How many calories???

ashlynn1024
ashlynn1024 Posts: 17
edited September 22 in Health and Weight Loss
Ok the concensus on my last post seems to be that maybe i am eating too few calories...I am 5'7" and 188.4lbs.... My BMR is around 1622....how many calories should i be eating a day to lose weight... I have been eating around 1200 or a few less and have been burning around 400 working out four to five days a week and have seen no weight loss.... As you can see i know nothing about losing weight i need all the help that i can get!!!

Replies

  • oh yeah and i got the number of 1200 calories from this site!!!!
  • RedHotRunner
    RedHotRunner Posts: 850 Member
    How old are you? That also comes into play. I'm the same height as you, but 47. If I eat 1200-1400 per day and eat back 75% of my workout calories, i'll lose weight.

    If you're younger, you can generally eat more. Maybe an extra 100 calories?
  • young1726
    young1726 Posts: 347 Member
    1200 is what you should eat if you DON'T exercise... If you burn 400 calories from exercise then you need to add that to your base caloric intake and therefore should eat 1600. If you burn 100 you should eat 1300, etc. So the total calories you eat minus the calories you burn SHOULD NEVER go below 1200!
  • i am 27
  • Laceylala
    Laceylala Posts: 3,094 Member
    Simply input your information into MFP and eat what it suggests for your lifestyle, age and height. Eat back most or all of your exercise cals. This is what most people on this site do who are very successful..or at least that is always what I read in the success board anyways.
  • aymetcalf
    aymetcalf Posts: 597 Member
    Seems like you're not eating enough. I know it's counter-intuitive but you might see more weight loss if you eat 200-300 calories more a day.
  • so do you think that could be the reason that have not lost any weight over the last 4 weeks!!!! won't it put me over on my calorie count on here???? See i don't work out most of the time until 11:00 pm because i am home with my son in the evenings until my finance gets home at 10:50pm...So pretty much i just want to eat 1200 calories plus the amount i will burn during my workout... See this all confuses me because i thought you were supposed to eat less then you burned..... Thanks for your help i will sure try it and see how it goes!!! God knows it can't be any worse than it is now!
  • you would think that they would add that into the amount that they give you to eat.... Like i said before it told me to eat 1200 calories.... I have a desk job so i don't move around a whole lot at work.... I eat about 1200 by the time my day is over and then i don't go to the gym until 11:00 pm so it will really make it look like i am way over on my counter!
  • RedHotRunner
    RedHotRunner Posts: 850 Member
    i am 27
    I would think based on your BMR and exercise rate that if you ate 1500 calories a day, you'd lose a solid pound a week.

    Probably more if you count water weight.
  • thank you all for your help and i will try to eat 200 more calories and see if that works at all because its really frustrating working this hard and having no results!
  • tbernard
    tbernard Posts: 54 Member
    When my fitness pal asks you the opening questions, its trying to estimate the normal number of calories that you burn in a day without doing anything special. Then you plug in how much weight that you would like to lose in a week and it does simple subtraction. So for example... I chose the option of 1 pounds per week. That comes to 3500 calories... So My Fitness Pal chose a number of calories that it thinks I use up and then subtracted 500 calories per day.. Its assigned me 1740 calories, so it thinks I burn around 2240 calories per day... So even doing nothing but eat what it tells me to should cause me to lose some weight..

    If I perform more exercise that the guessed norm my body is going to require more calories to make it go.. So lets assume I burn 600 calories a day working out... Now I'm eating 1740 calories, but burning 2840 calories per day.... This seems awfully nice! I should start losing some serious weight! But hold...There could be a problem..

    When your body is doing activities it first uses up glycogen stores which are like small fuel tanks.. Once it has used up that tank it can either burn fat or muscle. Muscle is the richer source of energy and once the body uses it up it doesn't have to spend time and calories maintaining it.. So if you place demands on your body that are too stressful for the calorie intake, or starve yourself too much, your body is going to start eating its own muscle. You will initially lose weight, but because muscles burn more calories, your body's daily usage of calories will shrink. In the end, eating too little just damages your whole system.

    I'm a personal believer that the cleaner and more nutrition conscious you eat, the less you need to eat your workout calories...The body just needs to get the proper components to feed and rebuild itself. You still however need to put more nutrition into your body if you are going to make your body do more work. If you are performing a legitimate workout, I wouldn't dream of doing it on 1200 calories a day..

    So what to do ? Eat based on how you feel. If you are going into the gym and getting stronger, or walking on the road and feeling stronger, you're probably ok. If you're doing these things and your energy reserves aren't growing or your strength isn't growing... You need to add in a few more calories. You need to be building some muscle.

    Far too many people don't have a fat problem. What they really have is a lack of muscle problem. And that turns into a metabolism problem, and then a weight problem. and instead of dealing with the root cause which is lack of muscle... they choose to starve their bodies... making the muscle problem worse...
  • tulaniq
    tulaniq Posts: 46 Member
    If you log your exercise MFP will up your daily calorie allowance: for example, I eat 1200 per day but today I burned 300 exercising and plugged that in here so now it says I have 1500 for the day...it also adjusts how much protein/fat/carbs/etc. that I have left (because those are based on a percentage of my daily calories).
    I've been doing this for a month now and I didn't eat my exercise calories for the first two weeks and lost 2lbs per week, but then I stalled the third week and didn't lose. I ate my exercise calories the next week and immediately lost 2 more pounds. I would give it a try...just try to eat healthy stuff!
  • no1jaxfan
    no1jaxfan Posts: 3 Member
    Definitely log your exercise into MFP and it will re-calculate how many calories you get to eat, that way you'll know for sure. I don't always eat all of my exercise calories, but I've never not lost for a week so I must be doing OK. Good luck to you! =)
This discussion has been closed.