Help! I need to know how many calories to eat!
ryder1013
Posts: 14 Member
Hey everyone. I need some advice on how many calories to eat everyday. I am starting P90x3 today and I was going to aim for 1500 calories? I have been gaining 1/2 pound weekly at 1800 calories and no exercise. I aim to keep my carbs low not because I am into the low carb diet but just because I feel so much better when I can keep my blood sugar steady. Any advice would be great!! Currently 31 years old, 164lbs, 5'5".
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what are your goals? Are you trying to do a bulk/gain weight, or lose weight/body fat..??? your post does not really make that clear….0
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Hey everyone. I need some advice on how many calories to eat everyday. I am starting P90x3 today and I was going to aim for 1500 calories? I have been gaining 1/2 pound weekly at 1800 calories and no exercise. I aim to keep my carbs low not because I am into the low carb diet but just because I feel so much better when I can keep my blood sugar steady. Any advice would be great!! Currently 31 years old, 164lbs, 5'5".
It surprises me that with your stats you gain on 1800 cals. do you weigh everything with scales?0 -
My goal is to lose weight/body fat and add lean muscle.0
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TavistockToad, no I was not weighing everything. I was logging all my food at the end of the day and estimating some values. I have brought out my scale again. Weekends are my biggest downfall:(0
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My goal is to lose weight/body fat and add lean muscle.
well, you can't do both at the same time….
lose body fat = calorie deficit
gain muscle = calorie surplus
which is more important?
You can cut down to a lower body fat % and then do a bulk to gain muscle…or you can bulk and add some muscle and then cut down …but you can't do both at the same time...0 -
TavistockToad, no I was not weighing everything. I was logging all my food at the end of the day and estimating some values. I have brought out my scale again. Weekends are my biggest downfall:(
you're eating more than 1800 cals then.
why not put your numbers into MFP and see what it comes up with? that beign said, you cant really gain muscle and lose fat at the same time, unless you're just doing recomp, so i'd pick one or the other, or recomp.0 -
losing fat is more important at this point. Thanks so much for the input.0
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losing fat is more important at this point. Thanks so much for the input.
Ok..
I would suggest getting the food scale out again and weigh/log/measure everything.
calculate your TDEE and then deduct 250 for that for .5 pound per week loss, or 500 for 1 pound per week loss. Enter that number into MFP under custom goals and eat to that number…
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TDEE?? I guess I know less than I thought I did:-/0
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You can put your numbers in MFP, ignore the exercise, and then log something for the exercise you do (people will have ideas about what is proper to log for PX90). You will get more calories on the days you exercise (and probably pretty low calories on the days you don't unless you pick a lower weekly goal).
Or you can figure out your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure--in other words, what your maintenance calories would be) and then cut something off of that. TDEE includes the exercise you are doing. There are lots of calculators that estimate it, but then you have to adjust based on results.
For example, the Mifflin-St Jeor calculator at IIFYM.com (the same formula MFP uses to figure out your maintenance without exercise) says that your maintenance calories IF you are sedentary are about 1750, which isn't way off what you say your results are (you might be estimating a bit low).
It says that if you exercise 3x/week, your maintenance calories would be around 2000, and if 5x/week, around 2140, although obviously this is really rough since the exercise that people do varies a lot. If you want to aim for about 1 lb/week, you'd subtract 500 from your maintenance calories or lots of people do a percentage, say -20%.
There are lots of calculators, so it's really important to pick a number and see how it works and then adjust depending on that.0 -
This should help you.
http://www.acaloriecounter.com/diet/calorie-maintenance-calculator-daily-calorie-requirements/
If you're meticulous, about 50% of the population (speaking from a genetic standpoint) have had success with losing very little weight and gaining very little muscle at the same time by eating over your maintenance (about 10%) on workout days and below maintenance (by about 15-20%) on rest days, but it's challenging to say the least and not a guarantee. It's easier to diet down to your goal weight and then to eat slightly above maintenance to build muscle. Because of insulin sensitivity and a host of other metabolic and hormonal factors, building muscle with less fat gain is a lot easier when you're really lean. Anyway, it's all very complicated, just diet and then worry about muscle later, it's not worth the battle. The human body is such a dick.0 -
Thanks everyone! This is great information and very helpful. Genetics are not on my side so its hard not to get discouraged before I start! When I have tracked my calories on MFP before I never knew whether to eat the calories Ive burned. Say my goal is 1500 calories/day and I work out and burn 300 calories. Do I eat additional calories?0
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No, don't eat your calories back.
The only time I would say your activity level should factor in is if you start doing resistance training or something and you want to build muscle, then I would start worrying about eating more. If your primary goal is fat loss, determine your maintenance, then eat 15-20% less that amount to lose weight.
Let the diet do the work, no need for crazy amounts of cardio or anything. You can easily go in the wrong direction and start hindering your efforts rather than helping.
Sounds like a good plan for you would be to adopt a weight lifting routine 2-3 times per week and focus on establishing sound dietary habits.0 -
No, don't eat your calories back.
The only time I would say your activity level should factor in is if you start doing resistance training or something and you want to build muscle, then I would start worrying about eating more. If your primary goal is fat loss, determine your maintenance, then eat 15-20% less that amount to lose weight.
Let the diet do the work, no need for crazy amounts of cardio or anything. You can easily go in the wrong direction and start hindering your efforts rather than helping.
Sounds like a good plan for you would be to adopt a weight lifting routine 2-3 times per week and focus on establishing sound dietary habits.
if you are doing MFP method then you do eat your exercise calories back …TDEE method you would not...0 -
Thanks everyone! This is great information and very helpful. Genetics are not on my side so its hard not to get discouraged before I start! When I have tracked my calories on MFP before I never knew whether to eat the calories Ive burned. Say my goal is 1500 calories/day and I work out and burn 300 calories. Do I eat additional calories?
If you do MFP method then in your example you would eat 1800 - 300 burned = net 1500 ..
however - most MFP calorie burns are overestimated, so I would just eat back half..so in your example..
eat 1650 - 150 burned = 1500 net…
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No, don't eat your calories back.
The only time I would say your activity level should factor in is if you start doing resistance training or something and you want to build muscle, then I would start worrying about eating more. If your primary goal is fat loss, determine your maintenance, then eat 15-20% less that amount to lose weight.
Let the diet do the work, no need for crazy amounts of cardio or anything. You can easily go in the wrong direction and start hindering your efforts rather than helping.
Sounds like a good plan for you would be to adopt a weight lifting routine 2-3 times per week and focus on establishing sound dietary habits.
if you are doing MFP method then you do eat your exercise calories back …TDEE method you would not...
I find the idea of eating your calories back to be ineffective since energy expenditure during training is usually grossly misrepresented but having never used the MFP system, I shouldn't really comment on it.
But to the OP, you should experiment and stick with what gives you success. No one process works for everyone and no one is completely right about any one topic.
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No, don't eat your calories back.
The only time I would say your activity level should factor in is if you start doing resistance training or something and you want to build muscle, then I would start worrying about eating more. If your primary goal is fat loss, determine your maintenance, then eat 15-20% less that amount to lose weight.
Let the diet do the work, no need for crazy amounts of cardio or anything. You can easily go in the wrong direction and start hindering your efforts rather than helping.
Sounds like a good plan for you would be to adopt a weight lifting routine 2-3 times per week and focus on establishing sound dietary habits.
if you are doing MFP method then you do eat your exercise calories back …TDEE method you would not...
I find the idea of eating your calories back to be ineffective since energy expenditure during training is usually grossly misrepresented but having never used the MFP system, I shouldn't really comment on it.
But to the OP, you should experiment and stick with what gives you success. No one process works for everyone and no one is completely right about any one topic.
I hear ya ..I do not do MFP method, but my understanding is that it already has a deficit built into the number that it gives you. So if your number is 1500 and that is a 500 calorie deficit and you work out and burn something and do not eat some of it back then you are going to be in a larger deficit then what MFP is recommending..
I personally prefer TDEE method, because once you figure out your deficit, maintenance, and surplus numbers it is pretty easy to lose, gain, maintain...0 -
One last comment to the OP, something I find very important to communicate to women looking to lean up is that fat loss is not a linear process and if you find success with one eating/exercise pattern for a couple weeks and then stall, don't be discouraged.
I've seen clients go through 5 pound whooshes overnight and you probably will, too. This may sound silly, but I find that a good way to monitor your progress is to buy a pair of snug pants and then monitor how they fit each week in waist and legs. Unless of course you are very good at eyeballing your body composition, then just do that.
A little anecdotal advice for you, which is usually a horrible idea but take it with a grain of Splenda.0
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