calorie/exercise help

SlimBananas · April 2012

okay so ive been reading alot on here about eating at your bmr and all kinds of other stuff to lose weight and i was wondering if someone could break this down to me. Because its taking me 6 months to lose 5lbs and i dont really know what im doing wrong. I eat at about 1350 calories a day and i pretty much almost always eat back my exercise calories, im 5'3 and 162.4lbs right now. SO if anyone could provide any info on what i might be doing wrong, or any helpful tips and info on the bmr thing it would be greatly appreciated since im new to this weight loss thing. thanks in advance

lizard053 · April 2012

Go to the tools tab and click the BMR calculator. It will give you your minimum calories right there!

Now, as you add exercise and activity, you increase the number of calories you burn in a day. You should eat these too! (If you can.)

I tend to over-estimate the calories eaten and under-estimate my calorie burns so that I don't run into the trouble of eating too much. (Works out to about 2/3-3/4 of my exercise calories!)

SlimBananas · April 2012

so is the bmr what i should be eating to lose weight or what? i still dont understand that part though. i do like the idea of over and under estimating calories and exercise.

lizard053 · April 2012

Your BMR, or basal metabolic rate, is how many calories you burn each day just maintaining your body. This goes into things like brain function, breathing, digestion, all those things your body automatically does. You need to have at least this many calories if you're not being supervised by a doctor.

As soon as you get up from your bed, you're going to need more calories. Generally, sedentary (most) people will use 1.2x BMR daily. Subtract 500 from that, and that's how much you should be eating each day. As you exercise, you increase how much you need to eat, so most of what you burn through exercise should be eaten back (great reason to exercise, right?). This should keep you losing 1 pound a week fairly steadily. As you lose weight you will need to recalculate occasionally because when you weigh less your BMR decreases. But as you get closer to goal, you want to lose less rapidly. Generally it all works out this way.

1350 actually sounds like a good number of calories for you to net. Be brutally honest with yourself in your journal, find any hidden calories you may be consuming. You also might be one of those people that lose slowly!

w84skm2c · April 2012

It says I should consume 1200 calories per day. I sometimes go over, but mostly I stay under it. If I get hungry, I eat. If I am not hungry, I won't stuff myself silly to get back up to 1200 calories.

Have you been keeping track of your measurements? As far as your neck, waist, hips measurements?? Because you could also be gaining muscle weight-and those weigh more with less mass. This is assuming you are working out/lifting weights.

Also, your body is able to burn off natural fats faster than unnatural fats. Studies show that animals that are fed real sugar gain weight at a much lower rate than the animals fed substitute sugars. Margarine is also harder for the body to break down vs butter. Little things like that.

Another thing I have noticed is that the more water I consumed, the better I feel, and that's usually when I tend to eat less.

cmriverside · April 2012

Your BMR, or basal metabolic rate, is how many calories you burn each day just maintaining your body. This goes into things like brain function, breathing, digestion, all those things your body automatically does. You need to have at least this many calories if you're not being supervised by a doctor.

As soon as you get up from your bed, you're going to need more calories. Generally, sedentary (most) people will use 1.2x BMR daily. Subtract 500 from that, and that's how much you should be eating each day. As you exercise, you increase how much you need to eat, so most of what you burn through exercise should be eaten back (great reason to exercise, right?). This should keep you losing 1 pound a week fairly steadily. As you lose weight you will need to recalculate occasionally because when you weigh less your BMR decreases. But as you get closer to goal, you want to lose less rapidly. Generally it all works out this way.

1350 actually sounds like a good number of calories for you to net. Be brutally honest with yourself in your journal, find any hidden calories you may be consuming. You also might be one of those people that lose slowly!

livelongmama · April 2012

Just a thought...do you measure your portion sizes? If not, you may be overestimating the size of a portion and eating more calories than you realize. I am not a huge fan of measuring, so I know it is a drag, but it helped me to measure things for a week or two until I got used to what a cup looks like, etc. That way you know you are calculating your caloriie intake correctly (you may already be doing that).

It seems to me that MFP overestimates the number of calories burned as well, so I try to check other sources to make sure the values are correct (or close) for a certain activity. If not, I use an average of the calories burned values I find.

I agree with one of the posts that you may want to look at how your clothes are fitting and measurements because you may be getting leaner, but not dropping weight.

If none of these situations apply to you, it might be worth having your thyroid checked as people who are hypothyroid have trouble losing weight. That being said, they are also usually very tired and have a variety of other symptoms, so this may not apply at all.

Good luck!

mimstero · April 2012

I was going through the same thing before I bought a heart rate monitor. The equipment at the gym greatly overetimates the amount of calories burned, the elliptical was off by almost a half, and MFP was also over what my HRM was saying. After adjusting the calories burned, I am starting to lose again.

SlimBananas · April 2012

Thanks for all the replies everyone. I do measure most of my portions like cereal pasta and rice etc, my pants are a little looser so I guess I must be doing something right lol I am looking into buying a hrm because I.could be over estimating my calories burned and maybe that could have something to do with it.

DecksNanna · April 2012

I have a question about what kind of exercise to log. I'm a teacher and I have pretty much NO time to workout except on the weekends. I looked up how many calories are burned while standing and actively teaching and it looks like it's about 150 - 170 per hour, depending on the person's weight. If I'm teaching for a ten hour day....which is typical.....that's a LOT of calories burned! If I log all of those calories, that adds about 1500 calories to my daily total! That can't be right. So if I cut that down and estimate that I'm "actively standing and teaching" for 5 hours, that's still at least 700 calories added to my daily total. Does that sound right to y'all? Or does it not count as exercise if I'm not sweating?

livelongmama · April 2012

I am a teacher as well, but instead of counting the calories burned running after my preschoolers and crawling around on the ground, I included that as part of my activity level in my profile. You can select your activity level, which is taken into consideration when calculating your calorie goals. If you say in your profile that you are active and then count those calories burned teaching again as exercise, you may be counting them twice.

kenstyles81 · April 2012

Unless I missed something I havent seen anything on where your calories are coming from except cereal, rice. A calorie is not a calorie if the calorie is coming from a starchy source (for losing weight anyway).

w84skm2c · April 2012

I just spoke to the hubby (who's ridiculous in shape ALL the time, but in the lean muscular way, not the bulky muscular way).

He said you should always have a caloric deficit. Eating less and working out more has always been the only proven method to lose weight and keep the weight off.

He also said that you shouldn't starve yourself, but don't give in to the cravings either. You know if you are starving if you start getting light headed/dizzy randomly. And if you are doing that, then eat more.

Another way is to see what type of calories it is you are eating... If you are eating more protein than carbs, you will lose faster, if you are eating more carbs than protein, you will lose slower.

And to drink plenty of water! Hope that helps.

calorie/exercise help

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