Upping calories

CalFun5

I am having a real hard time loosing, I checked around the posts on MFP, and came across this. Run, don't walk, to "tools" and use the BMR calculator. Please, please, please, eat at least your BMR calories every day. You might lose weight more slowly, but you will still lose, and you will not longer feel a sudden urge to fall over every time you do, well, anything. I am going to try eating my BMR calories. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

editorgrrl

Use the MFP defaults, and work on logging everything you eat & drink accurately & honestly. Weigh your food.

Read this: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants

Open your diary if you want specific feedback.

pennyllayne

One the one hand, BMR calculators can only be used as a guide because there are so many factors that determine BMR such as BF%, muscle muss etc. If you want to get a better indication of your BMR, there are places that do breath tests which could be more accurate. There are also body composition scales which use muscle mass and BF% included in their estimations. Standard online calculators can help in the absence of anything else though. It also depends on how much weight you need to lose. For nutritional purposes it isn't advised to go below 1,200 cals a day but there is no reason why you absolutely need to eat at least your BMR cals if you are sedentary or do very little exercise.

Also running isn't for everyone. You need to start out slow and build it up to avoid doing any damage and it can put a lot of strain on your knees. Walking is fine, but to burn off a lot of calories you have to be doing a lot of it whilst running burns off a lot more because you're working your whole body. There are also other ways of doing cardio that are good such as high impact aerobics, cycling, weighted workouts. Running and walking are not your only options.

What are you currently doing? Do you have problems with sticking to a certain amount of calories every day and being accurate with your counting? It is usually better to start with higher calories and then slowly lower them as you lose weight if you reach a plateau. If you eat at the same amount of cals every day for months things will start to slow down and then you can decrease cals by a bit more. Much easier to do if you start high. If you start at 1,200 and reach a plateau you're going to run into problems and have difficulty sustaining such a low calorie intake. You might also want to look at taking full diet breaks after a couple of months and having lost some weight. Lowering calories can affect a number of different hormones and a break helps to get things going again when you start dieting again.