exercise calories back. If you use a set calorie amount with TDEE-20%, you don't eat it back as it's included in the total.

Ohhhh, now I get it. OK, that makes sense. So if I'm going to use MFP (which I plan to) then the "goal" number of calories at the top of the page is the number I should be hitting for my net calories. Thank you for clearing that up! I'm going to try 1500 calories a day for a couple weeks and see how I do...then I'll adjust as necessary. Thank you for the reply!