Please help me understand

:frown: Ok I read the post for Newbies and I went back through as if I were trying the site out again and it put me at 2400 calories with no exercise added. Now this is the same as I am at now with telling it I wanted to do 5 workouts a week for 30 min. Ok so If I read it correctly, I should just pay attention to the 2400 calories not the added calories I get when I exercise is this correct? That is if I want to lose weight. Now how important is it to reach that 2400? I haven't made it since Monday when I started following my diet again. Like today I am at 2050. Will that stall my weight or will I be ok there? I guess I am afraid to go as high as 2400. Maybe because I have had low calorie diets drilled into my head all of my life. Thanks for helping if you can!
Amy


Created by MyFitnessPal.com - Easy Calorie Counting

just an fyi from someone that's been there:bigsmile:

...Amy with the amount of weight you're looking to lose, 2400 is not too extreme in cals each day to eat. Yes it may sound like that in comparison to diets but MFP is not like being on a diet.:drinker: :bigsmile: If we keep that in mind it helps us realize that eating less is not necessarily better.

You are looking to lose over 200 lbs. so that calorie amount is about right....if MFP gave you that amount to use each every day I would give it a try and stick with it a bit before throwing in the towel so quickly and worrying if it's to much but that said we are all very different and one person may find they need a bit less if they are trying with the same goal as you. Another may find they are starving at that amount.

Eating healthy foods is much different than eating crappy simple carbs that are high in cals...eating a bag of chips will take you way past 2400 cals a day. So think on how much you used to eat in cals compared to the now 2400 you're allotted. I imagine it was more than 2400 a day?

If you see others that are eating 1200 cals that MFP gives them, there is most likely a reason, just click on their profile and they may be shooting for 17 lbs. or be shorter than you or a different age.

Please don't feel 2400 is way too much simply because someone else is given much lower amounts. Some on here are given much higher amounts it's all very individual on MFP, that's what makes this site so great.:flowerforyou:

Just keep this in mind as you lose weight you are allowed less cals..so today you may feel like WOW, too many or gee I shouldn't eat my allotted cals...I began a set amount over what yours are when I began, now I eat around 1400-1500 per day (I've now lost over 200 lbs doing it, so apparently it's working quite well for me , yes I need to update my ticker:laugh: ). I normally eat back 50% or so of my excercise cals (some eat 100% some 50-75%..it's important to make sure you are eating some back as you are burning even more being larger than a lighter person would but everyone should each back some, it's very important!) but I normally burn between 2300-2500 cals each time I hit the gym (5-6 days a week) and the days in between (rest day) I do a video on stretching, yoga everyday, that sort of thing.

I feel we all worry FAR TO MUCH about how much we're eating ....it's pretty simple really MFP has given us a great tool to work with (many in fact) to give us an idea how much to eat in a given day. If we trust the process starting out, it sure beats what we all used to do before finding MFP. :blushing: :laugh:

So don't worry if your number feels to big at the moment, you're a larger person, and you need to nourish your body in a different way than someone that weighs 120 lbs and is looking to lose 5 lb. See what I mean?:flowerforyou:

Society has drilled it into our heads that if a person is bigger they should never eat...it's deep in our minds that only small folks should eat. But going the healthy route you'll find your body is much happier being fueled in the amount it needs. Every vehicle needs good fuel, if the vehicle is smaller it won't hold as much fuel as a larger vehicle, a larger vehicle needs more fuel but a good/healthy fuel.

Ok, so hope something here gets into all of our brains because each day someone is worrying way to much if they are eating to much. :noway:

Hey people?!! We ate too much BEFORE MFP!! If we're following what we need to here...it's not too likely you're eating too much. Tweaking it is fine, but starving yourself might take lbs off quickly at first but your metabolism is gonna be totally messed up and take you much longer to get healthy and you'll even lose fat if you do it the right way vs. the fast fad diet way.:drinker: :bigsmile:

Great night to all,
FC

What I do know is that the less calories you eat the faster you should loose wt.

Thanks so much for all your comments. I am going to work on getting the 2400 in and see if it works. I tried this with Curves last year and lost 22 lbs at first because I got all of the calories in and worked out. Then I continued to work out but my calories kept falling because it takes a lot of extra planning and money to keep up good healthy snacks and meals at 2400 calories. So I will have to budget well and eat a lot of good foods and keep it up. I was trying to do the 3 hour diet with this but I think I will keep the concepts, eating every 3 hours and not 3 hours b4 bedtime but I will up the calories at meal times to reflect the extra 350 calories on here. I have read the other posts for help on boosting calories but they contain a lot of fat and I am already going over fat by adding walnuts and other healthy fats so I need to boost calories w/o boosting fat calories. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!
Amy :flowerforyou: