I need some Help determining Daliy Cals in....

rlsluvr

So I did the MFP thing, and it says 1200 cals... I've looked online and it says to maintain my weight at 173 I need 2200 cals a day, and to maintain my goal weight of 140 I need 1821 cals a day. I have been using the 1200 daily and things are sooo slow... I work out 5X a week both cardio and Strength Training... I'm thinking of goin inbetween both numbers and trying 1600 cals a day before excercise.... What do you think? I think with 1200 I was in the dreaded Starvation Mode... I need some guidance, I don't want to bump up my cals and gain weight... but I don't think 1200 is enough....HELP!!!

Thanks in advance for your input....

sjcply

This happened to me, I was eating 1200 and doing cardio 3 days a wk and wts 2 days a wk and nothing was happening. SO I upped my workouts (p90x) to 1 hr 6 days a week and I upped my calories to 1400-1500 a day. I am drinking 10-12 glasses of water a day. (gotta watch ur sodium too) At first the wt lost was still slow....but all of a sudden it has picked up, the inches are falling off like crazy! Along with increasing my calories I made most of that protein.
Good Luck!

aippolito1

Make sure you're putting your exercise in and then going back to your food diary to see how many more calories to eat. You have to eat back your work out calories. This should help. Trust MFP, it's done a LOT of people good and steered them in the right direction. Most internet calculators aren't taking into consideration your work out also, so they may be wrong. And I don't know how tall you are but 2200 calories (if it's outside of exercise calories) seems like a lot for anyone trying to lose weight.

whyflysouth

You should probably bump them up a bit. I think the key to healthy weight loss is to eat between your BMR and your current maintenance. I've been stuck for about a month now initially doing everything at 1200 cals and no loss, so I've upped the cals, actually lowered the number of days I work out and gained 1.6 lbs but I've stabilized there - pretty surprisingly I haven't been gaining or losing, but I do believe I was in starvation mode and that initial gain of 1.6 is healthy.

I heard that if you stress your body with a very low cal diet your body has the capability of losing between 10-15% of it's weight in record time (w/in a few weeks), but after that it will be so shocked at the dramatic weight loss that it will refuse to lose any more and your weight may plateau for a good 6-8 months before new weight loss will occur. Sounds frightening for someone weighing themselves every week. So it's best to take it easy, give yourself a caloric diet that has you losing 0.75-1.0 a week at most and in the long run the tortoise will outrun the hare.

SammiAnne11

I would add more calories! Bump up to 1500-1600 for two weeks. If you aren't losing, go down 100 calories the next week.
I started losing more weight after I went up to 1400 calories a day.
It's ok to work with the numbers to find what is right for you!!!