how many calories am i supposed to eat???

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tierra85
tierra85 Posts: 300 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I am a little confused about this whole calorie thing. Everybody seems to have their own opinions. I just want the opinion that'll work the best lol I eat great. Im doing P90X Doubles. On days i workout i eat average 1400-1500. And on my day off i eat 1200. Now i finally broke down and bought a heart rate monitor. Im going to go by the calories burned on my watch. Lets say i burn 600. Which would bring my food intake up to 1800. Will i lose more weight if i eat the 1800?? Or stay in at 1200-1400?? I just want the best results possible.
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  • hyenagirl
    hyenagirl Posts: 206 Member
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    I hear you'll loose more weight quickly if you eat the 1800 on some days and others just eat 1200 or 1400 (vary it to keep your body guessing).
  • dcturcotte
    dcturcotte Posts: 59
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    Everyone's body is different and will react differently, so its difficult to give you a bang on answer. Your more likely to lose if you eat at least some of your calories back, otherwise you could slow your metabolism right down.
  • Mindful_Trent
    Mindful_Trent Posts: 3,954 Member
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    I have a base of 1200 cal/day, and I eat 50-75% of my exercise calories on top of that most days. So in your example I would eat 1500-1650. Some days I will eat more that that if I'm particularly hungry, but I obviously try not to go over my goal (1200 + exercise calories). I've been steadily losing weight this way.

    I do find that the quality of what you eat matters, though, so you'll want to be making sure that you're eating mostly non-processed (or minimally processed) foods - fresh veggies/fruits, lean protein, whole grains like oatmeal, quinoa, etc, nuts/seeds, eggs, dairy, etc. Some people say quality doesn't matter that much, but I lose weight better eating higher quality calories.
  • clipsychic
    clipsychic Posts: 99
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    OMG Tierra! It feels like a deja vu moment for me here! I literally just hit the "send" button on one of my friends on here who's a P90X Coach asking her about my calorie intake too! She'd commented on one of my food diaries stating that she suggests I up my calorie intake.

    I'll let you know what she says!

    Congrats on all the amazing strides you're making too!

    Cheers!
  • clipsychic
    clipsychic Posts: 99
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    I am a little confused about this whole calorie thing. Everybody seems to have their own opinions. I just want the opinion that'll work the best lol I eat great. Im doing P90X Doubles. On days i workout i eat average 1400-1500. And on my day off i eat 1200. Now i finally broke down and bought a heart rate monitor. Im going to go by the calories burned on my watch. Lets say i burn 600. Which would bring my food intake up to 1800. Will i lose more weight if i eat the 1800?? Or stay in at 1200-1400?? I just want the best results possible.

    I just caught this...P90X Doubles? Wow girl!!! You're a beast! Tony's got nothing on you!!! Sweet!!! I may try double on my next round.
  • kiki28riki
    kiki28riki Posts: 17
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    I agree that you should eat the extra calories you burn on the days that you workout more. When you vary your calories each day, it's called calorie shifting. Basically, you figure out what your total WEEKLY calories should be and then shift the calories each day, making sure that you get your total allotment in by the end of the week. It tricks your metabolism so it never slows or tapers off.

    My personal trainer has me on the following program based on my RMR (resting metobolic rate + activity level), which is 2260 per day and the amount of calories I burn each week for just cardio exercise (1500). So, here's what I do:

    Monday: 1700 calories
    Tuesday (1 Hour Strength + 1 Hour Cardio): 2000 calories
    Wednesday: 1500 calories
    Thursday (1 Hour Strength + 1 Hour Cardio): 2000 calories
    Friday: 1500 calories
    Saturday (Yoga + 1 Hour Cardio): 2000 calories
    Sunday: 1500 calories

    These numbers are based specifically on my metabolic rate and exercise, so it's not going to work for everyone, but it gives you a general idea of how I use calorie shifting to lose weight. (When I stop the calorie shifting, I plateau.)

    Good luck!
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,293 Member
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    I am a little confused about this whole calorie thing. Everybody seems to have their own opinions. I just want the opinion that'll work the best lol I eat great. Im doing P90X Doubles. On days i workout i eat average 1400-1500. And on my day off i eat 1200. Now i finally broke down and bought a heart rate monitor. Im going to go by the calories burned on my watch. Lets say i burn 600. Which would bring my food intake up to 1800. Will i lose more weight if i eat the 1800?? Or stay in at 1200-1400?? I just want the best results possible.

    You should eat all your exercise cals, with P90X doubles you need a lot of fuel. Just remember when you take your HRM reading to back out the calories you would have burned at rest anyway as your HRM counts total calories burned, not extra calories burned. So doing doubles you will be working out 1.5-2 hours per day so if you workout for 2 hours (120 min) you should back out 1-1.5 cals per min from your HRM reading to account for the cals you would have burned at rest and are already included in your daily activity amount.

    So if you HRM says you burned 900 cals for both workouts for the day you should back out at least 120 cals and enter that to your exercise database and eat all of those calories. so if you are set at 1200 and burn 900 you should enter 720-780 as exercise cals and eat all 1920-1980.
  • Andre_Demers
    Andre_Demers Posts: 59
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    I personally find it hard to follow does that say "eat the calories you do on your exercise". If you are at 1200 calories you have to do exercise anyway. Maybe not 600 per day but at least 1400 to 1600 per week. If your working out to be able to lose weight then why do you want to eat what you so hard to try to lose? I say stay the course and only increase your calories only if your body needs it. :)
  • gillleeman
    gillleeman Posts: 397 Member
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    erickirb, It didn't even occur to me to adjust the workout calories and eliminate the calories I would normally have used anyway. So if I do 45 minutes cardio, do I take out roughly 1 calorie per min so in my case remove 45 calories off the total?
  • Mindful_Trent
    Mindful_Trent Posts: 3,954 Member
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    erickirb, It didn't even occur to me to adjust the workout calories and eliminate the calories I would normally have used anyway. So if I do 45 minutes cardio, do I take out roughly 1 calorie per min so in my case remove 45 calories off the total?

    I do this too, except I typically burn about 90 cals/hr or 1.5 per minute during my "normal" day.
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,293 Member
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    erickirb, It didn't even occur to me to adjust the workout calories and eliminate the calories I would normally have used anyway. So if I do 45 minutes cardio, do I take out roughly 1 calorie per min so in my case remove 45 calories off the total?

    Yes, depending on your BMR you would take away anywhere from 1 to 1.5 cals/min.
  • gillleeman
    gillleeman Posts: 397 Member
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    erickirb, It didn't even occur to me to adjust the workout calories and eliminate the calories I would normally have used anyway. So if I do 45 minutes cardio, do I take out roughly 1 calorie per min so in my case remove 45 calories off the total?

    I do this too, except I typically burn about 90 cals/hr or 1.5 per minute during my "normal" day.
  • gillleeman
    gillleeman Posts: 397 Member
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    re above quote, how did you work out you burn't 1.5 cals per min, is there somewhere on this site that tells you or is it easy. Very curious to find out my own.
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,293 Member
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    I personally find it hard to follow does that say "eat the calories you do on your exercise". If you are at 1200 calories you have to do exercise anyway. Maybe not 600 per day but at least 1400 to 1600 per week. If your working out to be able to lose weight then why do you want to eat what you so hard to try to lose? I say stay the course and only increase your calories only if your body needs it. :)

    Think about it as a caloric deficit if you are at a 2 lbs/week your caloric deficit is 1000/day, if you exercise for 500 cals your deficit is not 1500 so to keep your goal of 2lbs/week (1000 cal deficit) you must eat the 500 cals burned from working out. Having too large of a deficit over time can be problematic. your body can start to burn lean muscle instead of fat, causing your metabolism to slow down making it harder to lose weight and easier to gain. You will also have a lack of energy and certain bodily functions can shut down in order to keep you alive.
  • gillleeman
    gillleeman Posts: 397 Member
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    erickirb, It didn't even occur to me to adjust the workout calories and eliminate the calories I would normally have used anyway. So if I do 45 minutes cardio, do I take out roughly 1 calorie per min so in my case remove 45 calories off the total?

    Yes, depending on your BMR you would take away anywhere from 1 to 1.5 cals/min.

    Thanks you answered as I was typing :smile:
  • Mindful_Trent
    Mindful_Trent Posts: 3,954 Member
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    re above quote, how did you work out you burn't 1.5 cals per min, is there somewhere on this site that tells you or is it easy. Very curious to find out my own.

    I use a body-bugg type device that gives me my all-day calorie burn, and it has confirmed that MFP's estimate of my normal daily calories is accurate - about 2200. If you don't have something like that, I'd just use your "Calories Burned from Normal Daily Activities" from the goals page, divide that by 24 to get your hourly normal burn rate.
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,293 Member
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    re above quote, how did you work out you burn't 1.5 cals per min, is there somewhere on this site that tells you or is it easy. Very curious to find out my own.

    You can take somewhere between your "BMR and maintenance calories", or your maintenance cals. so lets say your maintenance level is 1800 cals/day that would be 75/hour (1800/24) take that 75/60min/hour this would give you 1.25 cals/min.
  • gillleeman
    gillleeman Posts: 397 Member
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    re above quote, how did you work out you burn't 1.5 cals per min, is there somewhere on this site that tells you or is it easy. Very curious to find out my own.

    I use a body-bugg type device that gives me my all-day calorie burn, and it has confirmed that MFP's estimate of my normal daily calories is accurate - about 2200. If you don't have something like that, I'd just use your "Calories Burned from Normal Daily Activities" from the goals page, divide that by 24 to get your hourly normal burn rate.
    Bingo!!! Worked out its 1.4 cals per minute. Thanks also eric :happy:
  • mamagooskie
    mamagooskie Posts: 2,964 Member
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    I just like to change it up. I almost never eat the same amount of calories from day to day unless I'm on a non exercizing kick and I stick to 1200. On exercize days (which is pretty much 7 days a week) I like to eat at least 1/2 of my earned calories but I really do like to listen to how my body feels that day, sometimes I eat not much at all and other days I could eat all my calories and more.
  • tierra85
    tierra85 Posts: 300 Member
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    Wow i learned a lot today. So i checked and it said 1890 cals burned from daily activity so thats like 78.75.. Should i round it up to one?? I just finished YogaX (90 mins) and it said 285. So in other words i should track my exercise calories burned as 195. That would be taking off a calorie per minute. That does make so much sense.

    Tomorrow is CardioX and Legs, back, Ab ripper X. I'll figure it all out tomorrow. But just to make sure im getting this. Whatever i burn i'll take off one calorie per minute. And eat back all my exercise calories?? Im at a goal of 2lbs a week right now.. I was hoping if i had a little bit of a deficit from exercise calories. Like i ate most of them back but not all i could make 3lbs a week. Or do you guys think thats just super unrealistic. Im not scared of working hard for what i want.. But i am not willing to jeopardize my health.

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