Are my calories appropriate for weight loss?

skinny_baby

Below is my weight for the last week. Next I put the calories I consumed. And then the calories I burned.

2/02 141.4 lbs
2/01 142.2 lbs (720 consumed) 0 burned
1/31 141.8 lbs (1322) 175
1/30 142.6 lbs (1317) 53
1/29 141.6 lbs (1031) 134
1/28 141.8 lbs (926) 100
1/27 143.8 lbs (785) 0

I just started again exercising last week. I plan to burn about 400 calories daily M-F, and want to lose 17 pounds in the next three months.

kiwitechgirl

Eat more. You're under fueling your body.

skinny_baby

I weighed 174 pounds in 8/2012 and went down to 128 in one year. I was eating 1200 calories and burning about 500 M-F. As a result got some saggy body parts. But then I gained 20 pounds in the next five months. So was at 148 pounds on 1/1/2014. Lost 7 in January. But would love to lose 17 more to be 124 pounds at height 5'3." I don't want to have saggy body parts. Please tell me how many calories will do the job.

GingerLolita

You should not be consuming under 1200 net calories, so you need at least 1200 calories of food, plus you need to eat back your exercise calories.

To lose 17 pounds, I suggest adjusting to a 1 lb./week weight loss goal on MFP and eating back your exercise calories. However, "saggy body parts" can also be fixed with exercise, not losing more weight.

fairygirlpie9

If you're saggy at 128 that means your not doing the right kind of exercises - I'm guessing your doing a fair bit of cardio with not a lot of strength training. Sounds to me like you need to gain some muscle - you'd be able to eat more and look better in your clothes without saggy bits.
Either start lifting or do some other sort of resistance training - the 30 Day Shred is a great routine to help you firm up - you probably won't lose much weight but your overall appearance will improve and your skin will be firm and you will look slimmer as a result.

skittlesnhoney

Figure out what your BMR (Base Metabolic Rate) is. This is how much you burn daily if you were to be completely sedentary. You definitely need to not be eating under your BMR.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/tools/bmr-calculator

And then eat back your exercise calories. If you struggle with that, then eat back half your exercise calories instead.

skinny_baby

My estimated BMR is: 1,291 calories/day. Please help me understand how I can eat back the calories I burn. So that means say I burn 100 calories, I should eat 1,391 calories on that particular day?

xsmilexforxmex

Yea, never eat below bmr net (so if you burn 100 then it would be 1391) to help ensure you do not lose muscle or metabolism.

Francl27

Yes you need to eat way more than that... Minimum 1200 calories net (meaning 1200 calories plus whatever you burned during exercise).

If you don't want to worry about exercise calories, you can use scooby http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/ with a 20% deficit, and just eat that every day. But there's no reason to starve yourself to lose weight.

megsmom2

.Eat more, eat smarter. And for heavens sake stop weighing yourself so often. You're making yourself nuts with that!

Ctrum69

1) quit weighing every day. That way lies madness, and it's not going to accurately represent weight loss anyway.

2) BMR's are averages. Start with that average, and use a conservative estimate of the calories you are burning through exercise when "eating back" to make up.

Weigh once a week.. or every two weeks, at the same time of day. Also, do photo journals every 30 days, same pose.

You may find you need to adjust your calories, or exercise, or both, to fine tune how you are losing (and where you are losing/changing size).

Good luck, and don't be afraid to play around with the numbers a bit. Eating 1100 calories one day isn't going to hurt you. Eating 800 a day for a month is going to cause issues.

Dnarules

You have gotten some really great advice so far. If your calorie logging is correct, you are definitely not eating enough on most days. Because you don't have much to lose, you should only be trying to lose 0.5 to 1 pound per week. You can plug in your stats on MFP, along with a weight loss goal of no more than 1 pound per week, and it will give you a base calorie goal. But this goal is with no exercise, so you should be eating your exercise calories back.

There are two important things to consider. First, make sure you are measuring your food, preferably with a scale if possible, and accurately logging everything. Second, make sure you are not overestimating exercise burns. Some people eat back only 75-80% of their exercise calories since it is easy to overestimate burns.

But by all means, please eat more. Since you have been eating lower calories for awhile, you may notice a small gain initially, but this should stabilize and start going back down. And you may not notice it at all. But give it time. Try it for a few weeks, and then re-evaluate. If you are still losing weight too quickly, then raise calories a little more, and vice versa. Everyone is different, but when I was actively losing weight and exercising 4-5 days a week, I could lose on 1500 to 1700 calories a day. You just have to find your level, and sometimes it takes a little trial and error.

As far as saggy parts, it may be time to start thinking about strength training. Many women on here have found success with lifting weights.

Good luck! I'm getting ready to start back up as well. I've been kind of off the radar for a while.

oneloopygirl

You are undereating. You need to eat back exercise calories. You should be able to eat around 1300 net calories a day at least based on what you say your BMR is and still lose, maybe more calories than that.. The body fights to hold on to food and the weight if you underfeed it. Definitely up your food intake and see what you do. You may very well gain the first week as your body adjusts, depending on how long your calories have been lower.

As far as the saggy body parts - exercise and time will fix that. If you don't want to do a lot of weights/strength training, try yoga. It will help with muscle tone. You need a good combination of cardio and strength or something like yoga to get tone to improve.

AFitJamie

There is a significant difference between what you may look like - e.g. body composition and the numbers on a scale. I know a number of people on MFP that would say they "weigh" more than they expected, but look better than they anticipated as well because of resistance training.

Remarkably, you have received some generally good advice above (often absent from forums ) do eat a bit more but DO start resistance training. You can start with light weights, or there are a lot of exercises that you can do with body weight depending on where you have to work out. But don't just do "cardio" - you need to now work on building muscle (no, you wont "bulk up" - really).

Best of luck

tracydr

I agree with most everyone. Eat a little more, around 1400 calories with your current activity. Don't want to lose muscle!

Mhgretsch

.Eat more, eat smarter. And for heavens sake stop weighing yourself so often. You're making yourself nuts with that!

I agree with what everyone is saying...you're not eating enough. Also try to add in some weight training, as this will help tone up those saggy parts. As for the weighing in, try once per week...I'm guilty of the daily weighing too, and I'm committed to only weighing myself weekly from now on!

jenilla1

My estimated BMR is: 1,291 calories/day. Please help me understand how I can eat back the calories I burn. So that means say I burn 100 calories, I should eat 1,391 calories on that particular day?

:drinker: