Confused

sarah6336

Hi, I am petite with a BMI of 29. I'm trying to lower my BMI into the acceptable range. In my goals, it says I'm eating 1700 calories a day to maintain my weight, but my BMR says only 1450. I recently gained back one pound of what I had lost. Granted, I've only been dieting for about 11 days... For my health, I really want to get my weight down. Any help on what I should be eating... Also, I ate out three times in the past week, which I know wasn't that good for me... I tried to portion control and exercise. I really want to be able to enjoy being out with people and control my weight. Knowing how many calories I need to eat to maintain weightloss is critical.

BrianSharpe

BMR is the number of calories your body needs if you were in a coma. What you're really interested in is establishing what your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) is and creating a modest caloric deficit from there. (Which is, loosely, what MFP does depending on how you set up your activity level)

Don't worry about 1lb fluctuations. Weight loss, while appearing mathematically simple, is not linear.

sarah6336

Thank you.

mcarter99

How many calories is MFP telling you to eat? How many are you eating?

There are a lot of great books about "what" to eat, which is important but it is a bit separate from the "how many calories" thing. I think if you want bullet points I'd go with Michael Pollan's mantra-

Eat food, mostly plants, not too much.

Also, everything in moderation.

sarah6336

I'm on 1200 for mfp. I have not gone over since using mfp... Maybe it is the type of foods I ate while out. There was the pasta dish, the half falafel sandwich and a small fry, then, when I did a lot of exercise, a flan cole slaw & a quarter cup of soy ice cream(as part of a meal, but those were my big calorie items).

During the days I eat in, it is usually lean meat or dairy, a little grain, and a lot of fresh produce. It is just really tough to know what to eat out. I don't always have access to mfp to look up the calorie content. I guess I'm learning as I try to lose weight.

sarah6336

Those items were at three different meals... Not all at once.