confused how many calories I should eat....

jbens0n
jbens0n Posts: 6 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I need some help figuring out what i should be eating. I am 42, 5'7.5" and am currently at 201. I was totally sedentary, but for the last couple weeks have upped my exercize to walking 3x a day (once short to get lunch at work, second mid afternoon walk/break at work, about 3 miles, and third walk when i get home from work which is about 3 miles and includes 4X up a good size hill). My resting metabolic weight is about 1600 according to online calculators. I can't really understand though, to lose 1 - 2 lbs a week (preferrably 2), what shoule I eat? 1200 calories? 1600 calories?

Also, tangent to that. When i look at my mapmyrun calories burned on the ipod app, or use the calculations in the exercize area of myfitnesspal i get one number, but I found a calculator on mapmyruns' site that accounts for my weight. When i use that it will show my a number double the calories. Should I use that number instead?

I was thin up until my mid-30s and since then i gain about 8 - 10 lbs a year and i feel like i don't know what to do anymore. I need someone who really understands metabolism to help me out I think. I was trying to use calories in minus calories out to add up to 3500 calories loss = 1 lb lost, but it seems like it's more complicated than that.

Thanks!!

Replies

  • melaniecheeks
    melaniecheeks Posts: 6,349 Member
    MFP will do all that calculation for you! Just plug in your starting weight and target weight and it will do all the sums.
  • christinacrisfield
    christinacrisfield Posts: 77 Member
    How many calories definitely corresponds to how much you weigh. When I started dieting I was 188 pounds. I probably ate over 3000 calories a day without realizing it. I try to stick within 1200 to 1800 calories a day. I try never to go over 2000. I found this website which told me that I need over 2500 calories to maintain my current weight of 159 at my level of activity. Hope this helps you a little. It can alter your calories depending on how much activity you do. My other stats - 5'6.5" and I have light activity because I work as a Nanny - chasing kids burns calories. lol. If I have the time to work out that day then I am moderate activity. I also have health issues that get in my way. I'm 33.

    http://www.cancer.org/healthy/toolsandcalculators/calculators/app/calorie-counter-calculator
  • LorinaLynn
    LorinaLynn Posts: 13,247 Member
    The day before my first race, I had chinese food and my fortune cookie read: "Begin. The rest is easy." So just start... and work out the details as you go along.

    Start with the basic numbers MFP gives. With 60-ish pounds to lose, you would be best off setting your goal to 1.5 pounds a week, and eat some to most of your exercise calories. Try that for a while, and tweak as necessary. When you get about 40 pounds from your goal, switch to one pound a week. When you're 10-20 pounds from goal, switch to a half pound a week and focus more on body composition (measurements, how clothes fit, progress photos) than just the scale. You might very well reach your ideal body before you reach your ideal weight.

    Be aware, too, that MFP's protein recommendations are low. A lot of people find it better to switch to at least 20-25% instead of the default 15%, or at very least, think of it as a minimum to pass instead of a maximum to stay under.
  • CoderGal
    CoderGal Posts: 6,800 Member
    I am also 5'7. I got to 120 being completely sedentary netting 1700 a day but I syarted at 150 so you can go much higher abd still lose. I was a full time student who programmed in my spare time. Always at a desk or lying down. The most exercise I got was walking to my car.

    I then started exercising and Im still netting 1700 but I eat back neg cals which usually leaves me over 2000. I wouldnt worry about hitting 2000 like the above poster did. 2000 is the recommended intake for the average healthy female according to health Canada and the fda.

    Figure out your TDEE and know you shouldnt gain if you eat below that. Dont starve yourself if you dont want to. To many people on this site jump from 4000 cals a day to 1200 and quickly stall out. Its not very sustainable and you cant get in as many nutrients. Eat healthy.
  • jbens0n
    jbens0n Posts: 6 Member
    OK, so i redid the MFP plan, and it says:


    Nutritional goals

    Target

    Net Calories Consumed* / Day

    1,260 Calories / Day

    Carbs / Day

    173 g

    Fat / Day

    42 g

    Protein / Day

    47 g


    *Net calories consumed = total calories consumed - exercise calories burned. So the more you exercise, the more you can eat!

    Fitness goals

    Target

    Calories Burned / Week

    3,100 Calories / Week

    Workouts / Weekends

    7 workouts

    Minutes / Workout

    60 minutes

    So based on this I should eat 1700 approximately calories per day? to cover my BMR and exercize? And then I'll still lose weight. But instead, I should use the calculator that take my weight into account? That means then I should eat even more? maybe 2000 calories/day? that seems high?
  • CoderGal
    CoderGal Posts: 6,800 Member
    OK, so i redid the MFP plan, and it says:


    Nutritional goals

    Target

    Net Calories Consumed* / Day

    1,260 Calories / Day

    Carbs / Day

    173 g

    Fat / Day

    42 g

    Protein / Day

    47 g


    *Net calories consumed = total calories consumed - exercise calories burned. So the more you exercise, the more you can eat!

    Fitness goals

    Target

    Calories Burned / Week

    3,100 Calories / Week

    Workouts / Weekends

    7 workouts

    Minutes / Workout

    60 minutes

    So based on this I should eat 1700 approximately calories per day? to cover my BMR and exercize? And then I'll still lose weight. But instead, I should use the calculator that take my weight into account? That means then I should eat even more? maybe 2000 calories/day? that seems high?

    With exercise I would definately need more then 1700 and Im slimmer. You are not covering your bmr let alone exercise. The recommended intake for a women is not a lot...thats the extreme dieter in you speaking. Just figure out your tdee and eat at least a couple hundred below that. Log everything. Juice, butter, a candy, everything.

    Remember if you put something other then sedentary in mfp and you're logging it as exercise too, you're logging it twice, so you wouldn't be eating enough in that case.

    There was a scientific paper published based on the quantification of the effect of energy imbalance on bodyweight. The authors of this study made this addorable little calculator that lets you play with all the numbers mentioned above. They take the changes in the human metabolism into account, looking at the fact that a 3500 calorie deficit equaling 1 lb of weight loss isn't that percise.

    Study: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(11)60812-X/fulltext
    Calc: http://bwsimulator.niddk.nih.gov/
    If you end up doing the TDEE calculators (like scooby or fitnessfrog or fat2fit.com) usually a safe bet is to take off 10-20% of your TDEE for weight loss.
  • Michellereducf
    Michellereducf Posts: 168 Member
    Don't try to over think it. Just plug in your current weight, level of activity (be honest!), how fast you want to lose (no more than 2 lbs per week to be safe) and how much exercise. MFP will then give you the amount of calories recommended you need to eat to lose. Then it will up to you.
  • shanteel612
    shanteel612 Posts: 434 Member
    Check this calculator out. Lots of folks on here use it with great results at a 20% cut rate.

    http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/
  • paygep
    paygep Posts: 401 Member
    One thing that might work, without considering all those calculators, is if you log ALL your food for a week or two and see how much you've been eating regularly. Then you can work on reducing that average number by, say, 500 calories a day to lose a pound a week.
  • melaniecheeks
    melaniecheeks Posts: 6,349 Member
    Eat 1260 calories per day. If you exercise, plug that into the site, and it will tell how many extra calories you can eat. But if you have a day with no exercise, then its 1260.
  • jbens0n
    jbens0n Posts: 6 Member
    Thank you all! I appreciate all of the comments!!!

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