Eat More 2 Weigh Less

Join

Need some outside perspective

erindh87
erindh87 Posts: 94 Member
edited January 2 in Social Groups
Hi! I apologize that this is a post so similar to others, but I have confused myself some. I could use a little outside perspective on things. How many calories should I be eating?

My stats:
5' 6"
153ish lbs
25 years old
Female

I work out 4-5 days a week (it changes depending on which week of my schedule I'm on). Day 1 is ~30 mins cardio, Day 2 is ~35 mins strength, and Day 3 is rest. That cycle continually repeats (i.e. today is cardio, tomorrow is strength, Wednesday is rest, Thursday is cardio, Friday is strength, Saturday is rest, etc.). I've been considering that Lightly Active.

I've set my daily limit as 1650 calories at this time, and I have not been eating back exercise calories. On my cardio days, that nets me below my BMR (something I just realized today), and on strength days it gets me very close to my BMR. I'm thinking I need to bump that up a bit, at least to make sure I'm netting my BMR, but I would love some outside opinion to make sure I'm not going completely wrong here.

Thanks for your help!

Edit: Spelling

Replies

  • LuluProteinFueled
    LuluProteinFueled Posts: 261 Member
    Depending on what your daily activity is like outside of exercise, I would possibly call that moderate. And 1600 is too low if you're consistently netting under BMR.

    Your calorie target should be TDEE minus 10% or 15%, ie. most days eating somewhere between BMR & TDEE. Have you worked out those numbers yet with the scooby calculator? scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/

    If you ever net below BMR, you should eat more to get it back up above.

    Once you get your numbers from the calculator, that should make things a bit clearer. I think you'll find you need to be eating much more than originally thought :smile:
  • erindh87
    erindh87 Posts: 94 Member
    Thanks!! I've used the Scooby calculator before, I just kept getting confused on what acitivity settings I needed to use and how much I should be actually eating. It also didn't help that I've tried calculating my TDEE with other calculators as well which gave me different results from Scooby. Too many numbers!! :smile:

    I think I just need to stick with one calculator (Scooby) to reduce confusion. I have a desk job, so other than the workouts I do, I'm fairly sedentary. I think for now I'll stick with Lightly Active and reevaluate in a month or so. Using that setting it looks like I need about 1750 cals/day for a 15% cut.

    I have to admit raising calories still makes me a little nervous. It's such a knee jerk reaction to want to drop calories to lose weight. I lost my first 40ish pounds on a 1200-1350 calorie limit and saw the negative benefits of it...thinning hair and most likely a lot of muscle loss. I don't want to repeat that. I want to lose the last 20-30 lbs in a healthy way. The good news is that I love food, so I should have no problem meeting my new calorie goal.

    Thanks for you help!
This discussion has been closed.

Categories