Which is it?!?! Nutritionists and pfts more than welcome!

TheMommyWifeLife

Okay so one person tells me one thing, another says another, and so on.

To lose weight, which am I supposed to be doing?

1. Eating 1200 calories a day, no more than 1400, no less than 1000. Exercise and eat back none of your burned calories.

2. Eating 1200 calories a day, no more than 1400, no less than 1000. Exercise and eat back all of your burned calories.

3. Eating 1200 calories a day, no more than 1400, no less than 1000. Exercise and eat back half of your burned calories.

4. Eating 1200 calories a day. Exercise but eat back the difference, keeping the net calories at 1200.


So tired of hearing one thing from one person, and another from another person. I looked up my bmr today, and it is for some reason telling me my calorie intake to maintain my weight should be 1444 to 1750 according to me being 167lbs, 23, and 5ft5in, with moderate to very active exercise throughout the day. I exercise every day of the week. Do weight lifting every other day, and the non weightlifting days, I substitute with strictly cardio, but I do cardio every day. I aim to burn 1000 calories a day from exercise. And most every day I do burn that many.

So I guess my real question is, if I want to lose weight but plan to burn 1000 calories a day, should i technically be eating 1200, 1700, or 2200 calories? Because I know it sounds like a stupid question, but as I said I am 23, never paid attention to calorie intake before in my life, and everyone seems to be telling me something different!


*** To my friends list who may comment, it isn't that I am ignoring your advice, it is that most who have given me specific things as to what to do are telling me different things than everyone else, and I can't figure out which to do, because more than one are in fabulous shape, and those who aren't fit have lost a ton of weight.

stines72

congrats on your healthier lifestyle... i too am confused by this

TheMommyWifeLife

congrats on your healthier lifestyle... i too am confused by this

confuse at what I am saying or people are saying this to you too? I lost 35 lbs without worrying about my calorie intake, but ever since everyone kept giving me advice on what to do about my calories, burning and intake, i gained 10lbs in two weeks.

stines72

congrats on your healthier lifestyle... i too am confused by this

confuse at what I am saying or people are saying this to you too? I lost 35 lbs without worrying about my calorie intake, but ever since everyone kept giving me advice on what to do about my calories, burning and intake, i gained 10lbs in two weeks.

confused by what others are saying. i understood your post just fine

astrampe

It's YOUR body, you need to find out what YOUR balance is...Other people can tell you what worked for them, but only you can play with the numbers and figure it out for yourself.
As long as you have patience and an open mind, happy playing!

ascotton80

There is a lot of overthinking and overanalyzing that goes on around here.

Just try some consistency. Just do whichever you think is most manageable to you for a month and see if it works. If it doesn't, try something else.

I am 190 lbs, 5'10 and 32 years old. I eat 1300 per day plus all of my exercise calories (usually about 2000 a week).

I have been doing this for 4 weeks and I am down 9 lbs.

ctooch99

It's different for everyone and you may need to experiment on MFP a couple weeks to find what works best. For me, I set an MFP goal of a .50 pound per week weight loss which currently gives me about 1780 calories per day.

Realistically (and eating fairly healthy stuff) I will take in about 100-200 more than this on a given day - so let's call it 1900 calories. I generally exercise 5-6 times per week and on average I burn about 500-600 calories per workout. That gives me a net intake of about 1300-1400 calories after exercise.

I don't eat my calories back and on rest days I try to keep my intake lower than my allotted calories (like today is a rest day and I will only eat 1680 today)

I have dropped about 40 pounds, maintained since July at the same weight (165) and I am never hungry or frustrated by food - I am at a level where I am eating well, but I never feel too full nor do I ever feel hungry.

JohnMessmer

The reason you get different answers is because there simply is no perfect answer. There are certain facts, one of which is that your body needs calories to operate, and the minimum recommended caloric intake is 1200 per day. If you exercise away 1000 calories a day and only eat 1200 calories in a day then you have only given your body 200 calories for the day. Are you going to lose weight by doing it, probably, is it going to be something you can maintain, probably not, are you going to gain weight when you can not maintain such a vigorous routine, probably. Is it safe to only provide your body with 200 calories a day? I say no, some say yes. The reason so many people yo-yo with there weight loss-gain is because they do not lose it in a manner that they can keep it off.

One thing is certain, if Doctors, Nutritionalists, and Scientists cannot definitely answer the question, chances are neither can anyone at this site.

panda007dammit

Short answer: do what gets results and that you can live with.

Longer answer: My approach for figuring out calories is to calculate my TDEE with MFP, setting the activity level at sedentary. I then set it to calculate what I should eat if I want to lose a pound per week. This means that right off the bat, MFP is telling me what I can eat if I want to sit on my behind all day and still lose a pound per week. I then log every exercise individually. If I bike to work one day, I enter that in and MFP will add on extra calories to my daily allowance, assuming that the rest of the time I am sitting around on my butt.

With that said, many people will have an opinion about eating back exercise calories, but here is mine: if you don't want to eat them back, then don't, but only if you can live with that. If you are hungry and achy and miserable, start eating them back, because otherwise you risk caving in to the urge to binge, and that tends to start the emotional spiral that ends in giving up on the entire weight loss process. You don't want that. You can eat them all back, and that's fine, as long as you're still on track to lose weight at the speed that you want. More than likely, you'll end up eating some percentage of them back.

Here's what I do. I am 5'5", 146 lbs, and MFP tells me that I can eat 1280 calories per day, sit on my tush all day, and still lose a pound per week. 99% of the time, I eat those 1280 calories. Three days a week I do some upper body and ab work, and go for a power walk or do a cardio video (I use TurboFire or Insanity frequently). I typically eat back most of those calories because that often sets me around 1750 calories for the day, and I like eating that amount. Three days a week, I bike to work. This adds almost 1400 calories to my daily allowance. I usually eat about half of those back. I do this because eating around 2000 calories fills me up completely, leaves me satisfied, and I still feel good the next day. On a biking day, if I eat much less than 2000 calories, I will be a crabby jerk with no energy. I can certainly eat more, and I have, but I am still a happy, functional human being at 2000 calories.

If you net less than 1200 calories on occasion, your body WILL NOT go into starvation mode. Your metabolism will not slow down. If you drastically stay below a net of 1200 calories for an extended period of time, metabolism damage may come into play. Hell, I've had days where I woke up late and basically just ate two meals, eating around 800 calories, and I may have walked that day. I don't make this a habit. One day is fine. Do not panic if you have one very low calorie day. Also, do not panic if you have one very high calorie day. Just make sure you're ultimately balancing out at a deficit that still gets results and doesn't leave you desperately unhappy.

servilia

Number 4 worked out for me very well. Keeping net cals 1200.
Some days I went over and some days under, the important thing is to keep an average of 1200/day over the course of the week.

alpine1994

You will continue to get different answers! When I first started on MFP 5 months ago I thought it was cut and dry. Put in your info, it gives you a number. Eat that many cals plus calories that get added from working out, and lose 1lb per week or whatever you set it to. It took me 4 months to realize it's ISN'T that cut and dry, everyone's different, and to play around with it until you see the results you want. Trust me, I posted the "why am I not losing! I'm doing exactly what I should be!" posts many many many times.

What works for ME (which won't work for everyone, obviously) is to eat around 1400 cals per day, work out 6 days per week, and only eat back exercise calories a couple days a week (weekends). If I eat them back everyday I don't lose, and if I never eat them back I am a miserable beast. This causes me to lose an AVERAGE of 1lb per week, which very well may be a zero lb loss for 2 weeks, then the next week 3lbs falls off magically. I have my struggles and cheat days every now and then but this is generally sustainable for me. BTW, I am 5'8" and 159lb. Goal is 145lb-ish.

I know it's annoying and not what you want to hear, but you really just need to play around with it. And I don't mean eat 1200 one day, see no loss the next morning, and figure it must not work. You need to try something for at least 2 weeks and see what happens.

shorty35565

You should at least net ur bmr imo. 1000 cals is a lot to burn & u have to give ur body the proper fuel. If u only eat 1200 & burn 1000, ur body is only getting 200 cals. That's no where near enough. You have to compensate for that burn. Create ur deficit & then eat back what u burn. A deficit that is too big isn't good.
I'm 5'5 125lbs 24 and I eat 16-1730 cals a day. I am mostly sedentary but typically my TDEE is 19-2100. I lift every other day. Do 1 day of intense cardio, 1 day of yoga/walking & run/walk the other. Take one day off. Having off days are important. Your body needs time to recover. I've learned that.

jilliew

I personally just focus on eating my 1700 cals. I don't log my exersize and I also don't log the snack I eat just prior to exersizing. This method has worked great for me. Everyone's body and metabolism and weight loss is different, so do what works for you!

ctooch99

You will continue to get different answers! When I first started on MFP 5 months ago I thought it was cut and dry. Put in your info, it gives you a number. Eat that many cals plus calories that get added from working out, and lose 1lb per week or whatever you set it to. It took me 4 months to realize it's ISN'T that cut and dry, everyone's different, and to play around with it until you see the results you want. Trust me, I posted the "why am I not losing! I'm doing exactly what I should be!" posts many many many times.

What works for ME (which won't work for everyone, obviously) is to eat around 1400 cals per day, work out 6 days per week, and only eat back exercise calories a couple days a week (weekends). If I eat them back everyday I don't lose, and if I never eat them back I am a miserable beast. This causes me to lose an AVERAGE of 1lb per week, which very well may be a zero lb loss for 2 weeks, then the next week 3lbs falls off magically. I have my struggles and cheat days every now and then but this is generally sustainable for me. BTW, I am 5'8" and 159lb. Goal is 145lb-ish.

I know it's annoying and not what you want to hear, but you really just need to play around with it. And I don't mean eat 1200 one day, see no loss the next morning, and figure it must not work. You need to try something for at least 2 weeks and see what happens.

^^^ Exactly

Captain_Tightpants

Read this:
http://body-improvements.com/resources/eat/

lisamarie2181

If you have time, find the thread In Place of a Road Map by Helloitsdan, it would probably be good read for you to understand what your BMR really means and cutting a deficit from TDEE is much easier because you know for sure you DO NOT eat back exercise cals, they are already included in your TDEE, much less confusing.

1200 is not meant for everyone, this approach seems the best way to get the right amount of cals for YOUR body because it does off your body fat % and measurements, just because you may be the same weight as someone else, does not mean you will have the same calorie goal. You could have more and/or less body fat or shorter or taller.

Take a look at that thread or go under groups and there is a group with the same name, might be easier.

Hope this helps

cmccorma

congrats on your healthier lifestyle... i too am confused by this

confuse at what I am saying or people are saying this to you too? I lost 35 lbs without worrying about my calorie intake, but ever since everyone kept giving me advice on what to do about my calories, burning and intake, i gained 10lbs in two weeks.

Go back to what you did before when you lost 35lbs! I do what works for me, not what all the forum people say to do.

TheMommyWifeLife

Okay so when I lost the 35, all I was doing was eating when I was hungry, and doing random little spurts of exercises, like one hour i would wrestle with my children for like five minutes. every time i went to the bathroom, after washing my hands, i would jog in place for 3 to 5 minutes. but i only ate when i got hungry. that worked for me, BUT:

saying that, i was probably only taking in 500 to 700 calories per day, 900 tops because i was only eat once, maybe twice a day, because i truly wasnt hungry, and i have been that way since i was a teenager.


So if I want to stick with eating 1200 calories a day, if I burn 700-1000 calories during exercise, am not hungry, am not in pain, etc. then I will be okay right? because I have seen nutritionists say not to eat those calories or youll maintain your weight, and others say to eat back half.
OR- can i eat 1500 a day and burn 700-1000 calories. I am getting used to the activity level that I have been doing lately, and I love doing it, so I really don't want to stop what I have started. I want to get the baby belly of, be thin, and healthy. and fit too lol

LorinaLynn

I started at 5'5, 160 pounds and 38 years old and a total couch potato. By all rights, I should have had a much slower metabolism than you at 23 and active.

I lost weight best at 1350-1500 plus exercise calories, for a total of 1800-2000 calories, sometimes more.

Set your weight loss goal to one pound a week, increase your protein above what MFP suggests, and eat most of your exercise calories. Give it time (ie, don't freak if the number on the scale bounces around a few weeks), and track your progress through photos, measurements and how clothes fit.

OR... use a site to calculate your TDEE including the amount of exercise you do (the numbers you quoted sound REALLY low... Mine's about 2300 and I'm a lot older than you) and subtract 10-20% off that number without counting exercise.

zaph0d

None of the above. Find your TDEE, subtract around 15-20%, and that's your calorie target.

These absolute 1000, 1200, 1400, etc numbers mean fuk-all.

TheMommyWifeLife

I started at 5'5, 160 pounds and 38 years old and a total couch potato. By all rights, I should have had a much slower metabolism than you at 23 and active.

I lost weight best at 1350-1500 plus exercise calories, for a total of 1800-2000 calories, sometimes more.

Set your weight loss goal to one pound a week, increase your protein above what MFP suggests, and eat most of your exercise calories. Give it time (ie, don't freak if the number on the scale bounces around a few weeks), and track your progress through photos, measurements and how clothes fit.

OR... use a site to calculate your TDEE including the amount of exercise you do (the numbers you quoted sound REALLY low... Mine's about 2300 and I'm a lot older than you) and subtract 10-20% off that number without counting exercise.

yeah i have been tracking by photos, and the weight on the scale bouncing around isnt my problem its that i have gained ten pounds in two weeks. i gained 80 lbs pregnant with my first born and even then i never gained more than 2lbs per week, but 5 a week is a drastically huge number in my opinion.