Today till be day 6 since joining. LF advice and Friends

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truly_blessed90
truly_blessed90 Posts: 42
in Introduce Yourself
Hello MFP members :)

I am on day 6 of using MFP. I had used it a few months ago and lost over ten lbs but then trailed off for a bit.
I am 23 years old, 5'5 and weighed 185 as of monday, august 19th. Looking to weigh about 145 for my first goal.
I have a two year old daughter: high blood pressure with chronic migraines.

My calorie intake is set at 1200 I am not sure if this is the best for my weight but I don't seem to go over, actually a few days I was 100 calories short. I would like to find some friends who are around the same size as I am but any friends will be great!

I don't do much exercising yet except for my every day activities of being a stay at home mother.

Replies

  • leebesstoad
    leebesstoad Posts: 1,186 Member
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    Well I about as far from your size and age as you can get but feel free to add me if you like.

    I read your post and have a couple of thoughts. I took a couple of minutes and plugged your numbers into 4 online calculators to calculate your BMR and TDEE. I was checking for consistency and to see what they thought and make sure what I was thinking was probably about right. Yup. I think that for you, given your weight, and age, and especially since you are not exercising beyond your daily activities, 1200 is certainly not appropriate for you. The four calculators (Fat2Fitradio.com, IIFYM, Scooby's Workshop, and Fitness Frog) came up with BMRs ranging from 1642-1701, most in the 1690-1700 range. The TDEEs were from 1971-2034. The usual recommendations aren't to eat more than 20% of your TDEE which would put you somehwere in the vicinity of 1600 calories. Which is fairly close to your BMR. Some say don't eat below your BMR, but I do without problem. At 1200 you certainly are. The real problem with 1200, and especially at 1200 and not exercising, is that you will usually be eating below 1200 and 1200 calories seems to be the point at which the body can start to put the metabolism into a shutdown mode. Staying consistently below 1200 calorie for an extended period of time will slow your metabolism down (which is the last thing you want) and would take a long time to repair. MFP's recommendation for 1200 is usually predicated on people exercising and then eating back the calories they exercise. Which is why it is so dangerous in your case. So I would really recommend you increase your calories and I think you will find you will do better at a higher caloric intake.

    Best of luck to you.
  • truly_blessed90
    truly_blessed90 Posts: 42
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    Thanks so much! I kind of thought starting off that 1200 was too little. It would be a too drastic of a change from what I had been eating. I put it at 1450 until I start exercising more. I think at 1600-1700 I would be very tempted to eat bigger portions than I should.
  • jessitherese
    jessitherese Posts: 22 Member
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    Feel free to add me for support :)
  • ny2298pdsgt
    ny2298pdsgt Posts: 62 Member
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    I'm right around your numbers (a few more years and 5 lbs more) but the 1200 goal seems low, since no one wants to go over their limit you eat less than 1200 and that starves your body. If you have a small child at home, you are active with that, you just don't realize how much. I don't count my daily movements at work either though, just my intentional workout. the upping your goal to around 1400 would be better. I have my numbers set at moderately active with a 1.5 to lose per week with 3 30 min workouts per week (even though I try to get at least 5 in), and it gives me 1440 cals per day. I tend to over estimate my calories eaten and under estimate the workout so I know I stay on track.
  • truly_blessed90
    truly_blessed90 Posts: 42
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    :) I changed it to 1400

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