I heard you can help!

kbd388

Hi Everyone,

I'm ready to join the eat more to weigh less crowd. I've been on MFP for almost a year now and lost 34 pounds in 2012, then gained back 13 in the past 3 months.

I never fully understood how many calories I should eat, and ended up in a plateau I couldn't get out of.

Can you help me figure this out?

Here is what I found for BMR on fat2fit but I'm not sure which activity level to choose. I work at a desk all day, and I walk every day for 45 minutes between 3.5-4.0 mph on a treadmill. I swear when I was doing this every day, the weight came off, then I stopped, and things changed. I don't normally eat the excercise calories back because quite frankly, I don't really trust the calculators telling me what I've burned.

I am 38 years old, weigh 207 now, would like to weigh 165, and am 5'8" tall.

Activity Level Daily Calories
Sedentary (little or no exercise, desk job) 1817
Lightly Active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk) 2082
Moderately Active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk) 2347
Very Active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk) 2612
Extremely Active (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2X day training, i.e marathon, contest etc.) 2877

Greenrun99

Lightly Active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk) 2082

Start here, if you have been eating 1200 calories for the past year, slowly increase your calories to reach this point or higher.. you can read the stickies on the forum to get an idea of a reset and all that if you think that might be something you need to do...

I am guessing the last 3 months, you have kind of started eating more with the holidays and maybe cut back on the treadmill? So if you were eating 1200 calories, your body is probably adjusting to you eating more. Can't see diary or anything cause your profile is locked.

kbd388

Hi, I was tracking properly and exercising every day I was eating 1700-1900 calories (net) and adjusting a little bit along the way. I do log my exercise, because I like seeing it lync to Facebook, because then all my friends encourage me, but I'm thinking maybe I should log it as 1 calorie.

You're exactly right, I stopped logging and stopped exercising. And just like that, some of it is back and I feel gross.

I can open my diary but you'd have to go back to March - July to see me doing it properly. I just started logging again but I really want to do it right. In 2012, I basically ate the same thing every day during the week and added a little variety on the weekend, but I logged everything that went into my mouth, good or bad.

So the 2082 - is that my net?

Edited to add: I also drink more water than I can even fathom and don't log it. Besides my morning coffee, water is all I drink.

heybales

Suggest you get a better foundation to build on, the BMR.

fat2fit may have calcs for getting bodyfat estimate, may ask for it for BMR calc, and will display the more accurate Katch BMR in the results.

But the eating goal table is based on the least accurate and also inflated when overweight Harris BMR.

Now, you may not have as much to lose, or somehow kept your ratio of LBM to fat in the same range as at healthy weight, so it doesn't matter.

But most will show a 200-400 inflated, meaning you are eating even more than required.

Compare the Katch and Harris BMR results, if with 100 cal's it may not matter to you. Then again that much and more may matter.

You the indeed useful BF%, and use Scooby or some other site that allows selecting Katch BMR as foundation to build on.

Or use something to track your progress too and use a better activity calculator.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/813720-spreadsheet-bmr-tdee-deficit-macro-calcs-hrm-zones

jhgreer

weigh 207 now, would like to weigh 165, and am 5'8" tall.

These are my stats exactly! Although I'm no longer focused on the goal of 165. I'm more concerned about BF%. I had it tested (in the water) last June and it was 41.3%. I was actually more like 199 then. I haven't been watching food so much lately but have been working out, mostly lifting weights (New Rules of Lifting for Women) and even though the scale is higher, my clothes fit better and I'm noticeably thinner.

My goal for 2013 is to lose some weight, but mostly to get my BF% below 30. I don't know what it is now and plan to wait until June to test again.

I eat around 1920 calories on rest days and 2100-2200 on workout days.

Good luck!