Dumb Question...

obliviousx3
obliviousx3 Posts: 36
edited September 22 in Food and Nutrition
This may be a dumb question, but help please!

How do you know how many calories your supposed to be eating? is there a chart somewhere or something?

im following this food chart from my sister's friends dietician, and ya ive done it before and stopped, but anyways im logging all my calories here on mfp and it says im not eating enough? or is the site just wrong? blah! idk what to think

Replies

  • angel79202
    angel79202 Posts: 1,012 Member
    the minimum you should be eating is 1200 calories, if you exercise it'll be more. I tend to eat 1/3 to 1/2 of my exercise calories above the 1200. Less than 1200, you put your body into starvation mode.
  • TayJoMama
    TayJoMama Posts: 348 Member
    When you setup your profile, it said what your daily goal is. And when you track your food, it's shown at the bottom in you total. It adjust when you add your exercise. For me my daily is 1200 before exercise.
  • LuckyLeprechaun
    LuckyLeprechaun Posts: 6,296 Member
    you should input your height, weight and goals, and let MFP calculate for you. If you exercise, you earn more calories. Follow the guidelines and you'll be off to a good start.
  • jyt2573
    jyt2573 Posts: 80
    Here is a good nutrition and calorie calculator.

    http://nutritiondata.self.com/tools/calories-burned

    That being said, nothing can beat the expert advice of a dietician who knows you. If you can find any way possible to just get in once to get a meal plan, it will give you all the tools you need to win this game. I tried losing weight on my own for three years and nothing worked until I started eating correctly. Now I'm working WITH my body, rather than against it.

    Good luck!
  • paigeski
    paigeski Posts: 17
    How many calories you need to eat is based on your BMR or your basal metabolic rate, or how many calories you need to order for your body to function-this does not include daily activity and is based on if you just sat and didn't move all day. Your BMR depends on height, weight, and other factors, I imagine-I'm not an expert on this. So, if you want to lose weight, you need to create a deficit. 3500 calories = 1 pound. So in one week if you burn/cut out 3500 calories, you'll lose 1 pound per week.

    For example, for me my BMR is approx 1890 calories/day. So, I cut 500 calories per day through eating right and exercise and that equates to about losing 1 lb/week. (Although it's going a little slower than that :) Slowly but surely!!)

    So, Myfitness pal calculates this for you when you input all your information in when you sign up. I think you should go off Myfitness Pal and not your sister's chart, she might have different needs than you. I have found Myfitness Pal is a great tool to figure out how many calories you need to burn/lose/cut in order to lose weight.

    Hopefully this helps and I answered your question. If anyone else wants, feel free to add!
  • obliviousx3
    obliviousx3 Posts: 36
    thanks everyone!!! and ya i am excercising. n have just been doing the 1200 calories, so i guess i should up them but then i feel bad like im cheating. ahhhhhh!
  • rawdefault
    rawdefault Posts: 66
    eating less than 1200 calories does NOT put you in starvation mode. who told you that? why did you believe them? sometimes a little research goes a long way ;)
  • SHBoss1673
    SHBoss1673 Posts: 7,161 Member
    How many calories you need to eat is based on your BMR or your basal metabolic rate, or how many calories you need to order for your body to function-this does not include daily activity and is based on if you just sat and didn't move all day. Your BMR depends on height, weight, and other factors, I imagine-I'm not an expert on this. So, if you want to lose weight, you need to create a deficit. 3500 calories = 1 pound. So in one week if you burn/cut out 3500 calories, you'll lose 1 pound per week.

    For example, for me my BMR is approx 1890 calories/day. So, I cut 500 calories per day through eating right and exercise and that equates to about losing 1 lb/week. (Although it's going a little slower than that :) Slowly but surely!!)

    So, Myfitness pal calculates this for you when you input all your information in when you sign up. I think you should go off Myfitness Pal and not your sister's chart, she might have different needs than you. I have found Myfitness Pal is a great tool to figure out how many calories you need to burn/lose/cut in order to lose weight.

    Hopefully this helps and I answered your question. If anyone else wants, feel free to add!

    I want to make sure you understand that BMR is not what you should be basing your weight loss on. BMR is the amount of calories your body uses WITHOUT taking into account any muscular use. I.E. the calories needed if you were in a coma and your brain were not dreaming (the brain actually uses quite a few calories per day to "think" you'd have to eliminate that portion to get a true BMR), also it doesn't account for the thermic effect of food (the energy it takes to digest food). So basically BMI is about 50 to 70% of the calories you need to maintain your current weight. It's not what most people should be using to base their weight loss on. People should be subtracting their goal deficit from their maintenance calories, based on what their body can afford to lose. I.E. if your BMR is 1850 then your maintenance calories are around 2500 to 2700, and if you want to lose 1.5 lbs per week you'd have a daily goal of 1840, or if you chose 1 lb per week it would be about 2000 or so.
  • SHBoss1673
    SHBoss1673 Posts: 7,161 Member
    eating less than 1200 calories does NOT put you in starvation mode. who told you that? why did you believe them? sometimes a little research goes a long way ;)

    the number won't necessarily put you there. Sometimes more can do it, sometimes less. For instance for me, sustained deficit of over 800 calories puts me in starvation mode (about 2000 calories), it depends on your body size, body fat %, and a host of other individualized statistics in the body.
  • rawdefault
    rawdefault Posts: 66
    exactly. one number doesn't fit us all :)
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