Females: How many calories are you eating daily?

funkycamper

OK, I've gone to the www.cordianet.com/calculator.htm as recommended and each calculator gives me a vastly different recommended calories to eat daily and still lose weight. One is 1440 and the other is 2017. So does one split the difference?

Also, no one has addressed the issue of not being able to eat much more than 1200 net a day while eating clean. How does one do that without being stuffed? The healthy food choices I am trying to make just don't add up to a lot of calories. And I do eat at least 1-2 tablespoons of peanut butter a day and nuts, bacon, and other calorie-dense foods. And I'm not afraid of butter or cheese/dairy. And I'll even have a treat like ice cream a couple times a week.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I can't exercise on a full stomach or even partially full. I became nauseous, feel sluggish, and have no oomph. And then the exercise reduces my hunger. I often can't eat for at least 3 hours after exercising beyond a light snack. I might have a protein drink instead of eating and be perfectly satisfied with that. Or a tablespoon of peanut butter.

I'm not trying to argue. Really I'm not. I just don't understand how I can get in my exercise, eat healthy, and eat the amount of calories many of you are recommending while eating clean.

Last point, I'm not hungry. Not starving at all. I do allow myself some splurges but, even so, once I've exercised, my net calories aren't anywhere near the level some of you say I should eat and I just don't understand how to get there without feeling like a stuffed pig.

BTW, to those who ask how I got fat in the first place if I can't eat a lot? Good question. I ate junk, calorie-dense foods with little nutritional value but, even then, I didn't eat a lot. I have been to way too many events in my life where those around me eat 2-3x as much as me and I don't understand how they can eat that much as I was stuffed just watching them. Yup, even when I was 237#. I do think I had an issue with mindless grazing which I now track here at MFP so I probably ate more during the day then I sometimes realized yet I've never been able to eat much at any one time. I've rarely gone back for seconds in my life. And my first plate has rarely been huge. Even when obese and gaining to obese, I could eat my whole meal off a small salad plate and be stuffed. And, no, the food wasn't heaped or overflowing.

Anyway, tear me a new one or give me advice. I just know I'd love to be able to eat such quantities as, yeah, I like the taste of food, too, but I still can't figure out how to do it and still be able to exercise and keep the majority of my foods nutritional.

I eat clean and have no problem hitting 2,000+ on my overall calories each day. I eat beans, whole grains, avocado, nuts, nut butter, dried fruit, bananas, etc. to get them in. I eat frequently, somedays, but on weekends I tend to eat regular meals.

Thanks but I probably wasn't clear in my post but I need to limit beans, whole grains, dried fruit, bananas as they are murder on my blood sugar levels (diabetic). Also really need to limit things like pasta, potatoes, etc. I don't totally avoid them but must eat very small portions. And this means over the course of a day, not just per meal.

Example: I will often have an open-face sandwich at lunch on whole-grain bread but can't do two slices or my blood sugars spike too high. And that is the only starchy thing I can have all day without having continued higher blood sugar levels and other nasty side-effects like aching joints. Weird? Yeah. But too much starchy and carbs that convert easily to sugar in my system makes me feel like I have arthritis in some of my joints even though I don't have it.

The only things you listed that I can eat without having to worry too much about quantity are the nuts. I do enjoy nut butters but have to keep portions small because of the added sugar. Hate avocado.

But thanks for trying!

unsuspectingfish

OK, I've gone to the www.cordianet.com/calculator.htm as recommended and each calculator gives me a vastly different recommended calories to eat daily and still lose weight. One is 1440 and the other is 2017. So does one split the difference?

Also, no one has addressed the issue of not being able to eat much more than 1200 net a day while eating clean. How does one do that without being stuffed? The healthy food choices I am trying to make just don't add up to a lot of calories. And I do eat at least 1-2 tablespoons of peanut butter a day and nuts, bacon, and other calorie-dense foods. And I'm not afraid of butter or cheese/dairy. And I'll even have a treat like ice cream a couple times a week.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I can't exercise on a full stomach or even partially full. I became nauseous, feel sluggish, and have no oomph. And then the exercise reduces my hunger. I often can't eat for at least 3 hours after exercising beyond a light snack. I might have a protein drink instead of eating and be perfectly satisfied with that. Or a tablespoon of peanut butter.

I'm not trying to argue. Really I'm not. I just don't understand how I can get in my exercise, eat healthy, and eat the amount of calories many of you are recommending while eating clean.

Last point, I'm not hungry. Not starving at all. I do allow myself some splurges but, even so, once I've exercised, my net calories aren't anywhere near the level some of you say I should eat and I just don't understand how to get there without feeling like a stuffed pig.

BTW, to those who ask how I got fat in the first place if I can't eat a lot? Good question. I ate junk, calorie-dense foods with little nutritional value but, even then, I didn't eat a lot. I have been to way too many events in my life where those around me eat 2-3x as much as me and I don't understand how they can eat that much as I was stuffed just watching them. Yup, even when I was 237#. I do think I had an issue with mindless grazing which I now track here at MFP so I probably ate more during the day then I sometimes realized yet I've never been able to eat much at any one time. I've rarely gone back for seconds in my life. And my first plate has rarely been huge. Even when obese and gaining to obese, I could eat my whole meal off a small salad plate and be stuffed. And, no, the food wasn't heaped or overflowing.

Anyway, tear me a new one or give me advice. I just know I'd love to be able to eat such quantities as, yeah, I like the taste of food, too, but I still can't figure out how to do it and still be able to exercise and keep the majority of my foods nutritional.

I eat clean and have no problem hitting 2,000+ on my overall calories each day. I eat beans, whole grains, avocado, nuts, nut butter, dried fruit, bananas, etc. to get them in. I eat frequently, somedays, but on weekends I tend to eat regular meals.

Thanks but I probably wasn't clear in my post but I need to limit beans, whole grains, dried fruit, bananas as they are murder on my blood sugar levels (diabetic). Also really need to limit things like pasta, potatoes, etc. I don't totally avoid them but must eat very small portions. And this means over the course of a day, not just per meal.

Example: I will often have an open-face sandwich at lunch on whole-grain bread but can't do two slices or my blood sugars spike too high. And that is the only starchy thing I can have all day without having continued higher blood sugar levels and other nasty side-effects like aching joints. Weird? Yeah. But too much starchy and carbs that convert easily to sugar in my system makes me feel like I have arthritis in some of my joints even though I don't have it.

The only things you listed that I can eat without having to worry too much about quantity are the nuts. I do enjoy nut butters but have to keep portions small because of the added sugar. Hate avocado.

But thanks for trying!

Have you tried any of the peanut butters that have nothing added? I really like those.

CoraGregoryCPA

I am 31, I eat about 1450 in calories and you could say I don't eat my exercise calories back.

SassyCalyGirl

29, 5'6", 172 ish and I generally eat 1700-2000 a day. I could eat less and lose more WEIGHT but some of that would certainly be muscle and I do not want to lose ANY muscle at this point. Going for as close to pure fat loss as I can manage. 20 more lbs and we'll see where I'm at, should be around 21-22% body fat then.

have you had your actual body fat measured? What is excess in lbs would really help to know

Kim55555

Why do you assume those on 1200 are "hungry all the time"? I've been on 1200 and trust me I was not hungry lol

Perhaps you arn't hungry cos your body is now used to being deprived? How long have you been in starvation mode? What were you eating before you were dieting? If a small amount then i'm thinking your body has had to adjust and slow down its metabolism to survive. Eating at such a low amount you will be catabolizing your muscle tissue and therefore f****** up your metabolism! Not good.

Please dont take this as an attack. This is my opinion on the matter. ps was that 1200 gross or net? If 1200 gross then that is not enough food.

Kim55555

I see.. sorry you felt that way. I just don't want people to be pitying us and looking down on us! We're not all hungry lol I'm sure SOME people are, but not everyone. I saved almost all my cals for dinner though (not hungry during the day) so I had a really satisfying evening every time!

Sorry that i'm singling you out here. But to not be hungry all day and then save up all your calories for dinner. If your body was working properly and you were healthy then you would be needing to fuel your body throughout the day. Regular amounts of food for the whole day. Sounds to me like you are shutting your body down. If you are not eating throughout the day did you know that your metabolism goes so low to compensate? You are shutting your body down.

Also the fact that you haven't got an appetite during the day i think means your metabolism is in shutdown mode and your body is in starvation mode!


Hope you can see the light one day. *sigh* Please do some reading on the damage you are doing to your body.

Also do you exercise as well? I'm curious

Kim55555

Well yeah exercise is good and healthy, no one is going to argue against that. It might be too much of a good thing though but everyone knows their body best. In any case, I did say "from a weight loss perspective", not a health perspective. I just don't like the attitude that if you have a lower cal goal, say 1200-1300, that you're deserving of pity and not being good to yourself. In my college days I had plenty of time to burn tons of cals at the gym, but with a full time job, 1.5 hour commute (each way), and cleaning and cooking on top of it, I don't have 2 hours to spare for exercise every day. Not to mention that with a lower weight and higher fitness level (which I've gotten after a couple of months), my cals burned are pathetic. I use my HRM and it's sad how little cals you burn at 138lbs as a woman doing decent exercises lol

Dont forget though the massive impact your exercise will have on your metabolism. If its even moderately vigorous you wont just burn that tiny amount that you are saying is pathetic and not worthwhile to do. You will continue to burn for some hours afterwards once your exercise session has finished. This is called Post exercise oxygen consumption where your body has to work hard to get your bodies functions back to homeostatis. So once you finish your exercise when you sit at your desk at work you will burn greater amount of calories just sitting their typing than you would normally do. Thats one beauty of exercise.

The 2nd beauty is muscle mass. The more muscle mass you have and you will develop some if you exercise and especially weight train. The more muscle you have the higher your metabolism will be thus the more calories you will be burning just sitting watching tv. I'm sitting here typing and i'm burning heaps after my bike ride.

Hope I have provided some education to the people on here about this topic

pandasand

I'm 5'3" 91 pounds, started at 120 and got to my goal of 105 in June. I had trouble maintaining and lost too much. So now I'm trying to net 2000 a day to gain weight.

2sexy2bunhealthy

1,240 a day & i try not too..

Kim55555

Well yeah exercise is good and healthy, no one is going to argue against that. It might be too much of a good thing though but everyone knows their body best. In any case, I did say "from a weight loss perspective", not a health perspective. I just don't like the attitude that if you have a lower cal goal, say 1200-1300, that you're deserving of pity and not being good to yourself.

Well what you dont realise is... Its true, you aren't being good to yourself. You dont exercise and you are eating in starvation mode. You have lost heaps of weight. But how much of that weight is muscle mass? What you want to achieve is fat loss, not fat loss/muscle loss. What is your body fat % now. What is your lbm (lean body mass) If you starve yourself you set yourself up for failure. You will have less muscle than you did when first started your diet, less lean body mass. skinny fat!

Like i said before i'm not having a go at you. Just explaining the science behind fat loss. Yes fat loss not weight loss. And I dont pity you. I hope you can turn it around and be healthy.

Hope I haven't started any fights here. But there were a few posts on here that clearly need to be addressed.

Hope you guys, the ones in starvation mode would do some research.

servilia

Well yeah exercise is good and healthy, no one is going to argue against that. It might be too much of a good thing though but everyone knows their body best. In any case, I did say "from a weight loss perspective", not a health perspective. I just don't like the attitude that if you have a lower cal goal, say 1200-1300, that you're deserving of pity and not being good to yourself.

Well what you dont realise is... Its true, you aren't being good to yourself. You dont exercise and you are eating in starvation mode. You have lost heaps of weight. But how much of that weight is muscle mass? What you want to achieve is fat loss, not fat loss/muscle loss. What is your body fat % now. What is your lbm (lean body mass) If you starve yourself you set yourself up for failure. You will have less muscle than you did when first started your diet, less lean body mass. skinny fat!

Like i said before i'm not having a go at you. Just explaining the science behind fat loss. Yes fat loss not weight loss. And I dont pity you. I hope you can turn it around and be healthy.

Hope I haven't started any fights here. But there were a few posts on here that clearly need to be addressed.

Hope you guys, the ones in starvation mode would do some research.

I am not in starvation and I'm very healthy. Where do you get off making these judgments of me? For your info you can keep most muscle mass with a decent protein intake and strength training. Go do some research on that. And I hope that in your first para you weren't addressing me by saying "you". I work out plenty but you wouldn't know that - so don't go around making assumptions.

servilia

I see.. sorry you felt that way. I just don't want people to be pitying us and looking down on us! We're not all hungry lol I'm sure SOME people are, but not everyone. I saved almost all my cals for dinner though (not hungry during the day) so I had a really satisfying evening every time!

Sorry that i'm singling you out here. But to not be hungry all day and then save up all your calories for dinner. If your body was working properly and you were healthy then you would be needing to fuel your body throughout the day. Regular amounts of food for the whole day. Sounds to me like you are shutting your body down. If you are not eating throughout the day did you know that your metabolism goes so low to compensate? You are shutting your body down.

Also the fact that you haven't got an appetite during the day i think means your metabolism is in shutdown mode and your body is in starvation mode!


Hope you can see the light one day. *sigh* Please do some reading on the damage you are doing to your body.

Also do you exercise as well? I'm curious

I'm sorry but this post is full of myths and broscience. Your metabolism does not go down because you don't eat for a few hours. Please go do some research so you don't continue to misinform people. My metabolism is not in "shut down" mode *sigh*

gp79

I don't eat breakfast. Call it saving calories if you want but I've been dropping body fat slowly. Sometimes, I eat one giant meal at the end of the day. You don't have to eat every few hours to keep your metabolism going. I ate 6 times per day for over a year straight and it just left me pissed off and wanting more after eating 400 calories. Now I'm perfectly happy eating 1 / 2 times per day in larger portions. What matters is calories in / out and hitting your macros.

Just_Bethy

I try to stay between 1300 and 1400 regardless of how much I work out...or don't..lol

servilia

I think this explains it best (stole it from a friend)

darjeelingexpress

I eat back my exercise calories and net at around 1250-1350 most days; actually eat around 1600-1800. Most of the time that's comfortable and I feel satisfied. When I'm not, I eat more and sometimes exercise to balance it, sometimes not.

ashley_loves

im 24 and cause of bing eating when up from 135 to 178 ish
when i eat 1600 and burn 200 caloires i seem to drop like 1-2 lbs in like 2 day crazy

tameko2

I don't eat breakfast. Call it saving calories if you want but I've been dropping body fat slowly. Sometimes, I eat one giant meal at the end of the day. You don't have to eat every few hours to keep your metabolism going. I ate 6 times per day for over a year straight and it just left me pissed off and wanting more after eating 400 calories. Now I'm perfectly happy eating 1 / 2 times per day in larger portions. What matters is calories in / out and hitting your macros.

yeah this is me. Sometimes I do have breakfast (if I'm hungry) but mostly I don't - i eat 2 meals a day, sometimes 2 meals and a snack. The eating every few hours thing is a long perpetuated and totally unsubstantiated (by science) rumor and all it does is make those of us who are totally MISERABLE eating 5-6 tiny meals a day think they are doing something wrong.

Some of you like eating 5 times a day and feel better when you do it. That's cool. But its not some kind of special magic weight loss recipe. Stop spreading that crap around. I need at least one large meal in my day and then the rest can be snacks but if I try and split it all out into little meals I want to kill myself and whoever made me do it by lunch time. There's nothing "good" about feeling dissatisfied and grumpy all day long because you didn't get to eat a freaking sandwich when you wanted one.

Kim55555

That is easily true for people that have a larger amount of weight to lose, but the closer you get to your goal weight the lower your BMR is, and thus the lower your net has to be in order to lose weight. I'm currently 140, my BMR is something like 1343 and my maintenance (with no extra exercise) is 1710.

We all have to remember that everybody on this site is at a different weight and activity level, so a higher calorie goal might be perfect for weightless for some and yet way too much for others, and a lower calorie goal might seem like starvation to some but is actually necessary for others. It's all about perspective for each person's individual situation.

Yes I agree everyone is different and their are different situations. I just need to correct you one 1 thing.

It is not true in all people that the closer you get to your goal weight the lower your BMR is and therefore the lower your food intake must be to keep losing weight. For people that exercise it is different. You can actually alter your BMR and increase it, by increasing your muscle mass through exercising and just through the actual exercise itself. So that when at rest you are able to burn more calories just to function normally than you would if you wern't an exerciser.

Here is my story. I'm an exerciser. When I started losing weight 18 months ago when I weighed 30 kgs heavier. I actually ate less than I do now. I found that when I had lost around 15 kg and started to exercise more intensly I altered my metabolism. I therefore started to up my calories more and more and kept on losing weight. About 4 or 5 months ago I felt I needed a rest from losing so I ate maintenance calories between 1800 and 2600 gross per day. I still lost heaps of centimetres but little scale weight. Then I decided to lose more cos I plateud out. So now I'm eating between 1800 - 2000 most days and I have found my sweet spot and am losing again. I'm 5 foot 2 and weight 62 kgs but dont look 62 because i have muscle and i'm toned.

So in fact for exercisers its actually the opposite. We especially the vigorous exercisers and even some moderate exercisers need to eat more to fuel our bodies and take need to lose at a lower rate somewhere around 200-300 calorie defecit. This is a nice balance. It helps fuel our exercise maintain our muscle mass, keep healthy (no starvation modes for us) and still be able to lose at a healthy sensible weight. Even when I get down to 60 kg which is my goal weight my next goal will be to lose measurements and body fat %. I wont be focussing on the scale weight as the scale does not taken into account LBM (lean body mass) Doesn't show the full picture.

Kim55555

I'm sorry but this post is full of myths and broscience. Your metabolism does not go down because you don't eat for a few hours. Please go do some research so you don't continue to misinform people. My metabolism is not in "shut down" mode *sigh*

I said your metabolism is down because you have lost muscle mass being in starvation mode and not doing any exercise for so long. That is what happens! Its a scientific fact! And also because your eating the one meal at night it is not normal for a healthy body to not be hungry throughout the day time hours. Your body is shutting itself down. Meaning low metabolism. When you go so long between meals your metabolism lowers itself. Thats why breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Your metabolism is at its lowest point when you wake up in the morning. Breakfast helps to spike up your metabolism. Because you dont/didnt eat breakfast or lunch on that one day means your metabolism is very low right through the whole day until you eat your dinner at night time. So what this means is the whole day you are burning very little calories. Metabolism thinks it is starving so is slowing everything down to prevent famine. Your metabolism will spike up when you eat dinner and stay up for the nightime for a few hours until you wake up the next morning. Its far better to eat throughout the day. You'll burn more calories this way!