Help! Should I up my calorie intake?

captainfoxtrot

I'm usually right around the 1200 mark, and I drink lots of water. However, throughout my day I am finding myself miserable, exhausted/dizzy, etc. I AM losing weight however, though I'm not sure how accurate that is considering I've been weighing myself a lot, though I'm restraining my next check-ins to be a week apart. I started at 162, and I've dropped to 154 in a week. I'm thinking a lot of it must be water weight.

EDIT: Maybe my activity setting is wrong... I work out a few days a week, and my average day consists of me running around the house a lot and I have two flights of stairs, I don't do that much sitting.

aippolito1

Do you work out? If you do work out, you're obviously not eating your exercise calories so definitely start eating those.

captainfoxtrot

Except for yesterday, I always make up my exercise calories. I factor it into my diary, and then eat more to compensate. Yesterday I didn't because I exercised at like 10:30 PM at the 24 hour gym, then came back, had some tea, and went to bed.

EDIT: Made my diary public.

ashlee954

I looked at your food diary. You seem pretty consistent. One thing I noticed that might help you out is that you are allowed to eat 1200 calories ON TOP of what you burn during exercise. A lot of days I noticed that if you subtract your exercise cals from your total eaten, you have actually only consumed less than 1200 cals NET. MFP already figures in an erercise deficit and recommends you do not eat less than 1200 calories NET. Some people eat only half of their exercise cals. But I think if you are feeling tired and dizzy then this is definitely something to think about.

ProTFitness

Eat more for breakfest. ABout 300-400 calories. Eat a mornnig afternoon and if needed evening snack. Also You probably need more calories expecially if your more active or exercising. You dont want your body going into survial mode. It will feed off your lean muscle and your will start storing fat. So I would up it to at least 1400-1600 calories. Lots of leand meats veggies fruits whole grains yogurts ect

captainfoxtrot

Weird, I usually update my calories from my phone... and I always end up with less than a 100 to 1200 after factoring in exercise, and some days I go over 1200 even. (Minus yesterday! I just really didn't want to eat at 11PM! :P)

EDIT: I think I'll start eating a 300 calorie breakfast, instead of a 200 calorie breakfast.

jennylynn84

Is your activity level on sedentary? Because if so you might want to consider changing it. I general consider sedentary to be more or less my lifestyle where I am confined to a desk all day. If you're being super-active around your house all day, climbing the stairs back and forth and generally not sitting, but only logging legit exercise, you might consider changing your lifestyle to at least lightly active.

Also, depending on where you are in relation to your goals - I see you want to get down to 135, but I'm not sure where that falls in your BMI chart - setting for maximum loss (2 lbs a week, pushing you down to 1200 cal a day) might not be the best thing for you. Once I began nearing my goal I had to change my calorie intake. The less weight you have to lose the less you can... live off the fat of the land, so to speak. That's just what I've found in my situation.

Beware though, if you increase your calories from 1200 to 1400 or so you might notice a temporary increase in weight. It'll just be because your metabolism will have slowed to match the 1200 calories and an increase will catch it off guard. It won't last though, as you'll still be at an overall deficit. Don't let it panic you if it happens.

curvykent

I'm a newbie here on MFP and I am not a nutritionist however I did look at your food diary and noticed that your not eating all of the recommended protein. Maybe if you try to eat more protein in your diet you'll feel better. I know from personal experience that my body functions best on fat and protein. Not high fat greasy foods I am talking good fats. Eating less fat then is recommended for my weight can make me hungrier quicker and the same with protein. Good luck.