Confused

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  • alexanik
    alexanik Posts: 11 Member
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    Okay so if I cut back on cardio, I am still confused as to how many calories/ net calories I should be having daily. And if I continue to do cardio, if I eat back all of my calories? And if I eat back calories will I gain weight? I feel like I completely messed up my whole body and I'm stuck

    You are not confused.. you are just scared of the answer. When you are young it is easier to do these things but as you get older it becomes harder.

    Though I will say the main sign of not eating enough calories is physical and mental exhaustion. If you are suffering from either, you are probably ok. Probably being a key word here. Nobody here is a doctor.

    Nobody here can convince you if you keep being too afraid to even try doing this the healthy way.

    I am actually not really tired, and sometimes it is hard for me to even eat 1200 calories a day, let alone try to eat back my exercise calories.
  • AJ_G
    AJ_G Posts: 4,158 Member
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    Okay so if I cut back on cardio, I am still confused as to how many calories/ net calories I should be having daily. And if I continue to do cardio, if I eat back all of my calories. I feel like I completely messed up my whole body and I'm stuck

    I'd suggest you do the TDEE method and work a deficit into it, then you don't have to worry about eating calories back, or any of that nonsense, and you could just eat the same caloric intake every day and your cardio exercise and deficit would already be factored in, so it's just one simple number to deal with.

    So if I figure out my TDEE, I should calculate it without putting my cardio exercise in for my daily activity, right?

    To figure out your TDEE, you first calculate your BMR. To most accurately do this, you need to know your body weight, and have at least an estimate of your body fat percentage. If you don't know, you can go online and look at pictures of different body fat percentages for women and compare them to yourself to get a rough idea. Once you calculate your BMR, you multiply it by an activity multiplier that takes into account your daily activity INCLUDING cardio exercise. The number you get after you multiply is your TDEE or Total Daily Energy Expenditure which is the total number of calories you burn every day. Then to create a deficit you just subtract 15% or 20% from this number, and that's your calorie goal for weight loss.

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