Am i eating enough?

fevdean38

I started eating 5 times a day last week, i've calculated that yesterday i ate 2161 calories but with level of exercise i need 3749 for my daily goal.
I'm 39, 5'9 and weigh around 192lb.
I workout 3 times a week and run around 25 miles per week.

psuLemon

Are you a male? And your goal seems high, so how did you calculate it?


I ran some quick numbers, assuming you are a man, and working out 6 days a week, I would have you lose weight at around 2300 calories and maintain around 2900.

This aligns to me pretty much, I am 32 years old, 5'11, 182 lbs and I lose around 2300-2500 and maintain at 3000

btw, the number of meals you eat is complete irrelevant to weight loss. It's all about total caloric consumption. The number of meals will affect personal satiety and timing of meals may affect performance during exercise but it's very subjective to the person. For example, I cannot exercise fasted. I struggle a lot when i do that.

OllyJ_79

I agree, around 2300 would enable weight loss

If you put the details into here, its quite easy to relate to activity levels.
http://calorieline.com/tools/tdee

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fevdean38

Yes i'm male, i entered my weight, age and height in my food diary which came to 2400 needed, i then added for my morning run, the amount i cycle to work and back, my lunchtime weight session and the time i spend walking at work.
This is probably why my calories burned seems high.

Samstan101

Your estimated cal burn does seem high. As a comparison I'm 41 y-o woman, 5'6" 183lbs and run 25-30miles a week plus 3 30mins cross training sessions (elliptical/ bike/ rowing or swimming) plus 2 30min weights sessions a week. I also go for a brisk walk (1.25miles) every lunch and try to get away from my desk as much as possible during the day. I wear a Fitbit to measure steps and a HRM for any non-walking steady state cardio and my TDEE is averaging 2820 a day. I'm eating an average of 2200 and losing around 1lb a week on average.

fevdean38

Yes it does seem high, i entered exercise done and my age, height and weight and this is what it came up with.
Assuming this is correct am i undereating?

Samstan101

Where did you enter the exercise - MFP? If so MFP in my experience over estimates by at least 20-30% compared to the readings I get from my HRM (and my weight loss is in line with what i'd expect so am reasonably confident that my HRM is relatively accurate). If you take 25% off your exercise cals it comes out at around 3375 cals a day which would seem closer based on the info' you've given 9without knowing length & intensity of workout its a guess though!). In which case if you've eating 23-2400 a day you should lose on average 2lbs a week (bear in mind weight loss isn't linear so it may take a while to start seeing the trend).

fevdean38

Thanks samstan, that explains why the high estimate, i ran this morning but didn't go to the gym today so my exercise levels are slightly down on yesterday.

7deadly

I started eating 5 times a day last week, i've calculated that yesterday i ate 2161 calories but with level of exercise i need 3749 for my daily goal.
I'm 39, 5'9 and weigh around 192lb.
I workout 3 times a week and run around 25 miles per week.

Based on the details above your BMR is 1788 and TDEE is probably closer to 2700.
This is fairly close to my own numbers and we do similar exercise levels (60-90 mins a day for me on a bicycle doing HIIT, hill climbs and weight training).
I target 2000 as the maximum I will eat on any day that isn't written in as a having a cheat/free meal.

You might find this useful: http://scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/