Getting confused about calorie numbers

katanita

Hi all, am after some advice about what my daily calorie goals should be, as I've kind of confused myself on this.

I've been using my fitness pal for a few weeks now, the aim being to cut down on body fat (30% ish, say the scales, which feels roughly right) and build muscle as I started a new strength/resistance regime post injury (dodgy hyper-extending elbows/poor upper body and core strength not helping). I'm not aiming to be super skinny, just want to be more athletic and stronger. I also wanted to educate myself about what I was eating (e.g. how much protein I was getting as a non-meat eater, not nearly enough as it turned out).

When I first put in my details, I was thinking about the amount of exercise I do so chose "Active" and losing .5 kg a week. This gave me a calorie count of 1750ish. I upped the protein amount so it was about 110g per day and balanced out the rest. I've lost about 2-3 pounds, and am feeling good, but was actually struggling to eat enough calories most days. I've kind of plateaued for the last week or so though, which may be down to a bit of a blow out one day, but it made me think about double checking the calorie amounts. I realised then that I wasn't really "active" outside of exercise, mainly working at a computer, and so I was therefore counting those exercise calories burned twice, if you see what I mean (ie it was factoring them in to the daily count, and then again when I added cardio done). I thought it would be better to chose sedentary and then work out how much to eat back from calories actually burned from exercise each day. I'm not sure if that's right though?

It's now given me a calorie daily count of 1250, which is a LOT less fun :P. Is that actually more correct though? What I really want to avoid is losing muscle, but then, I do want to lose that fat. I also hate being hungry and love to eat!

My stats: female age 33, weight 71.7kg, height 168cm.
Exercise: commuter cycling average 4.5hrs a week, starting longer weekend rides, resistance/free weights exercise 3 times a week at gym, pilates 2 times a week, karate 1-2 times a week.

Any advice very welcome. Have already learned a lot reading helpful forum posts, so thanks for that!

sijomial

Hi all, am after some advice about what my daily calorie goals should be, as I've kind of confused myself on this.
I realised then that I wasn't really "active" outside of exercise, mainly working at a computer, and so I was therefore counting those exercise calories burned twice, if you see what I mean (ie it was factoring them in to the daily count, and then again when I added cardio done). I thought it would be better to chose sedentary and then work out how much to eat back from calories actually burned from exercise each day. I'm not sure if that's right though?

Yes that's how MFP works. Activity setting is your lifestyle/job and doesn't include exercise. (That's not the way TDEE calculators work, exercise would be included).

It's now given me a calorie daily count of 1250,

Plus exercise calories remember!

First decide if you want to follow the TDEE method or the MFP "eat back exercise calories" method.
Then pick a reasonable calorie deficit for the amount of weight you want to lose. Be aware that fast weight loss means a very big deficit which is harder to stick to and may well not be appropriate.

BTW - if you have been doing this for a few weeks and have lost 3lbs that sounds pretty good to me.

katanita

Thanks! When I used a TDEE calculator thing it said about the same, if I set it to sedentary. I guess the question is, what is a reasonable deficit then? 1250 calories a day (even plus exercise calories) sounds a bit low to me? But maybe that's just wishful thinking. Wondering a bit if the first couple of pounds were just water or something.

sijomial

From your stats it doesn't sound like to need to lose much so certainly wouldn't aim for faster weight loss than 1lb a week (even that is 500 cals a day deficit). A small deficit is one of the things that is helpful for muscle retention while losing weight by the way. All the calculators do is give you a start point - be ready to adjust after a few weeks based on results.

There's a big element of personal preference in this game - do you need to see fast progress or can you look ahead to maintenance and think long term? For me I was determined to make my weight loss phase very similar to how I intend to maintain for many years to come. I also love my food so big deficits have lead in the past to getting fed up and giving up. Downside it took longer to get to goal weight but on the positive side the switch to maintenance was easy.

One thing I would recommend is taking measurements and progress photos - there may well be times your weight loss plateaus and it's helpful to have other ways to track success.

katanita

Thanks, that's useful. Haven't been measuring so will start, though I did take a before pic. I'd sacrifice fast progress for something more sustainable, so that sounds like a good approach. Being stronger is ultimately more important, the rest is mostly vanity! I guess I'm still a bit confused as to whether 1250 plus calories burned is the right approach for this outcome though? But maybe I can just try it and see how it goes.