Am I not eating enough calories to lose fat and gain muscle?

mggrabner
mggrabner Posts: 1
in Food and Nutrition
Hi There,

I've been using My Fitness Pal for 40 days and I'm a bit confused. I am a 29 year old female who is 5'8" and started this process at around 142lbs. Once I plugged in my information and said my goal was 130lbs and 2 lbs lost per week (I just picked the maximum, figured why not) I was told I should be consuming 1200 calories a day. Can this be right because that seems drastically low for how much I workout and I'm surprised I haven't lost more by now. I definitely look stronger, perhaps I'm just putting on muscle but I just can't seem to get a straight answer from anywhere.

I ask because during these 40 days I've dipped as low as 137 and this morning weighed in at 140. Maybe my progress is being stunted because of 2 day Thanksgiving binge and a few holiday parties but for the most part I've been following the calorie restriction 80% of the time. Is it possible that I'm not eating enough for the amount of working out I do? I workout pretty intensely 6 days a week with weight training (heavy weight low reps), body pump classes (light weight high reps 60 min), interval cardio (7 sets of power walk for 4 min sprint for 1min), step class (60 min), Turbo Kick (60 min), etc.

Any help would be appreciated.

PS - My goal is not to be waif thin, really what I want to be strong more than anything and lose fat not just weight. This is why I started upping my weights and eat 1 gram of protein per pound a day and try to pair that with a 40/40/20 split on protein/carbs/fat

Replies

  • JenMc14
    JenMc14 Posts: 2,389 Member
    If you're doing the MFP plan, eat back your exercise calories. Also, 2 pounds a week isn't super realistic with the small amoun of weight you have to lose.you can also just figure out your TDEE, and subtract 20% from that and eat. That number to create a deficit. You would then not eat back exercise calories.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
    If you want to gain muscle you need to eat at a calorie surplus.

    1200 calories is without exercise calories. At 5'8" you should probably eat around 1600, if not more, or you'll lose muscle because your deficit is too high. Heck at 142 lbs for 5'8" you could probably just work on gaining muscle and not even eat at a deficit, IMO.

    About your weight gain... water weight. There's no way to gain muscle eating at a deficit, at 1200 you're probably losing some.
  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
    The closer you get to your goal weight the less realistic 2 pounds/week is. 1 pound/week or even .5 pounds/week are probably more likely. You and I are the same height. You are already at a healthy weight, so losing anymore is going to be slow.

    MFP expects you to log your exercise and will give you more calories when you do. Unlike other programs, it doesn't trust you to actually do the exercise you say you will. So if you tell it you work out 3x a week it won't give you the credit for those workouts until you actually log them in.
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,294 Member
    With only 7ish pls to lose your goal should be to lose no more than 0.5lbs/week, or you risk losing, not building muscle. The less fat you have to draw on the smaller your deficit should be or your body will take from muscle to make up the difference (more complicated than that, but is essentially the idea) I would also say that 20% fat is probably not enough, unless you are eating 2000+ cals. I would suggest 40/35/25 or 40/30/30 instead.
  • rkquade
    rkquade Posts: 17
    If you want a guideline to follow on gaining muscle and losing fat, check out the 6 Week Short Cut to Shred on Bodybuilding.com. I have been following the plan for about 5 weeks and I am really leaning out, but also keeping my muscle mass during the process. The plan sample is designed for a male, but I simply calculated the macros based on my current weight. Each week on the plan provides you new macro levels. For example, on week 5 I am consuming 1.5 g protein per body weight, .5 g fat per body weight, and .5 g carb per body weight 6 days per week and I have one high carb day were the macro changes to 2 g per body weight. So, I am 5 foot 6 inches and weight 139, so 208 g protein, 70 grams fat, 70 grams carbs (278 one day - rest day). The diet also incorporates a workout plan that is weight lifting with cardio intervals between each lifting set. So, a 60 minute workout with around 30 minutes of cardio and 30 minutes of lifting. The plan includes a downloadable guide that spells this all out. A number of girlfriends have done this plan and dropped a great deal of body fat in 6 - 12 weeks. Good luck and I hoped this helped.
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
    Maybe my progress is being stunted because of 2 day Thanksgiving binge and a few holiday parties but for the most part I've been following the calorie restriction 80% of the time.

    With a moderate deficit, it is very easy to wipe out an entire week's worth of dieting with one holiday binge or one holiday party. And you've had multiples.

    Bottom line: you are eating too much. "80%" isn't going to cut it.

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