How many calories should I be eating?

therequiiem

I have eaten 1200 or so calories for the past month, and have decided to up them due to a three week stall in my weight loss. MFP has me at 1200 calories for losing 1.5 lbs a week, and around 1500 for .5 lbs a week. I feel like I should eat around 1400-1600 since 1200 hasn't been working. But on days I work out, how many should I eat? I always burn about 260-320 calories on work out days. But I need to do something to break this plateau. Should I also change my macros? I am just sick of seeing this same number...

whipdancer

Increase your calories to 1500 and see what happens. You might gain weight, but it is doubtful. Remember, the recommendations are what I refer to as "80/20 rules". They will apply quite often, but not all the time. They may not be right for you in this case.

therequiiem

Increase your calories to 1500 and see what happens. You might gain weight, but it is doubtful. Remember, the recommendations are what I refer to as "80/20 rules". They will apply quite often, but not all the time. They may not be right for you in this case.

Increase them for days I work out and days I don't?

superjae5

If you do any kind of exercising you MUST eat your exercise calories back, otherwise your body will be in starvation mode. So say you burn 200 calories exercising one day. That means you need to eat 1400 calories. I'm at 1310 for about a pound a week. Sometimes I lose more, sometimes I lose less, it always kind of fluctuates. But on my heavy exercise days (I usually burn 600+ calories) I make sure to eat more. I like keeping Nature Valley granola bars handy in my car (they're lower calorie than many but still tasty).

You could kick it up to 1500 and do the six mini-meals thing. They say it speeds up your metabolism. I plan to do it when I've hit my goal and just want to maintain. Essentially it's breakfast, snack 1, lunch, snack 2, dinner, snack 3--all smaller portions, and varying in fruits, veggies, proteins, etc.

Make sure you're never eating less than 1200, though, and on exercise days especially, come as close to the goal as possible (MFP usually resets it when you add exercise, so if you did 200 calories, it will say your goal is 1400).