1230 Calories Way To Low. Help?

Liedx

Hello.

I am learning my way around MFP so please bare with me. I am 5'6" and 130-135(I need a new scale). My goal is to get down to about 120 and then loose flabby-bits. Anyway, MFP has set me to 1230 calories which, personally, seems like a starvation-mode amount.

What would be a good amount to actually start out as? I will be walking 30 minutes a day probably 3-5 days a week starting out.

444lisa444

My daily calories is 1200, I have to say the first days were super tough. I found my stomach growling. A lot. By day 3 I started to adjust. Although I'm still hungry at day 5, I am not experiencing the stomach rumbles of days 1 & 2. If you add your exercise to the exercise tracker, MFP will increase your calorie intake accordingly.

One thing that I think has really helped me is to plan my meals out at the beginning of the day so i'm not frontloading way too many calories and by 4pm I'm done for the day and starving (day 1 )

Good luck & I wish you success!

mymodernbabylon

It'd be worth you checking out this post: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/680246-tdee-bmr-what-they-are-and-what-to-do-with-them.

You'll definitely not want to eat any less than 10% or 15% below your TDEE as you don't have hardly any weight to lose.
I used the Scooby website: http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

If you want to lose with MFP - go to your settings, make sure you mark it to lose 1/2 lb a week (as with only 10 lb to lose you're setting yourself up for failure trying to go faster) and on lightly active. And then eat back 1/2 your exercise calories!

Liedx

Thank you both for your responses!

Mymodernbabyl - The link that you gave me does not work; could you possibly post it again?

And I will definitely go ahead and change my settings; I did not even know I could do that!

Fuzzipeg

I am wondering if you have set your activity level to your appropriate level? Just a thought, it is all comparative, what is slightly active to one may be sedentary to another,

becchs

If you're not comfy at 1230, then eat more! I do around 1260, and I don't find it too difficult, but everyone is different, and it's a pretty scary number. The main problem for me at 1260 isn't so much that I feel as if I'm eating very little; it's that it can be very difficult to get all your nutrients in if you're not extremely careful. So eat whatever you need to be healthy and get in all your vitamins and minerals.

As long as you're eating fewer calories than you're using (BMR+ activity) then you'll see weight loss. Figure out how many calories you burn on your walks and take that into account. When I started out, I found that 1400-1600 was a good number for me. Back then, to maintain my weight, I would have had to be eating 2300 calories a day, so it still meant that I was losing around 1.2 lbs a week, which is a pretty good rate, if you ask me. Don't rush it, and take care of yourself!

PRMinx

How did you pick 120 as your target weight?

Mykaelous

When I was at 200 lb's I would routinely eat between 1200-1300 calories and run for 1-2 hours 5 days a week. I was pretty successful until some personal family issues arose. Also starvation mode is somewhat of a myth. Your body's metabolism simply slows down a bit, you can still push through it mentally especially if you keep up your workouts. Considering that you only weigh 130 lb's and your goal is 120. It seems like eating around 1200 calories makes sense since your maintenance calories are around 1400 to begin with.

ariesflame

At your weight and height, I'm not sure you have much actual "poundage" to lose. If its the flabby bits you want to make go away, I would actually suggest doing strength training and toning up. That may even require you to eat a bit more as muscle takes a different kind of effort to build.

vetteldy98

I am doing about 1100 a day..And keeping track of all things that go in my mouth. I use the tracker for exercise and counting calories, etc. Try to stay away from too many carbs and sugar, those will make you hungrier, than you really are..drink lots of water, and after a couple of weeks, you will just get used to it, it is those first few days, when your body thinks you are starving yourself..keep the faith. Its never easy but worth it.

PRMinx

When I was at 200 lb's I would routinely eat between 1200-1300 calories and run for 1-2 hours 5 days a week. I was pretty successful until some personal family issues arose. Also starvation mode is somewhat of a myth. Your body's metabolism simply slows down a bit, you can still push through it mentally especially if you keep up your workouts. Considering that you only weigh 130 lb's and your goal is 120. It seems like eating around 1200 calories makes sense since your maintenance calories are around 1400 to begin with.

How could you possibly know what her maintenance calories are?

lemurcat12

You are already around a 20 BMI, so you might want to consider whether what would really give you the body you want is a recomposition (losing body fat, increasing muscle) rather than losing more weight. That often makes people look smaller and lose inches, despite not weighing less.

But in any case, MFP is probably giving you such a low calorie goal because you told it you were trying to lose 2 lb/week. At your weight, that rate of loss isn't going to be realistic and you won't want such an extreme deficit--it's important to have a more moderate deficit, because it's harder to make sure the loss is mostly fat and not muscle (which would be counterproductive).

http://iifym.com/tdee-calculator/

The link above is to a TDEE calculator--with your stats your TDEE probably around 1900-2000, which means you'd want to eat more like 1650-1750 (a deficit of 250) and aim at a loss of about 0.5 lbs/week.

PRMinx

I am doing about 1100 a day..And keeping track of all things that go in my mouth. I use the tracker for exercise and counting calories, etc. Try to stay away from too many carbs and sugar, those will make you hungrier, than you really are..drink lots of water, and after a couple of weeks, you will just get used to it, it is those first few days, when your body thinks you are starving yourself..keep the faith. Its never easy but worth it.

1100 calories is not recommended and should not be promoted.

PRMinx

At your weight and height, I'm not sure you have much actual "poundage" to lose. If its the flabby bits you want to make go away, I would actually suggest doing strength training and toning up. That may even require you to eat a bit more as muscle takes a different kind of effort to build.

^This

lemurcat12

your maintenance calories are around 1400 to begin with.

Not based on the stats she gave, and her age.

teddybear160

I've been told that in order to figure out how many calories you should be eating in a day, you need to take your goal weight (in your case, 120 lbs) and multiply it by 10 (so that is 1200). Sounds like you're right on track to me!

If you're hungry, try filling up on zero to low-calorie vegetables. Celery is a great one as it takes more calories to burn than it actually contains. But, of course, we can all only eat so much celery!

GOOD LUCK!

(Also, if you are 5'6", then 130 is exactly what you should weigh)

Liedx

You guys have given me some great responses. Thank you so much.

120 is my goal weight because it is what I weighed up until I moved to the U.S and became very sedentary. I gained 20lbs in a 3 years from suddenly not being able to walk where I wanted to go (no walking trails etc) and suddenly having access to convenience foods.

The part I suppose I was worried about was getting all my nutrients on a 1200 calorie diet. I changed up my settings and am at something like 1500 now which seems to be a MUCH easier number to maintain.

Oh and to add; I never really gave much thought to 'lose fat, gain muscle, maintain present weight.' I am definitely going to look into this. Great advice!