should I lower my calories???

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  • drgnflys
    drgnflys Posts: 31
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    I have a similar issue if anyone can chime in and help I will LOVE you so much!

    I am 5'7" at 163lbs.

    Daughter is getting married in August would like to be 135 and just started planning a first trip ever to Hawaii in May

    MFP had me at 1300 calories but one of my pals mentioned MBR and Fat2Fitradio. After listening to podcasts and email Russ he said I should be up around 1600 calories. However I found the link to http://bwsimulator.niddk.nih.gov on the site and plugged in the numbers.

    If I give myself 110 days to lose
    cardio every day (3 mile hike)
    weight lifting (3 times per week)

    I will meet my goal. the MBR for a 135 female is actually 1313 or I get this chart
    Activity Level Daily Calories
    Sedentary (little or no exercise, desk job) 1576
    Lightly Active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk) 1805
    Moderately Active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk) 2035
    Very Active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk) 2265
    Extremely Active (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2X day training, i.e marathon, contest etc.) 2495

    My question should I eat back my workout calories? or only eat the 1305 per the simulator?

    I copied the information from the simulator calculator into a spreadsheet and was pleased to see there is a calories in / burn column
    based on the food intake of 1401.8 I will need to burn 2341.3 on the first day and at the ideal weight of 165 taking in 1401.8 I will need to burn 2001.1 341.3 calories less.

    after typing this long complicated message it looks like I'm going about this backwards but since my fitbit tells me my burn for the day I only need to make sure I only eat the 1041 on the chart and burn what it tells me as to burn for that day.

    p.s. I originally asked Russ to calculate at 145lbs but I changed to 135 (in for a penny in for a pound)

    I really need to get my head around this weight thing, I had been eating 1200 calories for a year with no weight loss ie (starvation mode) screwed up my metabolism. Thanks to http://www.fat2fitradio.com/ I'm starting to understand. but need help to validate or correct my understanding.
  • SapphireSstar
    SapphireSstar Posts: 1
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    I'm new here and really grateful to read this article. Almost everyone said she shouldn't go too low with her calories (like the 1,300 she suggested), as it will mess up her metabolism. Danasings said "1600-1700 calories can be a lot of food. And that's for your weight loss.". I particularly liked cedarghost's comments.
    My problem? MFP's suggested calorie intake for me is 1,200 calories a day. I just started this a couple weeks ago and haven't gone over my the recommended calories once, even though I've been hungry all the time. (this kind of willpower is not normal for me) The first week I lost 5 pounds, the second... nothing. So I came here in frustration to see what I've done wrong. In reading this I see my results were to be expected, but why would they recommend such low caloric intake for me? My metabolism has always been pretty high because I'm muscular, does this mean it's all messed up now? Does anyone know how many calories should I be eating to lose weight healthily?
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
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    I'm doing 30 Day Shred now. I'm on day 8 of level 1, so I'm hoping that doing that will help me out with the muscle toning. Honestly, I don't care if I lose 20 lbs or 5, I just don't want to look fat in a bikini in the Bahamas.

    There is no such thing as muscle toning. There is fat loss that exposes underlying muscle making it look more defined and there is muscle growth which will only occur at a caloric surplus not a deficit.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
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    OP in three weeks you have lost 3 pounds. How much of that is fat, how much of that is water? Honest answer is you don't know which means you don't know how much fat you have lost. You may have lost 5 pounds of fat and retained 2 pounds of water. You may have lost 1 pound of fat and shed 2 pounds of water. The only way to get an accurate read on your fat loss is to be consistent with your logging and track for months and months and months to establish what your weight loss trend is.

    You cannot really evaluate your fat loss on the basis of 3 weeks.
  • melaniecheeks
    melaniecheeks Posts: 6,349 Member
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    This is an old thread so I'm guessing the OP has returned from the cruise by now!

    SapphireStar, 1200 is the default minimum that MFP dishes out. Eating LESS than that for a period of time MIGHT mess with your metabolism, but 2 weeks, probably not.

    Did you tell MFP that you want to lose 2 pounds a week and are sedentary? If you dont have much to lose, pick a slower weight loss goal. And eat back some exercise calories.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
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    This is an old thread so I'm guessing the OP has returned from the cruise by now!

    Oh dammit, fooled again. I really suck at detecting old threads.
  • Marlena0708
    Marlena0708 Posts: 27 Member
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    It's possible to lose 20 lbs in 45 days; watch a few episodes of The Biggest Loser. 20 lbs in 6 weeks is nothing. You have to understand that losing that much weight in that amount of time will have to be a full-time occupation though. All day, every day your job will consist only of working out heavy - hours of cardio and strength training, high protein (to prevent muscle loss), high carb (to fuel workouts) diet. You won't be able to actually go to work or anything because you'll be in the gym all day 6 days a week. Sure, it can be done, but it will be very, very difficult and require max determination.

    Whether or not it SHOULD be done is a whole other topic; but, yes, it's certainly possible.

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