Desperate for help, just getting more confused

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stephaaniiexo
stephaaniiexo Posts: 2
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi everyone! I'm new to this forum and I know a lot of people are asking for help with numbers but I'm just getting more confused the more research I do. I'll tell you a bit about me. I'm 22 years old, 5ft tall and I currently weigh 103 pounds. I used to just eat whatever I wanted and never worked out and stayed fairly thin, around 95 pounds but for the past few months, I ate mostly fast food and I noticed weight gain. I started eating healthier for a few weeks, but when I started calculating my average calorie intake a few days ago, I noticed it was around 500 calories a day and I knew that couldn't be healthy. I'm not sure how long I've been eating that way, I just ate whenever I was hungry.

I did some research and found this site. I calculated my bmi which is 1136 and ate back my exercise calories. I've been working out for about 45 minutes a night, a mix of strength and cardio circuit training. I've been doing this for a few days and I'm having a really hard time eating my maintenance calories. I literally just feel like I'm binging. I feel bloated and disgusting. This just feels like I'm going backwards.

Anyways I know that I'm retaining a lot of water weight repairing my metabolism, but I'm just so uncomfortable all the time. I don't even feel like I'm doing this right. If someone has a few minutes and could help me figure out the numbers I would appreciate that so much :)

Replies

  • Booda101
    Booda101 Posts: 161 Member
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    If you're only eating 500 calories a day, you are eating way too little! Doing that over an extended time will have a negative impact on your health.

    Your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) is the amount of calories needed to sustain you if you were in a coma. Your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) is the amount of calories you burn in a day living, doing things, exercising.

    You are already at the very low end of the healthy weight chart and should really evaluate why you want to get below 100 pounds (not a healthy weight).
  • focused4health
    focused4health Posts: 154 Member
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    Your BMI (Body Mass Index) is around 20.1 which is a normal range. Your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) 1282. :bigsmile:

    Open up your diary and maybe you will get some suggestions on improving nutrition. :bigsmile:
  • stephaaniiexo
    stephaaniiexo Posts: 2
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    Okay I suppose I was a bit confused on what bmr actually was. I thought it was the amount of calories you would need for daily activities if you didn't exercise. So I should eat my tdee to lose weight? I guess I want to lose because the fat seems more compact on a small frame. I can grab quite a handful at my waist and upper thighs. I'm not sure if weight training alone would get rid of that but yeah thank you for your replies!

    Also just want to add - I've stopped eating 500 calories and have been eating what I thought was my bmr for the last week or so. I never paid attention to what I ate until recently so I'm not sure how many calorie on average Ive been consuming all my life. I just feel very bloated all the time now. Don't have a scale available at the minute but I'm sure I've gained
  • mazdauk
    mazdauk Posts: 1,380 Member
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    If you don't have a scale, use what you do have - your clothes! Are they tighter than normal? As others have said, you are on a low end of a healthy weight. If you feel flabby, exercise will make you firmer (not just actual weights - zumba has had a great effect on my legs and is great fun). However, feeling bloated could be caused by other than just weight/water retention, so I suggest you see your Doctor for advice (including how much to eat).
  • IronPhyllida
    IronPhyllida Posts: 533 Member
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    Lol well this place will make you even more confused :)
  • axenosher
    axenosher Posts: 3 Member
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    You are confused because you never needed to worry about calories before. So now is the time to learn. May I suggest that you use the food diary on this myfitnespal website. It lets you select foods from a massive database and give you calories for each item. For example, I just looked up the calories for a typical McDonald's meal: Cheeseburger (295), medium coke (153) and medium fries (330). That's already almost 800 calories in one sitting. Just go to 'check-in under 'my home', assuming you've signed in.

    You can also set your personal goals in terms of target weight, daily calories, measurements of certain body areas and exercise.

    Good luck!
  • JosieRawr
    JosieRawr Posts: 788 Member
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    Lots of info in the first link- best to read when you have enough time to really go through the links...

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

    and
    http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator for BMR(which you should not be eating under) and TDEE(which would put you at and estimated maintenance)


    If you think you have been undereating for an extended period of time I would recommend going to maintenance for 2-3 weeks to give your body a chance to realize that there's plenty of food around and that you are not actually starving.

    Also at your weight I would guess that if anything you may be seeing yourself as skinny fat, which is, in fact, not fat at all, it would just mean that you are lacking the muscles to appear fit. Again- skinny fat is not fat and losing additional weight will likely make you look bony, not healthy.

    If you would like to appear healthy and fit, you would probably benefit from a bulk cycle(which is eating at a slight surplus(extra 100-200 calories a day) while doing resistance training- body weight or weight lifting)
  • moglovesshoez
    moglovesshoez Posts: 83 Member
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    Changing your diet from Junk to healthy can sometimes leave you feeling bloated while your body gets used to digesting real food again instead of smush.

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