Counting calories?

Autumnsun26

I have been counting my calories and keeping my goal around 1400 but staying right around 1200. I asked for advice & others are telling me to up my calories.. somehow that just doesn't seem right. For those you who have lost a lot of weight. How many calories did you stay around?

holly3585

Everyone will have diff advice. Everyone is different. The key to finding what works for you is to stick with any given plan for at least a few months before changing it up. You have to figure what works for you!!

jzammetti

I eat between 1700-1800 (lightly active TDEE). 74 pounds lost

stestut

Hi Autumn,

I have been working with a trainer for a little over a year. She has me on a 1500 calorie diet on the days I exercise for more than 45 min. On my rest days, i eat 1200 calories. But more importantly, you've got to look at where the calories are coming from. 45% should be carbs (good carbs, whole grains, brown rice, ezekiel bread, etc...not white carbs), 40% should be from Proteins (lean proteins like chicken or fish, with the occassional red meat maybe 1ce a week), and 15% from fats.

I was stuck at 30 pounds lost for a long time. Once I really started paying attention to the percentages (thanks to MFP), I lost a lot quickly. I am just finishing up a long rest period due to surgery I had. I was terrified I would gain since I have not been allowed to go to the gym (just started back yesterday after 4 weeks) but thanks to the percentages, I lost close to 7 pounds!

When you plateau, you can change those percentages. To get off these last 15 or so pounds, I'm doing a 3 day rotation where, for 2 days, I am taking in 55% Protein, 30% carbs, 15% Fats then one day with the higher carbs (percentages above).

Hope this helps. I've really learned a lot this last year and love to share the goodness. I am actually thinking about becoming a personal trainer.

Sandi

elisa123gal

Everyone will have diff advice. Everyone is different. The key to finding what works for you is to stick with any given plan for at least a few months before changing it up. You have to figure what works for you!!

This. good advice. I've been counting my calories at around 1610 since Jan. 1 and lost 7 pounds and then not losing a thing for two weeks with exercising. So, i'm trying to eat a lower carb diet in an effort to regulate my insulin levels..because according to the math I should be losing..but sometimes you just don't. Use mfp to log your food to figure out what will work for you. Not everyone can follow the same plan and lose. I wish a calorie was a calorie for me..but it just isn't.

MaggieSporleder

I stay between 1700 and 1800, when I dropped to 1200 to see if I could lose quicker, I plateaued. Really listen to them. Find you TDEE (I don't know what that stands for) and drop it by 20% You will be surprised at the results.

mdepko

Here's the way I look at it. It's simple math. Once you find out what your BMR is, you know how many calories you need to eat to maintain your weight. To lose weight, you need to eat less than that. MFP say I can eat over 1800 calories a day, I try hard to stay around 1500 and I never add back calories burned from exercise. I'll do that when I am at my goal, but right now, I want to lose, so I stay a little under, and try to eat a lot healthier than I used to.

dschassie

I have been working with a trainer for a little over a year. She has me on a 1500 calorie diet on the days I exercise for more than 45 min. On my rest days, i eat 1200 calories. But more importantly, you've got to look at where the calories are coming from. 45% should be carbs (good carbs, whole grains, brown rice, ezekiel bread, etc...not white carbs), 40% should be from Proteins (lean proteins like chicken or fish, with the occassional red meat maybe 1ce a week), and 15% from fats.

I was stuck at 30 pounds lost for a long time. Once I really started paying attention to the percentages (thanks to MFP), I lost a lot quickly. I am just finishing up a long rest period due to surgery I had. I was terrified I would gain since I have not been allowed to go to the gym (just started back yesterday after 4 weeks) but thanks to the percentages, I lost close to 7 pounds!

When you plateau, you can change those percentages. To get off these last 15 or so pounds, I'm doing a 3 day rotation where, for 2 days, I am taking in 55% Protein, 30% carbs, 15% Fats then one day with the higher carbs (percentages above).

I absolutely agree with the above! I am on a 1,200 calorie a day diet but when I work out, I am around 1,500. Definitely keep an eye on your macros as mentioned above.

And here a bit more you might find helpful, I wish I would have had this info from the start as I never understood why some people used their TDEE and others used the MFP settings but this explains it well I think:


BMR
You use energy no matter what you're doing, even when sleeping. Your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is the number of calories you'd burn if you stayed in bed all day. Since this number is calculated using your age and current weight, it is important to update this on a regular basis if planning on losing a lot of weight.

http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/

TDEE
A formula that uses your BMR and then applies an activity factor to determine your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). The only factor omitted in this equation is lean body mass. Leaner bodies need more calories than less leaner ones. Therefore, this equation will be very accurate in all but the very muscular (will under-estimate calorie needs) and the very fat (will over-estimate calorie needs). Your TDEE is the amount of calories you need to MAINTAIN your body weight.

- If you exercise regularly and routinely do the same workouts, you can choose a higher activity level. This means that you would not log your workouts in MFP as you already included them in your TDEE number.
- If you set your activity level to “sedentary” but you work out at the gym, log your work outs

http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/harris-benedict-equation/

Setting a daily calorie goal for MFP
You will get a lot of different answers here as to what number is the best number, here are two methods:

- When setting up MFP, it automatically calculates your TDEE. When you then select the amount of weight you want to lose per week, it subtracts the calories it takes to burn those pounds from your TDEE and thus provides you with a suggested number.

o Example: I am 5’4”, weighed 236 pounds and was 30 years old when I started. My BMR at that point was 1,841. With a desk job, my activity level is sedentary so you multiply your BMR by 1.2. This gives me a TDEE of 2,209. I wanted to lose 2 pounds a week. It takes your body 3,500 calories to lose 1 pound of fat so I would need to create a weekly deficit of 7,000 calories. My daily TDEE x 7 days a week= 15,464 calories a week. 15,464 calories minus a 7,000 deficit = 8,464 calories a week which comes out to 1,209 a day. That’s what MFP automatically calculated for me.

- Another common method is to use your TDEE number and set your goal as a percentage of the TDEE. If you are starting with a BMI (Body Mass Index http://nhlbisupport.com/bmi/) of “obese” with a lot of weight to lose, you might use your TDEE – 30%, once your BMI changes to “overweight”, make sure to update your numbers and possibly adjust to TDEE-20%.

*Please note that it is not recommend to go below 1,200 a day for females (1,800 for males). MFP’s default settings will not go below 1,200 when you set up your account.