Calorie intake

BBoudreaux30
BBoudreaux30 Posts: 8 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I recently started doing the insanity workout and also recently joined this website. I guess you can say I have a mostly "sedentary" job, so when filling out my information on myfitnesspal.com that's what I marked down when trying to figure out my daily calorie intake which is 1490 calories a day. So my question is since I'm doing the Insanity program should I have marked something other than sedentary? And does 1490 calories a day seem too low doing such an extreme workout program?

A little more about myself....
-I'm a 29 year old male
-I weigh about 215 (mostly fat) if we are being honest!!
-My goal is to trim down while toning up.

Any info would be greatly appreciated and if you would like more info to give a better detailed answer just ask.

Thanks,
Ben

Replies

  • BBoudreaux30
    BBoudreaux30 Posts: 8 Member
    Wow no one can help out and give some advise???
  • Jewlz280
    Jewlz280 Posts: 547 Member
    Well, I am a bit surprised no one has really commented but here's what I would do if you haven't already. Get an HRM and wear it doing your workout. Log the calories here at MFP and then eat back part of them. MFP's intake is based on no exercise, so when you add that in, it will give you more cals to eat. What part, I can't say. I'd say try different things and if you still feel tired or VERY hungry, keep upping a bit until you find what works. Try that for a few weeks (and by a few weeks, I mean at least a month) and then if you see no progress it's time to either change methods or tweak. Good luck!
  • Lleldiranne
    Lleldiranne Posts: 5,516 Member
    I think if you log your workouts as Circuit Training (there's no entry for Insanity) and eat back those calories, you should be fine. I agree that a HRM would probably be a closer estimate, but it's still just an estimate, and you can tweak things either way to find what is best for you.

    Also, at your size and age, you must have put in lose 2 pounds per week to get it as low as 1490 (at least, I would guess so!), so you can definitely change that to lose 1 pound a week and have more calories a day. There's nothing wrong with taking more time to lose the weight, and it will probably increase your chances of staying with it and maintaining your loss. It will also decrease your chances of getting burned out/fatigued because of your workouts.
  • cafeaulait7
    cafeaulait7 Posts: 2,459 Member
    A smaller deficit should keep more muscle, too, so balance that with how fast you need to lose fat. Aggressive deficits cut into lean mass more.
  • luckydays27
    luckydays27 Posts: 552 Member
    If you set MFP to a reasonable weight loss goal (say 1 lb a week loss) that gives you a number of cals to eat.
    Then you need to add back your cals burned during exercise. Use a HRM when exercising so you know where you are. You will eat all or most of those cals in addition to the cals that MFP tells you to eat.

    Make sure you weigh and measure your food because you will overestimate what you are eating if you dont. be honest about your food intake and your fitness cals burned. Anything less is doing you no good and wont help you lose.
  • marie_2454
    marie_2454 Posts: 881 Member
    You should most definitely be eating more! I weigh 158 and am losing steadily eating 1600-1700 calories most days. I also have a completely sedentary job (sitting and typing for 8 hours...literally all I do is type). Go to scoobysworkshop.com and use the fast calorie calculator there to figure out your TDEE, then subtract no more than 20% from that to get your daily goal (doing is this way you don't eat your exercise calories back since they're already included).
  • BBoudreaux30
    BBoudreaux30 Posts: 8 Member
    Thanks everyone for the feedback I'm definitely going to look into getting a HRM and figuring out my right TDEE!

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