Calorie Level

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amys07115
amys07115 Posts: 10
in Food and Nutrition
Okay, I would like to hear the different opinions on this: I was told by a nutritionist that my 1200 calorie diet was not working because I am in too much of a deficit after I consider my calories burned from exercise. For the past week, I have increased my calories to about 1600 a day. I burn 600 every day in exercise, so my net calories are 1000. Is this still not enough to get my body out of "starvation mode" and to stop storing fat. I haven't lost any weight with increasing my calories, so I am getting tempted to revert by to 1200 calories a day regardless of my workout. FYI- my bmr is 1343

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  • dlwyatt82
    dlwyatt82 Posts: 1,077 Member
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    Depends on information you haven't given us yet. What you should be eating is about 500 calories less (give or take) than your total calorie burn in a day. You might even want to go right up to maintenance level long enough to get your metabolism back to normal before starting to try a deficit again, but that's up to you.

    To figure out your TDEE (total calories burned in a day), you start with your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate; the calories your body would burn if you were in a coma, just to survive). Add to that your exercise and some estimated calories that you burn just moving around in an average day.

    So, to figure out those numbers, here are a few more questions:

    What are your height and current weight? (These, in combination with your age and gender, affect your BMR).
    How active are you, not counting your planned exercise, in an average day? Do you have a desk job, or something where you're on your feet a lot, etc?
  • oliviadorris
    oliviadorris Posts: 1
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    Hi Amy,
    Have you done the BMR and metabolism test, where you breath into this machine for about 10 minutes? My nutritionist had me do that so they could give me exact numbers of how many calories to eat on an exercise day and how many to eat on my rest day, along with your body fat percentage. I have been told that this takes the guessing out of the picture. I am 38 year old female, with 33% body fat, I eat 1305 calories on non exercise days, and 1576 on exercise days. I have seen a difference.
  • amys07115
    amys07115 Posts: 10
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    Yes, I did the test and that is where I got the number from. I was just trying to figure out if 1340 is my BMR and I burn about 650 calories a day in exercise, if only eating a total 1200 or 1300 calories would be okay
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
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    Yes, I did the test and that is where I got the number from. I was just trying to figure out if 1340 is my BMR and I burn about 650 calories a day in exercise, if only eating a total 1200 or 1300 calories would be okay

    A sedentary lifestyle would use 20% more than your BMR just bumming around and sitting at work, that's 1600 calories. Add to this your 650 of exercise and your use of calories is 2250 per day.

    If you eat 1300 that's a deficit of 950 per day, at 1600 the deficit is 650 so you should lose at the current 1600 level.
  • dlwyatt82
    dlwyatt82 Posts: 1,077 Member
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    1600 sounds like a reasonable target, then. Give it a try for a month or so and see what happens (which is about all you can do, once you have some estimates to work with). You might even need to go up to 1800 ish at some point; you'd still be doing a ~450 deficit, which is enough to lose almost a pound a week on average, but without slowing down your metabolism too much.

    I can't point to any science behind this, but I like to pick a day once in a while and eat all my calories (0 deficit), and it seems to help break me out of little pleateaus where I haven't lost weight for a week or two. I'm not sure how much the "spike day" it helps the process, but it doesn't seem to hurt, and I enjoy it. :laugh:

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