I feel like I should be loosing more

mell0wg0ld

I have a chest strap for heart rate monitoring which I just recently got - Before I was using the machine calculation and also a heart rate/calorie calculating wrist watch that I have. As for food - I do weigh out the portions on a food scale and measure liquids I am very careful with trying not to overestimate burned calories and underestimate food calories - I see this as cheating which I am done with!! I guess I am being impatient and seeing my friend have more pounds lost made me question my own weight loss. I am very happy for the pounds I have lost up to this point :bigsmile:

mimieon

Definitely eat those exercise calories if you are using mfp settings. If you worry that the number of burnt calories are overestimated, eat like 2/3 of them or something.

Another thing to consider for the headaches is caffeine withdrawal.

AnexRavensong

So many people eating 1200 calories and "never going over 1400" .. OK treading carefully here..

Instead of aiming for a ridiculously low amount of calories and an obscene amount of exercise then stuffing yourself with water to kill hunger pangs, how about doing things sensibly and healthily?

There are at least two really IMPORTANT abbreviations you should learn as of right now: TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) and BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate). As long as you eat at a deficit of TDEE without eating under BMR for extended periods of time you will lose weight as a reasonable pace and shouldn't reach the dreaded plateau so quickly.

BMR is pretty much what it takes to keep you alive if you did nothing and were in bed all day. You should never eat under this (unless your doctor tells you otherwise for some specific health reason).

Personally my BMR is 1,573 calories with my TDEE being around 1950. That means that as long as I eat under 1950 cals a day, I will lose weight.

I ate the 1200, I ate the 1500 and I stopped losing weight and gained it all back. Unsurprisingly you body wants to SURVIVE and it WILL start storing fat if you stop feeding it enough. Been there, done that and more than once.

So first, before you get sucked into that 1200 cal thing that I don't at all agree with and personally made me headachy and angry all the time, find out your BMR: http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/ do NOT eat less than that. Of course you will adjust and recalculate as you lose weight every so often (which will lower your number), but you really shouldn't eat under BMR.

You will also need to figure out your TDEE so you can eat less than that. Eat back your exercise calories UNLESS you already figure them in with your TDEE. You don't want to go under BMR.

TDEE calculator: http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

Those should give you some starting points. There's also lots of groups with lots of good information too who will help support you and will encourage you to actually eat without posting about how they did 5 hours of cardio and only ate a carrot (I exaggerate).

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/groups/home/8017-in-place-of-a-road-map

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/groups/home/3817-eat-more-to-weigh-less

They have links to other tools that can help you and user heybales has a nice spreadsheet too you can use.

mell0wg0ld

Thank you Anexa very helpful info!