HOW MUCH SHOULD I EAT

thinfitfabulous
thinfitfabulous Posts: 84 Member
edited February 4 in Health and Weight Loss
Stats:
5'0"
Currently 102 but currently planning to cut to 95

Exercise 7 days a week, generally 60 to 90 min on the elliptical and some weight training

How much should I eat to lose and to maintain?

Replies

  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,459 MFP Moderator
    Probably 1700 calories.. But I would recommend doing 4 days of weight training and 2 cardio. YOu don't need to go exercise crazy but you really want to maintain your muscle. Seriously, I would look to sustain muscle as much as possible. If you hit 95 lbs and still don't like your body, i would suggest a bulk phase. At 95 lbs, you can't have much more than 75 lbs of lean body mass, which isn't huge. Sometimes, you just need to add muscle to lower your overall body fat. See below for a good example.


    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1102920-up-5-lbs-before-and-after
  • init2fitit
    init2fitit Posts: 168 Member
    Why do you want to have such a low BMI?
    Its still in the healthy range, but only by a smidge.

    If anything you want to begin eating at a surplus and start lifting, and forget about numbers.
  • geekyjock76
    geekyjock76 Posts: 2,720 Member
    Before I continue, is there any particular reason you want to go from 102 to 95 lbs? Your present weight is within a healthy weight range for your height whereas 95 lbs is bordering on being underweight by many indexes. Perhaps the issue you have isn't related to weight but body composition? I also believe exercising 7 days a week with that much cardio is overkill. You absolutely need at minimum one day of full rest for recovery purposes. Take the advice given above and focus primarily on weightlifting to either maintain lean mass or even increase it by eating at a slight calorie surplus. If you recomp by increasing lean mass while decreasing fat mass, you may like what you see instead of caring about scale weight.

    Regardless of the above, nobody here will be able to answer those questions you asked. You cannot realistically or accurately derive caloric intake to reduce fat mass without first knowing your true maintenance intake. The only way to genuinely establish your maintenance calories, by definition, is to eat the maximum amount of calories that lead to relative weight homeostasis over the long-term when considering present activity. That estimate will be your Total Daily Energy Expenditure. Once you know that vital number, you can then accurately select the suitable caloric deficit to reduce fat mass based primarily on how much total fat mass you have (eg: the less total fat mass one has, the smaller the deficit).

    If you've been consistently weighing yourself over the past few months, and your weight has been relatively stable, chances are you may be already eating a maintenance intake of calories. However, you must check to make sure by weighing and logging all food intake on MFP or another journal preferably for at least a month. During this month, I recommend that you take the next step and estimate your body fat percentage.

    Although there are a few online calculators, I'd suggest making use of a Podpod or ask a staff member at the gym or even faculty in the Kinesiology department at a local university to have your body fat professionally assessed. Perhaps even your doctor can do it.

    Following that step, you can then make use of an online TDEE calculation tool. I recommend using any whose formula is based upon the Katch-McArdle method since it considers lean mass. The one below is a good example:

    http://www.weightrainer.net/losscalc.html

    You'd simply enter your weight, estimated body fat percentage, 0 for desired weekly fat loss and moderately active for activity level. This estimate represents the average caloric intake required to maintain body weight in individuals sharing your unique stats and moderately active lifestyle. In other words, you can use this average to compare to your own documented maintenance calories. If they are relatively close in values, then that' may be a sign you are eating enough to maintain your weight. If your documented calories are significantly lower, there is the possibility your TDEE truly is lower or you unknowingly have been eating a deficit, chronically, which caused your body to burn less calories. If this is the scenario, you would then have to periodically increase caloric intake every couple weeks until your weight stabilizes.

    If I were to [randomly] assume you are at 20% body fat and classify you as being moderately active (3-5 days a week of exercise) I get a TDEE of 1813 calories.

    Once you establish what your actual maintenance calories are, then you can use that above site and enter a suitable 05. lbs weekly fat loss goal. Basically, it just subtracts 250 calories from your TDEE and that's the caloric intake you'd eat to reduce fat mass by an approximate 0.5 lbs per week.

    Having said all that, I still think you should focus on recomping by increasing lean mass while assuming a small calorie surplus - after knowing TDEE - followed by a cutting period to reduce fat mass but keep as much of the lean mass you gained.

    You can read this article to learn about doing a proper bulk:

    http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/muscle-gain/general-philosophies-of-muscle-mass-gain.html
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