Help determining how many calories I should be eating

jaimie___o
jaimie___o Posts: 6
in Health and Weight Loss
Okay, I'm currently plateauing (and have been for the past two months) and considering reevaluating my calorie goal. I was wondering if someone could help me determine how many calories I should be netting each day. (I just need a general idea; I know it can be kind of hard to determine sometimes)
Here's my info
- female
- 18 years old
- height: 5'4"
- current weight: 135-137 lbs
- Body fat %: ~28%
- Goal weight: 120lbs (or a BF% less than 25 - which is kind of a shot in the dark; I don't know much about it)
And here's my activity that I do each week
- I just started week four of C25K
- Two days a week I do strength training in the circuit room for 20-30 minutes
- One day a week I spend 30 minutes on the rowing machine (burning around 250-270 calories per workout)
I'm currently eating 1700 calories a day, and I don't eat back my exercise calories. Is that too much/not enough? 0.5-1lb loss a week would be ideal for me.
Any help would be appreciated

Replies

  • Rocket_Man44
    Rocket_Man44 Posts: 896
    http://iifym.com/iifym-calculator/
  • Rocket_Man44
    Rocket_Man44 Posts: 896
    Your BMR is: 1554 , Your TDEE is: 2136

    Fat Loss:1816
    CALORIES/DAY


    Agressive Mode : 1709 Calories/Day
  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
    Plugging your numbers into a TDEE calculator I get somewhere in the range of 1820-1940 (depending on activity level). If so, you're at a deficit of 120-240 calories. It's possible that 1700 is too much for you or a small enough deficit that you're not going to see changes very rapidly. Sometimes when you're running a very small deficit it looks like you aren't losing weight because of the usual water weight fluctuations in your body that will mask your weight loss.

    My suggestion would be to get a food scale if you haven't already and make sure that you're logging as accurately a possible. Then start dropping your calories a little at a time (100 calories a week-ish) until you start seeing the results you want.
  • Rocket_Man44
    Rocket_Man44 Posts: 896
    Do HIIT as well
  • jaimie___o
    jaimie___o Posts: 6
    Plugging your numbers into a TDEE calculator I get somewhere in the range of 1820-1940 (depending on activity level). If so, you're at a deficit of 120-240 calories. It's possible that 1700 is too much for you or a small enough deficit that you're not going to see changes very rapidly. Sometimes when you're running a very small deficit it looks like you aren't losing weight because of the usual water weight fluctuations in your body that will mask your weight loss.

    My suggestion would be to get a food scale if you haven't already and make sure that you're logging as accurately a possible. Then start dropping your calories a little at a time (100 calories a week-ish) until you start seeing the results you want.

    Well when I first started MFP (which you can't see because I had to make a new account) it had me eating around 1500 calories a day. That worked great for about two months, and then I just stopped losing weight at the start of June. I recently practically doubled my level of physical activity, and I decided to increase my calorie intake a little bit to accommodate that (thus the 1700). Between then and now I have apparently gained almost four pounds (despite my measurements remaining unchanged). So are you suggesting that I drop my calories back down to ~1500-1600 and see what happens? My only worry is that it might be hard for me to stay at/under that without feeling miserable because I've noticed within the past two weeks or so that even at 1700 calories, I am hungry all the time O_O I can eat a bowl of cereal and a scrambled egg at 8:00 and be hungry again at 10:30.
  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
    Plugging your numbers into a TDEE calculator I get somewhere in the range of 1820-1940 (depending on activity level). If so, you're at a deficit of 120-240 calories. It's possible that 1700 is too much for you or a small enough deficit that you're not going to see changes very rapidly. Sometimes when you're running a very small deficit it looks like you aren't losing weight because of the usual water weight fluctuations in your body that will mask your weight loss.

    My suggestion would be to get a food scale if you haven't already and make sure that you're logging as accurately a possible. Then start dropping your calories a little at a time (100 calories a week-ish) until you start seeing the results you want.

    Well when I first started MFP (which you can't see because I had to make a new account) it had me eating around 1500 calories a day. That worked great for about two months, and then I just stopped losing weight at the start of June. I recently practically doubled my level of physical activity, and I decided to increase my calorie intake a little bit to accommodate that (thus the 1700). Between then and now I have apparently gained almost four pounds (despite my measurements remaining unchanged). So are you suggesting that I drop my calories back down to ~1500-1600 and see what happens? My only worry is that it might be hard for me to stay at/under that without feeling miserable because I've noticed within the past two weeks or so that even at 1700 calories, I am hungry all the time O_O I can eat a bowl of cereal and a scrambled egg at 8:00 and be hungry again at 10:30.

    Have you given your body some time to adjust to your changes in exercise and diet? I ask because increasing exercise or increasing calories can both result in some watet weight gain. It could take three or four weeks for your body to adapt and release that water.
  • bwogilvie
    bwogilvie Posts: 2,130 Member
    Have you given your body some time to adjust to your changes in exercise and diet? I ask because increasing exercise or increasing calories can both result in some watet weight gain. It could take three or four weeks for your body to adapt and release that water.

    This is possible; I appear to retain water temporarily when I increase my activity. But it usually lasts only a week or so.

    Are you currently eating 1700 net calories, or total? That is, are you eating back exercise calories. If you are, you might be overestimating your energy expenditure from exercise. MFP's database, and other resources that use the Compendium of Physical Activities (http://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/), often overestimate calorie burn, as do many exercise machines and even HRMs. As a reality check, I (a 46-year-old, 155-lb. guy) burned 1150 calories yesterday riding my bike at 16.4 mph for 2 hours and 5 minutes, i.e. 9.2 calories/minute, and that was going about as fast as I can sustain for that amount of time. That estimate comes from two sources, my Garmin Edge 800 GPS/HRM, which factors in my weight, speed, and the changing terrain as well as heart rate, and Strava, which analyzes weight, speed, and elevation independently of the HRM to estimate the total work done. They agreed within 2%, which makes me fairly confident in the estimate.
  • jaimie___o
    jaimie___o Posts: 6
    Have you given your body some time to adjust to your changes in exercise and diet? I ask because increasing exercise or increasing calories can both result in some watet weight gain. It could take three or four weeks for your body to adapt and release that water.

    This is possible; I appear to retain water temporarily when I increase my activity. But it usually lasts only a week or so.

    Are you currently eating 1700 net calories, or total? That is, are you eating back exercise calories. If you are, you might be overestimating your energy expenditure from exercise. MFP's database, and other resources that use the Compendium of Physical Activities (http://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/), often overestimate calorie burn, as do many exercise machines and even HRMs. As a reality check, I (a 46-year-old, 155-lb. guy) burned 1150 calories yesterday riding my bike at 16.4 mph for 2 hours and 5 minutes, i.e. 9.2 calories/minute, and that was going about as fast as I can sustain for that amount of time. That estimate comes from two sources, my Garmin Edge 800 GPS/HRM, which factors in my weight, speed, and the changing terrain as well as heart rate, and Strava, which analyzes weight, speed, and elevation independently of the HRM to estimate the total work done. They agreed within 2%, which makes me fairly confident in the estimate.

    Well it's been about three weeks since I made any changes to my exercise/eating habits. I upped my calories to 1700 right before I started C25K, and today will be my first day of week 4 for that. My total calories for the day is 1700; I'm never really sure about how many I'm netting. I don't eat back exercise calories due to the fact that I never enter my activity on MFP anymore. I haven't really figured out a way to determine how many calories I'm burning when I do the workouts for C25K (I don't know how fast I'm running or the distance I'm going, and it alternates between different periods of running and walking)
    And when I do the rowing machine I use the calculator on the concept2 website (typically the actual machine says that I burn around 300, but when I put it in the calculator on the site it usually says around 250), but I never put that in anymore either.
  • OllyJ_79
    OllyJ_79 Posts: 126 Member
    I had a look at your diary, it looks as though you are estimating weights and measures?

    Boar's Head - Chipotle Chicken Breast, 2 oz (56 g) 60 cals
    Pillsbury - All-purpose Flour, 0.03125 cup 14 Cal

    A normal chicken breast weights anything from 120-150g usually.

    Unless you are using a digital scale, you won't know how many calories you are consuming. Cups are only a good measuring device for liquid, so I'd say you probably aren't at a deficit. A plateau usually = eating at maintenance.
  • MinnieInMaine
    MinnieInMaine Posts: 6,400 Member
    While it's been 3 weeks that you've been doing C25K, so you'd think your body would have adjusted, with that type of program, you're upping the intensiity every week so you could still be retaining water from it - and as suggested, this is masking your weight loss.

    I believe the chicken breast OllyJ_79 questioned is sliced deli meat so it might be ok BUT, the question is valid. OP, are you weighing solid foods? Sometimes it helps to do that, at least once in a while, to make sure you're logging accurately. I've become pretty good at eyeballing but do weigh certain things more reguarly as I've found I underestimate, especially with fruits and meats.
  • jaimie___o
    jaimie___o Posts: 6
    I had a look at your diary, it looks as though you are estimating weights and measures?

    Boar's Head - Chipotle Chicken Breast, 2 oz (56 g) 60 cals
    Pillsbury - All-purpose Flour, 0.03125 cup 14 Cal

    A normal chicken breast weights anything from 120-150g usually.

    Unless you are using a digital scale, you won't know how many calories you are consuming. Cups are only a good measuring device for liquid, so I'd say you probably aren't at a deficit. A plateau usually = eating at maintenance.
    Yeah I don't have a scale and don't know if I could convince my mom to let me get one - I guess I can look into that
    The chicken breast is lunch meat though, and with a half a pound I can make 4 sandwiches, so that's what I based that on..
    But yes, you are right, for a lot of it is estimations. But that is what I've always done, and I didn't have any problems initially and lost almost 10 pounds doing so.
  • jaimie___o
    jaimie___o Posts: 6
    While it's been 3 weeks that you've been doing C25K, so you'd think your body would have adjusted, with that type of program, you're upping the intensiity every week so you could still be retaining water from it - and as suggested, this is masking your weight loss.

    I believe the chicken breast OllyJ_79 questioned is sliced deli meat so it might be ok BUT, the question is valid. OP, are you weighing solid foods? Sometimes it helps to do that, at least once in a while, to make sure you're logging accurately. I've become pretty good at eyeballing but do weigh certain things more reguarly as I've found I underestimate, especially with fruits and meats.
    The majority of the time (I'd say about 85% of the time), I use measuring cups. Green beans, spinach, liquids, cereals, I measure it all out. The rest i just have no way of measuring without a scale so I divide or eyeball (which I hate doing because I don't always trust myself)
  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
    While it's been 3 weeks that you've been doing C25K, so you'd think your body would have adjusted, with that type of program, you're upping the intensiity every week so you could still be retaining water from it - and as suggested, this is masking your weight loss.

    I believe the chicken breast OllyJ_79 questioned is sliced deli meat so it might be ok BUT, the question is valid. OP, are you weighing solid foods? Sometimes it helps to do that, at least once in a while, to make sure you're logging accurately. I've become pretty good at eyeballing but do weigh certain things more reguarly as I've found I underestimate, especially with fruits and meats.
    The majority of the time (I'd say about 85% of the time), I use measuring cups. Green beans, spinach, liquids, cereals, I measure it all out. The rest i just have no way of measuring without a scale so I divide or eyeball (which I hate doing because I don't always trust myself)

    Yeah, you're very likely eating more than you realize with this method. Possibly by enough to wipe out the deficit you think you have. I understand if you can't get a food scale (although they're fairly cheap and really useful). But if you can't weigh your food you'll have to adjust your portion sizes down by guesswork until you start losing again.
  • jaimie___o
    jaimie___o Posts: 6
    While it's been 3 weeks that you've been doing C25K, so you'd think your body would have adjusted, with that type of program, you're upping the intensiity every week so you could still be retaining water from it - and as suggested, this is masking your weight loss.

    I believe the chicken breast OllyJ_79 questioned is sliced deli meat so it might be ok BUT, the question is valid. OP, are you weighing solid foods? Sometimes it helps to do that, at least once in a while, to make sure you're logging accurately. I've become pretty good at eyeballing but do weigh certain things more reguarly as I've found I underestimate, especially with fruits and meats.
    The majority of the time (I'd say about 85% of the time), I use measuring cups. Green beans, spinach, liquids, cereals, I measure it all out. The rest i just have no way of measuring without a scale so I divide or eyeball (which I hate doing because I don't always trust myself)

    Yeah, you're very likely eating more than you realize with this method. Possibly by enough to wipe out the deficit you think you have. I understand if you can't get a food scale (although they're fairly cheap and really useful). But if you can't weigh your food you'll have to adjust your portion sizes down by guesswork until you start losing again.
    Well, I just tried to run getting a scale by my mom... didn't really work. She doesn't really understand the whole measuring thing and told me that I can look online for comparisons for portion sizes (you know, serving of meat equals a deck of cards, etc). I think my sister mentioned that she might have one that I can have though, so there's hope there.
    I guess I'll get that from her if I can or try to talk my dad into taking me and letting me get one with my own money. Then i can try religiously measuring everything to see if there's any change.

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