Daily calorie limit - advice and opinions please! xx

blobby10 · January 2015

HI all, Over the past year I've been working really hard on my fitness and doing lots more with weights but am still struggling to lose weight and would love to get some opinions on whether my calorie allowance is too low/high. I know I eat too much sugar, (chocolate) but only eat fast/processed food about once a month (Chinese or fish and chips). I drink 3-4 litres of water daily plus 4 mugs of coffee and 3 or 4 of peppermint tea. Alcoholic drinks are gin and slimline tonic. Diet generally the same each day - 50g porridge for breakfast made with water, banana. lunch is salad with quinoa/couscous/wholewheat pasta (50g dry weight) and ham or chicken or houmous. Evening meal is repetitive as I have a husband and children with boring tastes so spaghetti bolognaise or slow cooker chicken casserole, slow cooker beef casserole, chicken stirfry, jacket potatoes with beans etc. All home cooked, no added fat or salt during cooking.
Healthy snacks are apples or ski mousse or greek yoghurt. Unhealthy snacks are biscuits which I honestly record each one eaten. Cakes are always homemade.

I'm in the gym by 5,15am every day Monday to Friday and typically will do 20 min cardio, 45-60 minutes weights then 10 mins cardio. I am dripping with sweat all the time.

Tuesday, Weds and Thursday evening I play or coach touch rugby, minimal energy exertion (I rarely sweat) but I am moving around constantly.

Saturday morning I run cross country with the dogs between 4 and 5 miles.

Sunday I have a rest from specific 'exercise' but am on my feet most of the day, housework, rugby coaching and suchlike.

My 9-5 job is sedentary and deskbound although I do move about if I can.

I'm 5ft 9" and currently weight around 172lbs. Net calorie intake over the past 3 months of around 1600 per day (yes, including weekends I do track religiously! except for 4 das over Christmas) has netted no weight loss.
Total calorie intake over the past 10 days of 1600 calories (yes, honestly!) has netted no weight loss. Am I hoping for the impossible in aiming to get down to 154lbs? I have dropped a dress size over the past year but need to shift the spare flab around my middle.

Liftng4Lis · January 2015

You have a LOT of homemade in your diary (only looked at 3 days). Where are these coming from? Are you using a food scale?

Metazoick · January 2015

I had a longer look through your diary and I see quite a few quick add calories at 500/250 a pop. I find it very unlikely that whatever you have that there for rounds up to exactly those numbers, plus when you just quick add the calories you can't track other important things like protein/fat. What are these for?

blobby10 · January 2015

Hi, many of my recipes I have actually weighed and measured out so am confident in the calorie content - the home made lasagne calorie count was a shocker!! My evening meals I estimate at around 450-500 calories (those are the quick added ones) and this is where I have a jacket potato (200g) with the scrapings of the casserole after the piranhas have had their bit! I'm confident that I am slightly over estimating knowing the portions i'm usually left with

Metazoick · January 2015

If you think you're at a calorie deficit while guessing calories and you aren't losing weight, you may be off. For a few weeks at least I'd track your evening meals properly - it'll be a lot more exact and will help you track the non calorie aspect too. I'd also advise you do things like weigh out the potato you use etc each time - I can find pretty big fluctuations within a pack. For things like veggies the exact grams each time doesn't really matter, but past stuff like that it's best not to be rounding if something seems off by assuming something is, say, 50g again.

blobby10 · January 2015

Metazoick - The 500 cals a pop entries are evening meals as explained above. The smaller numbers are my guesstimate if I've been nibbling -a carrot here, a fingerful of raw cake mix there. I know my diet can be improved and im working on that (day 10 now of no (or way way less than before) sugar, chocolate or biscuits!) ,.

My main query is what level I should be setting my calorie allowance at!

blobby10 · January 2015

MrM27 - I understand that but my question is, given my level of exercise, lack of activity during the day, age, height etc, what should the ideal daily calorie allowance be? I've tried 1300, I've tried 1600 I've tried 2000 - admittedly the two former were netting those amounts after allowing 300 for exercise - maybe I should try them as my total calorie intake? This is why I asked for advice from people with more experience than I!

pinkiezoom · January 2015

Hi there, i think what has been written above is correct, you must be getting more cals than you think. But to answer your actual question about your calorie allowance, here is my week, ( my diary is open if you wish to look ) i eat 1760 a day, or at least try to, sometimes i am a little over sometimes under, but on average that is what i eat, i am only 5ft 5 and weigh 199lbs, i go to the gym 4-6 times a week, mainly cardio but with a bit of weights sometimes, i am losing a constant 2lbs a week. So i know i am burning more than i am eating. ( my diary is full of cheesecake and all sorts, so the type of food is not that relevant as i am doing a lifestyle change so it has to be sustainable ).
Have you taken body measurements? sometimes when the scale doesnt move you might find you are still shrinking. I take mine once a month.
I think as suggested really logging every would be a good idea, even if just for a week, for example 20g of butter is a real eye opener and all these little things can quickly add up!
Good luck x

Metazoick · January 2015

If you want to know how much you should be eating, try: http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/ to work out your BMR. This is roughly how many calories you burn if you did nothing all day, just what you need to keep functioning.
There's also this: http://iifym.com/tdee-calculator/ which is your TDEE, which takes into account your BMR and activity level etc and gives you an estimate of how much you're *actually* burning off each day. If you want to lose weight first aim for 10-20% taken off your TDEE, so you'll be in a deficit, but dont start out under that (you still need calories for energy after all).

While these numbers are obviously helpful, I'd still very strongly advise weighing out and putting down everything, and *not* guessing. If we could simply and accurately guess how much we eat, nobody would need this site, and you may surprise yourself with what the numbers end up being. It's also important to note that most estimates of what you burn off while exercising, either through heart rate or estimation, tend to round up a lot - take those numbers with a hefty pinch of salt, in practice you're probably burning off less (but the TDEE accounts for this anyway so you wouldn't need to eat back calories if using it).

blobby10 · January 2015

Ok everyone, thank you so much for all your tips and feedback. Guess I need to be patient and start measuring me and weighing food more often! x

Thanks again x

janezeeb · January 2015

I'm bad at math so I have a question for Metazoick about the BMR and TDEE. At the end of the day, to loose weight, does this mean my calorie intake, regardless of how many calories I can add for exercise done, should be 20% less than my TDEE number?

Phrick · January 2015

blobby10 wrote: »

Ok everyone, thank you so much for all your tips and feedback. Guess I need to be patient and start measuring me and weighing food all the time! x

Thanks again x

bolded 1) always the hard part
bolded 2) fify - weighing your food only sometimes means you'll only be accurate sometimes. So I guess you can weigh it only sometimes but if you don't see results, buckle down and weigh ALL your foods, ALL the time. If you are only willing to put in half the work, no complaining allowed when you don't get the results you want!

Daily calorie limit - advice and opinions please! xx

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