Questions questions please help :)

larissaj82
larissaj82 Posts: 14 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Ok I have been on this healthy lifestyle change since feb of this year...I've lost almost 30 lbs give or take....
I am now going to be incorporating exercise of 40 mins (calorie burn program setting) on an elliptic 4-5 days a week...
Now my calorie calculator said that at a pretty sedentary lifestyle I should consume 1689 calories a day....now that I'm adding in this exercise do I keep the 1600 calorie a day going? I have lost slow due to the inibility to exercise due to a knee injury but I've gotten complete ok to go ahead with more strenuous and the elliptical was recommended. I have about 50-60 lbs I want to lose. Any advice on what I should or shouldn't do to get this moving along at a decent rate would be sooooo appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Replies

  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,432 MFP Moderator
    Since you aren't doing anything really active for exercise, just set your account to lightly active. It's like an extra 200 calories, which will be beneficial for helping your workouts. Or when you exercise, eat 50-80% of the reading the elliptical gives you for calories burnt.
  • dynamitegalxo
    dynamitegalxo Posts: 299 Member
    Is the calorie calculator you're referring to the MFP calculator? If so, then yes, you'll want to eat a portion of the calories you burn back. It will keep your deficit at the same place it is now, so you should lose weight at the same pace, if not a little more quickly now that you're adding in workouts. My only word of advice is to not eat all the calories back, because machines are never totally accurate with their estimates of how much you've burned and you don't want to end up overeating and being counterproductive!

    It will take a little bit of time to find your sweet spot, but you'll get there :) Good luck with your new goals, elliptical is great for working out with healing knees!
  • larissaj82
    larissaj82 Posts: 14 Member
    I actually calculated with the one on the scoobysworkshop website...I put in no activity it read 1689 when I put in hours light activity per week it gives me a total of 1935 daily...basically I really am working hard to lose this weight and giving it my all this time...I want to get it done and gone for good! So maybe I should eat an extra 100 calorie snack at the end of my day or something?
  • dynamitegalxo
    dynamitegalxo Posts: 299 Member
    If you're going to go with the light activity setting based on including your workouts, then yeah. I'd maybe start with 1750 or so and then bump it up another 100 every couple weeks, just so you don't end up with a crappy spike in water weight or anything.

    And I mean, if you're not starving when you're done working out, don't stuff yourself! You might just want make sure you eat the 1689 you've been eating on days you don't work out and give yourself the option to go up to ~1900 if you feel like you need to eat something else on the days you work out.
  • larissaj82
    larissaj82 Posts: 14 Member
    Awesome! You've been a huge help in my weightloss confusion thanks so much :)
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,432 MFP Moderator
    If you wan to improve anything, replace 2-3 days of the elliptical with 2-3 days of weight training. WT > cardio for muscle retention. More muscle = less weight loss required.
  • larissaj82
    larissaj82 Posts: 14 Member
    Ok...would something like 3 days 40 min elliptical...and 2 days of a 20 minute circuit training?

Categories