Calorie intake advice M.F.P. vs beachbosy/p90x site

Ayyubaddeen

Hi, I started doing P90x 3 weeks ago and noticed that the calorie intake from this site vs that site give me a different calorie intake amount. I'm unemployed and mostly sedentary when not working out with p90x, according to my weight and activity level, and weight loss goals of 2lbs. A week this site says eat just over1,500, while beachbody says eat just over 1,900. Both sites accounted my sedentary activity and weight loss goals. So which do I use? I eat back most calories, but I've not really lost any weight. I noticed I am always low on energy, even before starting p90x, so could it be from eating to little and going into starvation mode? Should I adjust my activity level to give me a closer to 1,900 a day intake, not to say I'm active but so I could track calories better and not get confused. If I do switch my activity level do I still eat back calories? Any advice would be appreciated!

thesupremeforce

Your best bet is probably to change your settings so that you're not trying to lose two pounds per week. Eating too little is likely the cause of your lack of energy.

The quickest "fix" here would be to change your MFP settings to lose one pound per week and go from there.

allen_ac

Calculators only really give you a range of how many calories you should be eating

The best way to possibly find out how many calories you need is:

1) Set a calorie intake in that range you've been provided
2) Try to hit those numbers everyday for 1 week or 2 weeks if you're patient enough
3) Track your weight throughout these days and take the average number over the week
4) Find out if you experienced: extreme weight loss / standard weight loss / maintaining weight / weight gain / extreme weight gain
5) (In my opinion) Keep experimenting until you find your maintenance number, so that you have that base number to work off and start with

6) Decrease your intake by 300-500 calories a day and try to be consistent
7) If you want to calculate the whole TDEE thing (being total energy spent throughout the day) that takes into account your p90x calories burnt, where as the way I've said just accounts for your food intake

Hope this is helpful at all, if you need me to explain it any easier I'll be happy to help

davepearson86

The MFP calculator is not all that great, try this calculator and put in a 15% deficit. Follow for 2 weeks, then track your weight loss in week 3 and 4 if you are losing a good amount of weight then change nothing, if not drop 200 calories. and track for another 2 weeks.