Afraid of gaining....but how much should I be eating, realis

AKosky585

I just got a BodyMedia Fit about 5 days ago. For those 5 days, I have been consistantly burning over 2000 calories per day, and on work days, it is more like 2500.

I am 5'4, 26 years old, and have a small-medium frame. I weigh 133, and my goal is to be 120-125. My activity level is moderate...I work full time in a bakery, on my feet, and exercise 5 days a week for 45-60 minutes of brisk walking and some jogging.

For the longest time, I believed I had to stick to 1300 calories per day to lose weight, but after 2 years of doing this, and losing maybe 3 pounds total, I realize after seeing my daily burn on the BodyMedia that I may have been undereating drastically.

I am so afraid of gaining if I go above 1500 calories, but on days like today, according to this device, I am at a 1000 calorie deficit, which is way too much with so little that I have to lose.

My question is, realistically, based on an average burn on 2200 calories per day, how much SHOULD I be eating to shed these last 10 pounds and NOT gain weight? I am seriously confused since, again, I'd been eating 1300 calories, and sometimes less, for so long.

PBJunkie

This is where dieting becomes tricky in the sense of focusing and fine tuning your calorie intake, best is to slightly increase it with a few calories for a few weeks and keep an eye on that scale. Start off with a 100 calories for 3 weeks and see if you have had any minor gains, if not then simply add another 100 calories after the 3rd week until you have completely stopped losing weight (Meeting maintenance level) Once your rate of weight loss has stopped and your weight stays constant you can subtract 10% of your calorie intake and follow that for a few weeks until you have stalled, then subtract another 10% and so forth. This will be a much healthier deficit and you won't be starving yourself either.

This lifestyle is about trial and error and you will be making a few mistakes and learn from them, this is the beauty of it as you will be appreciating all the hard work and effort once you sculpted that hot body of yours.