Help...are my calories to low?

Go to this website: http://iifym.com/tdee-calculator/

That is a BMR and TDEE calculator. Your BMR is your Basal Metabolic Rate, the amount of calories you need to eat just for your body to function. TDEE is Total Daily Energy Expenditure, which is the amount of calories you'd need to eat to maintain your weight. Take your TDEE and subtract 20%. This is the amount you should be eating (net) in order to lose weight. If it's similar to what MFP gave you, stick to it. If it's different, I would change your goal to the number from the site.

From what you've posted and how many pounds you need to lose, you might be eating too little.

6 days is not long enough to tell if it's working. You don't gain or lose weight overnight. Keep going and you will see a difference!

As above - you are supposed to eat back at least 75% of your exercise calories. For more info see:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants

So there are many bad things that can happen if you eat too little food but staying the same weight is not one of them.

I eat between 1700-1900 calories a day and burn between 1000-3000 calories a day riding my bike around for a few hours. I'm losing weight just fine. If anyone was going to be in "starvation mode" based on negative net calories it would be me.

A few big issues when people start using MFP seem to be:

Logging everything properly. If you are new to MFP you probably don't have a food scale and weigh and measure everything you eat. For all intents and purposes, unless you weigh and measure everything you eat you are just guessing at your calories. I was about 500 calories off on my guessing when I started.

New foods and exercise commonly cause the body to store more or less water depending on what it thinks it needs. This water weight will ALWAYS move the scale more at first than any fat loss. Some people think they gained or lost 5 pounds of fat in a few days. They did not. Their body just held onto or let go of some water to deal the changes being made.

Last but not least is patience. Folks want to see immediate results but the above can slow stuff down for a while. Eventually when you eat less and move more you will lose weight. It's a 100% proven system so it will always work.

Hope this helps a little!

I just calculated my TDEE and BMR and that's what came out:


Your BMR is:
1792 Calories/Day
Your TDEE is:
2151

So I should be eating 2151 less 20% = 1720 calories, that's 300 more than what I got through mfp

And If I for example burn 500 calories through exercise I should eat back 75% of that? So that would be another 375 calories.

That would be a total calories intake of 2095 a day? That seems a lot though.

If you use TDEE, then you don't eat back exercise calories. You would eat 1720 and that is it (unless you have a higher than average activity day).

If you follow MFP, then you eat the 1400 plus exercise calories (even at the full 500). That would put you around 1900. Since you probably don't exercise everyday, that would put you at 1900 on some days, 1400 on others. Averaged over the week it will likely come pretty close to the 1700/day. .

Both formulas, if figured correctly, will put you in the same place pretty much (especially when averaged over the week). It is two different paths to the same end.

That is only part of the equation - accurate logging is the other part.

If you just started working out, the 2 pounds may be due to water weight. Any time you start an exercise program (when you haven't been active at all) or increase the intensity of your workouts (go farther, faster, higher weight, etc), the muscles will retain glycogen and water as part of the natural healing process. Basically any time you're sore from a workout, you can almost guarantee a stall or slight gain on the scale.

Water weight can also come from high sodium intake, monthly hormone fluctuations, etc.

As others pointed out, you may want to consider weighing your food if you're not already doing that. Measuring cups and spoons are ok but there tend to be a lot of inaccuracies with that method. For instance, you can stuff a lot of soft cheese into a 1/4 cup measure so you end up getting more than one serving. Also be careful of listings for recipes as they may use different ingredients or different portions of ingredients than you do. Use the recipe builder to create your own.

Good luck!

you do not eat back the calories you exercised off
another tip is to drink lots lots lots more water