I need weigh loss advice!!! :)

dc139512
dc139512 Posts: 7
in Health and Weight Loss
Hello everyone, (sorry I meant to put WEIGHT not Weigh!)

I really enjoy reading your posts and seeing everyone accomplish their goals. Also, I love that everyone tries to help one another out with advice. So basically, I am 23 years old, 5'7', & I weigh a whopping 220 pounds. Well, that is what my scale said about 2 weeks ago, now it is fluctuating between 212 and 210.

My point is that I need some advice. I just recently started exercising and eating healthy because I was tired of feeling fat and always indulging heavily on food. So now I count my calories and walk, clean, and exercise every day except for Sunday. I love my life now!! :) MFP tells me that my daily goal should be 20 minutes of exercising, but for instance today, my dog and I powered walked for 60 minutes.

I usually don't eat until 2 pm or so because I am not that hungry but when I do, I consume between 500-700 calories between fruits, veggies, meats, proteins, grains, and crystal light. Then I eat around 9 p.m.(another 500-700 calories) and might stay up until 1 and have a 300 calorie snack. At first, when I started almost 4 weeks ago, 2000 calories didn't seem enough and I wanted more, now my calorie intake of 1,200 seems enough, but MFP doesn't recommend having a calorie intake that low, that is why I eat that late night snack.

My question is…. At 212 pounds with an intake of 1500 calories a day and exercising at least 60 minutes a day, 400+ a week, will I lose up to the two pounds a week like I want to??? I mean, I already feel like I have been losing weight and I feel healthier, but I just want to know if I am putting myself into starvation mode because MFP is saying I should eat about 2200 calories a day!! I would rather avoid that many calories and stick to the 1,500 calories if at all possible and still be able to lose the 2lbs!!

Any advice or comments are welcome!! Please help!!

:)

Replies

  • 4legsRbetterthan2
    4legsRbetterthan2 Posts: 19,590 MFP Moderator
    Starvation mode is mostly a myth so do not worry about it.

    I think there is something wrong with your calorie calculations. You are about my size and I use about 2200 calories a day without exercise. It also appears you are tracking your exercise burns on MFP. With that system there is not deficit built into your numbers. You might want to double check your settings to make sure you have a lbs/week loss selected with MFP.

    You might also check your exercise calories logged. I saw for yesterday 900 calories, what did that include? That would be overestimated quite a bit if that is 60 minutes of power walking (or you could just be really freaking speedy!). MFP overestimates calories burned for most exercises. If you are a smart phone user there is a free app called runkeeper I use for running (you can also use it for walking) that calculates out my calories pretty accurately (I have compared with my HRM). It can also be synced with MFP and will automatically load your workouts for you and give you a more accurate measurement.

    More exercise never hurts so you are by no means limited to the 20 mins MFP recommends.

    On a side note, I also noticed your protein is pretty low, make sure you try to get that in - you want to lose fat not muscle :)

    If you are intereted in a friend about your size to help you out feel free to friend me and hopefully I can help. Something just does not seem to be adding up correctly to me.

    ~Best wishes

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