Can someone give me some advice here please??

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I decided to shift my calorie goal as of today to losing 0.5 pounds per week, which gives me a leway of eating 1800 calories a day. I work out about 5 days a week and do intense Jillian micheals workouts, pilates and yoga. I have no idea the number of calories that i am burning in my workouts, and I donot have a fitbit or heart rate monitor to check it. Am I going in the right direction? Any questions or comments? I was currently eating at 1550 calories, but I tend to go over because I am hungry most times.
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  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,575 Member
    edited April 2015
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    Are you just wanting to know if 1800 calories sounds correct? If so, then yes. For a young woman of your age, that sounds about right. It also sounds correct because you were going over 1550 due to hunger.
  • joejccva71
    joejccva71 Posts: 2,985 Member
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    Don't know all your stats but 5 days a week (1 hour a day i assume) workouts are probably putting you at a TDEE of about 2400-2500 calories a day. I assume you have a normal active lifestyle.

    1700-1800 is a good start. Keep it consistent.
  • Leana088
    Leana088 Posts: 581 Member
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    Only you can know if you go in the right direction. You have to wait and see if it makes a difference and what difference. If you gain, reduce calories.

    Just log what you do in the exercise, pilates and yoga. But eat only half the calories burned back, just in case you burned less than estimated.
  • conklinn
    conklinn Posts: 5 Member
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    You can get calorie calculators online fairly easily. Try searching for "calories burned" and look for a reputable site (such as Fitness magazine, or ACE). For weight loss, I try to NOT eat the extra calories MyFitnessPal gives me unless I'm super hungry. Its trial & error...I'm glad to see your adding calories rather than cutting back further. Most times the cutting back on calories will stall your efforts. For what its worth, I'm not an expert in the weight loss area, but I am a trained fitness instructor. Good luck!
  • krissyrey
    krissyrey Posts: 67 Member
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    I appreciate your quick responses. I am stoked! Thanks much. I will open my diary so you guys can take a peek at how I normally eat. This should give you a better way of answering my questions.
  • krissyrey
    krissyrey Posts: 67 Member
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    I have read so much about eating under 1200 calories and going into starvation mode. That is something that I never want to do to my body. That is the reason why I believe I should increase it. You see the thing is I dont log any exercise calories when I do my intense work outs. The only exercise calories I log is if i go walking or jogging and I track it on a cool app called accupedo. The problem is I know that I am burning, but I just dont know how much. I think that 1800 calories should be ok, and in the event that I burn 400-500 calories during my workouts, I will still be fueling my body and start losing weight once more. Any one has any ideas how many calories you can burn with jillian? Her workouts are insane but I love how she kicks my butt :).
  • joejccva71
    joejccva71 Posts: 2,985 Member
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    krissyrey wrote: »
    I have read so much about eating under 1200 calories and going into starvation mode. That is something that I never want to do to my body. That is the reason why I believe I should increase it. You see the thing is I dont log any exercise calories when I do my intense work outs. The only exercise calories I log is if i go walking or jogging and I track it on a cool app called accupedo. The problem is I know that I am burning, but I just dont know how much. I think that 1800 calories should be ok, and in the event that I burn 400-500 calories during my workouts, I will still be fueling my body and start losing weight once more. Any one has any ideas how many calories you can burn with jillian? Her workouts are insane but I love how she kicks my butt :).

    Well, a typical circuit training type workout for 30 mins burns about 350 calories. Just a rough estimate. But I don't even believe Jillian's workouts go non-stop for 1 hour straight. I've never done them so not 100% sure.

    If I were to guess, 600 for an hour sounds about right.
  • Leana088
    Leana088 Posts: 581 Member
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    Starvation mode doesn't exist. :) Some anorexics wouldn't look like skeletons if it did.

    If your body is severly underfed for a long time, it wouldn't hold on to fat, but it would certainly weaken. Bones and muscles will become weaker, your heart rate can become abnormal, hair would fall out, nails can break, organs will start giving trouble, immune system would weaken and you become sick quickly...the list just goes on and on.

    Starvation mode? Yeah, your body holding onto fat will be the least of your problems. :)
  • krissyrey
    krissyrey Posts: 67 Member
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    Wow that's pretty cool. Last night I did her body revolution work out 12 for 36 minutes, and then I did her killer abs right after for 32 minutes. Thats a total of 68 minutes. So you saying that the burn would be about 600 calories?!!! That would be so awesome!!!! I always tell myself that I burn no more than 350 calories in my workouts, to avoid over guessing. I am telling you 600 sounds superb!!! I am so working out tonight. Thanks much :)
  • joejccva71
    joejccva71 Posts: 2,985 Member
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    krissyrey wrote: »
    Wow that's pretty cool. Last night I did her body revolution work out 12 for 36 minutes, and then I did her killer abs right after for 32 minutes. Thats a total of 68 minutes. So you saying that the burn would be about 600 calories?!!! That would be so awesome!!!! I always tell myself that I burn no more than 350 calories in my workouts, to avoid over guessing. I am telling you 600 sounds superb!!! I am so working out tonight. Thanks much :)

    I mean it's guessing but I've been around the block enough to give it a close ballpark.
  • sofaking6
    sofaking6 Posts: 4,589 Member
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    joejccva71 wrote: »
    krissyrey wrote: »
    Wow that's pretty cool. Last night I did her body revolution work out 12 for 36 minutes, and then I did her killer abs right after for 32 minutes. Thats a total of 68 minutes. So you saying that the burn would be about 600 calories?!!! That would be so awesome!!!! I always tell myself that I burn no more than 350 calories in my workouts, to avoid over guessing. I am telling you 600 sounds superb!!! I am so working out tonight. Thanks much :)

    I mean it's guessing but I've been around the block enough to give it a close ballpark.

    You're (I'm assuming) a dude, though...OP may be better off cutting that back. I do Jillian style workouts and do not log more than 5 cal/minute. Granted that's in the interest of being 'safe' since I do eat them back, and also in the interest of honesty since I'm not in 'all out workout' shape yet...but still...I would say 450-500 for that 60 minutes at most.

  • joejccva71
    joejccva71 Posts: 2,985 Member
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    sofaking6 wrote: »
    joejccva71 wrote: »
    krissyrey wrote: »
    Wow that's pretty cool. Last night I did her body revolution work out 12 for 36 minutes, and then I did her killer abs right after for 32 minutes. Thats a total of 68 minutes. So you saying that the burn would be about 600 calories?!!! That would be so awesome!!!! I always tell myself that I burn no more than 350 calories in my workouts, to avoid over guessing. I am telling you 600 sounds superb!!! I am so working out tonight. Thanks much :)

    I mean it's guessing but I've been around the block enough to give it a close ballpark.

    You're (I'm assuming) a dude, though...OP may be better off cutting that back. I do Jillian style workouts and do not log more than 5 cal/minute. Granted that's in the interest of being 'safe' since I do eat them back, and also in the interest of honesty since I'm not in 'all out workout' shape yet...but still...I would say 450-500 for that 60 minutes at most.

    Yea good call. I don't know her workouts all that well, but I was ballpark'ing it based on circuit training and/or HIIT workouts, etc.
  • JordisTSM
    JordisTSM Posts: 359 Member
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    Good for you for eating at a reasonable level and not aiming for silly weight loss rates.

    Just had a quick nosy at your diary, and just a little bit of advice, but I would tighten up your logging a bit. Cups/pieces/slices etc are a very inaccurate way of measuring. If you can, buy yourself some digital kitchen scales and use database options that use grams. Much more likely to get an accurate calorie count that way. Don't use any 'generic' or 'homemade' entries unless you created the recipe yourself- otherwise you really have no idea of the ingredients or amounts that went into it.

    Good luck!
  • krissyrey
    krissyrey Posts: 67 Member
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    Ok I really appreciate all the responses that I have been getting. About how long you guys would recommend me staying at 1800 calories. Should I assess it after a week or two? Maybe a month?
  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,454 Member
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    OP I don't understand - why wouldn't you just use MFP the way it was designed? Enter your current stats, goal weight, an estimate of activity level. Let MFP figure out a calorie goal for you. Then use MFP to track your Calories In (food) and Calories Out (exercise). Many people find MFP calorie burns to be a little high for exercise so some people only eat back about 50% of them.

    If you do not want to eat back your exercise calories, then use the TDEE method, but again, just spend a little time figuring out an estimation of your TDEE before just randomly choosing 1800 cals as your deficit number.

  • joejccva71
    joejccva71 Posts: 2,985 Member
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    Kruggeri wrote: »
    OP I don't understand - why wouldn't you just use MFP the way it was designed? Enter your current stats, goal weight, an estimate of activity level. Let MFP figure out a calorie goal for you. Then use MFP to track your Calories In (food) and Calories Out (exercise). Many people find MFP calorie burns to be a little high for exercise so some people only eat back about 50% of them.

    If you do not want to eat back your exercise calories, then use the TDEE method, but again, just spend a little time figuring out an estimation of your TDEE before just randomly choosing 1800 cals as your deficit number.

    Well to be fair, MFP is a horrible goal tracker as far as telling you how many cals to eat.

    Yes it's a great "food tracker" where you can input your meals and track how many cals you're eating but other than that...meh.

    (no offense to the MFP gods) :)
  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,454 Member
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    joejccva71 wrote: »
    Kruggeri wrote: »
    OP I don't understand - why wouldn't you just use MFP the way it was designed? Enter your current stats, goal weight, an estimate of activity level. Let MFP figure out a calorie goal for you. Then use MFP to track your Calories In (food) and Calories Out (exercise). Many people find MFP calorie burns to be a little high for exercise so some people only eat back about 50% of them.

    If you do not want to eat back your exercise calories, then use the TDEE method, but again, just spend a little time figuring out an estimation of your TDEE before just randomly choosing 1800 cals as your deficit number.

    Well to be fair, MFP is a horrible goal tracker as far as telling you how many cals to eat.

    Yes it's a great "food tracker" where you can input your meals and track how many cals you're eating but other than that...meh.

    (no offense to the MFP gods) :)

    Fair point, but it has to be better than, "hey strangers that know nothing about me, do you think 1800 is a good goal?"

  • krissyrey
    krissyrey Posts: 67 Member
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    Just to give a heads up the 1800 calorie goal for me in MFP is if I want to lose 0.5 pounds every week as per the stats I put in. I tried to bring it to maintainance to see what the numbers would look like and it has me over 2000 calories. I just wanted to be sure what views everyone had on eating that amount of calories....... and trying to lose weight.
  • maasha81
    maasha81 Posts: 733 Member
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    I'm 5'4 and weigh 113 - 115 lbs most days. Jillian Michaels workouts used to be about 350 cals max on my hrm and I had to be giving it my all.
  • krissyrey
    krissyrey Posts: 67 Member
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    Yes thats an investment that I need to make pretty soon. I need to invest in a food scale, and a heart rate monitor. Im pretty sure if I had these tools handy, I would not be asking these silly questions :)