going CRAZY on how many cals I should eat????

Strawberry_1

1200 a day is ridiculous. Eat 1680. When you burn 1000, eat 1000 more.

You only gain weight if you eat 3500 OVER your 1680 net.

There's poor advice here and only 5 in. Eat, eat, eat. 1200 is minimum survival for most people.

^^^
This!

tbresina

Are you wearing a HRM? Because 1000 cals for zumba unless it was for a long period of time and extremely strenious sounds to be a lot.

neverstray

How tall are you and how much do you weigh?
Age?
Body Fat%?

I'll tell you how much to eat daily.

5'8
301
29
and um, all body fat, lol. JK

5'8" is 1800-2k daily.
Dont eat back these calories but also try not burning so many in a day.
1k is more than your body is actually able to lose the fat and is overkill.
Shoot for 600 at the most.
I have women in your range losing a good amount of fat lifting heavy 3 times a week for 200 cal burns and walking for 20 mins 2 days a week.
Stop killing yourself.
=D

Figure out your lean mass or body fat%.

Grab a calculator and figure protein and fat out.
1g protein per pound of LBM.
.40-1g Fat per pound LBM.
then adjust MFP settings to best reflect those numbers in a %.

Enjoy your fat loss!
=D

Right on.

Helloitsdan

How tall are you and how much do you weigh?
Age?up
Body Fat%?

I'll tell you how much to eat daily.

5'8
301
29
and um, all body fat, lol. JK

5'8" is 1800-2k daily.
Dont eat back these calories but also try not burning so many in a day.
1k is more than your body is actually able to lose the fat and is overkill.
Shoot for 600 at the most.
I have women in your range losing a good amount of fat lifting heavy 3 times a week for 200 cal burns and walking for 20 mins 2 days a week.
Stop killing yourself.
=D

Figure out your lean mass or body fat%.

Grab a calculator and figure protein and fat out.
1g protein per pound of LBM.
.40-1g Fat per pound LBM.
then adjust MFP settings to best reflect those numbers in a %.

Enjoy your fat loss!
=D

thank you! Love answers that make sense and don't make me sound like an idiot. lol. You rock!

PM me if you need help.

Nessalee77

Here's what I did. For 10 weeks, I kept very careful track of my calories, making sure that I recorded everything no matter how bad. I varied my calories each week, sometimes as high as 1800 NET sometimes down to 1300. Always eating back exercise cals, although I averaged over the week so not always on the day I earned them.
I kept a spreadsheet with my weekly average cals vs my weight loss/gain for that week. Then I made a scatter graph and added a trend line.
The trend line shows pretty clearly that if I net 1620 calories averaged over the week I maintain my weight. At 1800 I gain about .6 of a kilo at 1400 I lose about .5 of a kilo. It doesn't work out that way ALL the time but since I did this I have added about another 5 weeks data to the graph and they are all reasonably consistent with the trend line.

So now I am aiming for 1400 net - eating back all my exercise cals.

I guess what I am trying to say is no matter what cals you choose keep track of the data and do the statistics on it, if you are patient and play around with it you will get the right answer. Do you have past data you could go back over?

bsmith404

"Dont eat back these calories but also try not burning so many in a day. "

I thought we were supposed to eat back those Calories. I'm new and between running (5+miles) and strength training (P90X) 3x a week and then yoga and spin I can burn quit a bit of calories.

So shouldn't I be eating those calories back. Should I take into account the calories for strength training. As my HRM said I burned 544cal running 5 miles - speedwork and then 1hour of P90X my HRM said I burned about 644calories. So that's 1188 calories on two different HRM as my running one is a GPS and is only outdoors. Should I eat back only my cardio calories?

I'm still new and this is can get a little confusing.

kellyroberts1

This has been driving me crazy too and Dan you are pretty amazing, would you do the same for me too?

I'm 5'5 stuck at 163 for months and on my scales it says im about 34% body fat

Whisperinghorse

Dans a dude :flowerforyou:

Helloitsdan

"Dont eat back these calories but also try not burning so many in a day. "

I thought we were supposed to eat back those Calories. I'm new and between running (5+miles) and strength training (P90X) 3x a week and then yoga and spin I can burn quit a bit of calories.

So shouldn't I be eating those calories back. Should I take into account the calories for strength training. As my HRM said I burned 544cal running 5 miles - speedwork and then 1hour of P90X my HRM said I burned about 644calories. So that's 1188 calories on two different HRM as my running one is a GPS and is only outdoors. Should I eat back only my cardio calories?

I'm still new and this is can get a little confusing.

MFP wants you to work out to eat.
I want you to eat first THEN work out.

Nutrition is 70% of any diet.
Rest and sleep 20%.
Working out is 10%.

MFP flips that script and makes working out the most important thing.
Its why you see so many threads about plateaus and over training.

Helloitsdan

This has been driving me crazy too and Dan you are pretty amazing, would you do the same for me too?

I'm 5'5 stuck at 163 for months and on my scales it says im about 34% body fat

5'5" is about 1600-1800 daily.

BAtobe

How tall are you and how much do you weigh?
Age?
Body Fat%?

I'll tell you how much to eat daily.

5'8
301
29
and um, all body fat, lol. JK

5'8" is 1800-2k daily.
Dont eat back these calories but also try not burning so many in a day.
1k is more than your body is actually able to lose the fat and is overkill.
Shoot for 600 at the most.
I have women in your range losing a good amount of fat lifting heavy 3 times a week for 200 cal burns and walking for 20 mins 2 days a week.
Stop killing yourself.
=D

Figure out your lean mass or body fat%.

Grab a calculator and figure protein and fat out.
1g protein per pound of LBM.
.40-1g Fat per pound LBM.
then adjust MFP settings to best reflect those numbers in a %.

Enjoy your fat loss!
=D

Hey you, listen to this guy!

davionbandit

What is most confusing is not figuring out how many calories to eat, but accurately estimating exercise burn. There are many many sites that have calculators to find your BMR and the numbers will be fairly close, and give you a good range to start at, but then you have to figure out your activity level. This is where I get stuck. There are so many variables. How much did I exert myself during that workout? What was my heart rate? If I exercise for 60 minutes 6 days a week, but sit on my butt the rest of the time, am I lightly active, moderately active? What if I workout twice a day? It's kind of funny actually.

Side note. I have noticed that MFP numbers tend to be significantly lower than what you will find elsewhere.

N

ready2tryagain42

I always try to net at least 1200. If I work out..I eat those calories back..not all of them..but some of them to be over the 1200. Energy out...energy in.

ready2tryagain42

What is most confusing is not figuring out how many calories to eat, but accurately estimating exercise burn. There are many many sites that have calculators to find your BMR and the numbers will be fairly close, and give you a good range to start at, but then you have to figure out your activity level. This is where I get stuck. There are so many variables. How much did I exert myself during that workout? What was my heart rate? If I exercise for 60 minutes 6 days a week, but sit on my butt the rest of the time, am I lightly active, moderately active? What if I workout twice a day? It's kind of funny actually.

Side note. I have noticed that MFP numbers tend to be significantly lower than what you will find elsewhere.

N

I have found when I bought a HRM I was able to calculate my calories burned better. The machines at the gym are never calibrated quite right and the MFP numbers are way off sometimes. Invest in an HRM. You won't regret it.

PeachyPlum

I have to jump in here because I've been wanting to harass Dan about the same thing.

I'm 5'2" and 115 lbs. BF is around 23.5% 31 Years old.

I used the Fat2Fit radio calculator but I wasn't sure which activity level to choose.

Tontus94

Also piggybacking...... Dan can you tell me how much I should be eating? Please : )

38yr female
227lbs
5'4"

I was losing about 2lbs a week following MFP guidelines for about 3 months but now I am having a hard time losing 1 lb a week and the scale has been going up & down the last few weeks. I workout 6x week(Zumba or sweatin' to the oldies)

Thanks!

Tzippy7

if my initial goal is 1300 i eat at least that much, sometimes eat back some exercise calories but honestly i dont worry about it that much. If i eat 3 healthy meals Im not going to eat extra to get to a certain number. (Lol and yes, people will attack this comment, but im just giving my opinion !) I feel like the calories I burn are often overestimated so I dont eat back all of them.

Desmonema

Hmmm, just reading through this and find it really interesting. Does it make a huge difference whether you're massively overweight or you are very fit already? What if you only want to loose the last pounds? Is it the same calculation then or do you need to pay even more attention to eat ALL exercise calories back? I have the feeling my body won't let go of anything if I do not give it loads of good food.
I am 5'4'' and 127.2 lbs, would be nice to go down in bodyfat a bit... makes me faster at running!

brismom070897

bump

heybales

What is most confusing is not figuring out how many calories to eat, but accurately estimating exercise burn. There are many many sites that have calculators to find your BMR and the numbers will be fairly close, and give you a good range to start at, but then you have to figure out your activity level. This is where I get stuck. There are so many variables. How much did I exert myself during that workout? What was my heart rate? If I exercise for 60 minutes 6 days a week, but sit on my butt the rest of the time, am I lightly active, moderately active? What if I workout twice a day? It's kind of funny actually.

Side note. I have noticed that MFP numbers tend to be significantly lower than what you will find elsewhere.

To the side note first. The MFP activity levels and multipliers are totally different than other sites that deal with it - because MFP has NO exercise expected or included in their descriptions.
So if there is a desire to tweak MFP to hit the same numbers another site gave you, you many times have to use different level, and then it likely won't go high enough.
Last post in this thread shows the difference, and what it means.
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/548314-losing-weight-in-maintenance?page=1#posts-7744322&nbsp

To your other question, the workout days a week are based on assumption of 1 hr of workout - more than walking level. So indeed, if your job also has lots of physical or walking around, and you workout, likely to bump up a level.
So 3-5 days a week is 3-5 hrs.
And intensity doesn't matter too much - because if you were like doing that super intense each day, you'll have problems brought on by overtraining, no matter how much you ate.
So HR would remain elevated, actual ability would lower, you'd get injured or sick and knock yourself out for couple days, ect.
Unless training for an event, and eating at maintenance, that level is not smart or sustainable for real performance.

So to your 6 days a week, 1 hr a day, that's Very Active level. Intensity doesn't matter as that's minor to the length of time and frequency overall. If you also have an active job, Extra Active.
And even at Very Active, 1.725 multiplier, MFP only goes up to 1.55 on their level. Again, they aren't expecting exercise.

Frankly, at that level of 6 days, eat at sedentary level or lightly active level, and create deficit totally with workouts.