Recalculating my Macros

hardyjessicag

So I'm really trying to get this right, but I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the best at math, or understanding quite what my body needs.

I'm currently set at 1200 cal, but I know I should be eating more ( I exercise everyday). So I'm recaluclating how many calories that I need to eat.

I calculated my bf% in a few different places, and got an average of about 26.5%.
Based on that, I entered my weight and other stats to get a BMR of 1244 calories. (BMI is 24.9 if that helps).

Based on that, it gave me this chart to advise how many calories I should be eating a day:

Activity Level Daily Calories
Sedentary (little or no exercise, desk job) 1630
Lightly Active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk) 1867
Moderately Active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk) 2105
Very Active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk) 2343
Extremely Active (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2X day training, i.e marathon, contest etc.) 2580

I exercise 7 days a week, and burn anywhere from 300 to 500 calories per workout. Doesn't 2105- 2343 calories/day seem a bit high for me to eat everyday?

Any help is appreciated, I'm just trying to figure this out

lizzardsm

Are you trying to lose weight? What did you put in as your settings? Where did you do these calculations? I quickly put them in to fat2fitradio.com and got similar numbers. Based on that:

If you're trying to lose weight - you'd take your 6-7days/week number and shave off 20%.
So you'd be eating 1874 cal/day. Every day - even on rest days.

From there, I'd manually set your macronutrients to: 40% Carbs, 30% Protein, 30% fat.

hardyjessicag

Yes, I'm trying to lose rather than maintain. I'd preferably like to lose 1 lb a week if possible.

Yes, i got this from fat2fitradio.com.

So 1874 is what I'd eat total, even after working out? I wouldn't need to adjust it further?

lizzardsm

Yup. Just eat the 1874 every day even when you workout and even when you don't. No more adjustment. Your exercise calories are already built into your daily calorie limits - that's why you picked the "I exercise 6-7 days/week option".

Just as a warning. If you've been eating at 1200 cal for a while now, your body might need some time to adjust to the new eating (you're kinda restarting your metabolism). It took me about 4 or 6 weeks for my body to adjust. I lost fat and got smaller during that time, but it wasn't quite reflected on the scale. Hopefully you won't have to go through that but it is normal!

hardyjessicag

Okay, well I'll start out lower that the 1800 at first. Many thanks!