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How many kilojoule/calories per day?

AusManok74
AusManok74 Posts: 38 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi all, I'm 42 and I've been calorie/kj counting using mfp for over 220 days now and it's really made a change to my life. I've dropped over 21kg. I still need to lose another 10kg to get below overweight using bmi as a guide.

So anyway I'm doing cardio daily and weights 4 to 5 days a week and I'm struggling to figure out how many kilojoules I should be aiming for. Using mfp I've been on 6276kj since I started. That was using the most aggressive settings in terms of weight loss and lack of exercise. Looking at other suggestions online I'm getting up to 8000 as my suggested kj per day but that seems too high to me. Can anyone suggest how I can work it out? Thanks for your help.

Replies

  • __TMac__
    __TMac__ Posts: 1,669 Member
    If you could do a quick KJ-to-calorie conversion, that would be useful. You might get more responses. I'd like to help but it's too early in the morning for math. ;)
  • DanLoginov
    DanLoginov Posts: 19 Member
    Refrain from doing alot of cardio, 2 days a week at high intensity is all you need. Do weight training, you will not put on muscle while at caloric deficit. Change up your exercise routine frequently (1-2 weeks).

    Find your BMR, maintenance calories and work out a deficit (5-25%) and check out Scoobysworkshop.com for diet plans (custom diet plans) as it gives you everything you need to know (daily macronutrients, grams of food and other useful statistics). The website is free.
  • DanLoginov
    DanLoginov Posts: 19 Member
    DanLoginov wrote: »
    Refrain from doing alot of cardio, 2 days a week at high intensity is all you need. Do weight training, you will not put on muscle while at caloric deficit. Change up your exercise routine frequently (1-2 weeks).

    Find your BMR, maintenance calories and work out a deficit (5-25%) and check out Scoobysworkshop.com for diet plans (custom diet plans) as it gives you everything you need to know (daily macronutrients, grams of food and other useful statistics). The website is free.

    Use Harris benedict model to find out maintenance calories and the website for deficit calories.
  • __TMac__
    __TMac__ Posts: 1,669 Member
    Not to knock the above suggestion, but I don't think it needs to be that complicated. Why not trust the MFP settings, and adjust based on whether your body is responding as you want?
  • robertw486
    robertw486 Posts: 2,398 Member
    AusManok74 wrote: »
    Hi all, I'm 42 and I've been calorie/kj counting using mfp for over 220 days now and it's really made a change to my life. I've dropped over 21kg. I still need to lose another 10kg to get below overweight using bmi as a guide.

    So anyway I'm doing cardio daily and weights 4 to 5 days a week and I'm struggling to figure out how many kilojoules I should be aiming for. Using mfp I've been on 6276kj since I started. That was using the most aggressive settings in terms of weight loss and lack of exercise. Looking at other suggestions online I'm getting up to 8000 as my suggested kj per day but that seems too high to me. Can anyone suggest how I can work it out? Thanks for your help.

    MFP is designed to calculate for you based on your weight loss settings. If you are logging your food correctly and accurately, then you move to your workouts which can be a bit trickier to be precise with since effort and power measures are rarely exact.

    For that reason use the numbers as a guide and adjust where needed. If your food logging is good, chances are you could be overestimating your workout calories burns.


    As for actual numbers, for anyone to really help on that we would need your weight and loss goals. If you open up your diary that would also let people look at your exercise logs to potentially point out possible issues.
  • middlehaitch
    middlehaitch Posts: 8,487 Member
    Ok a quick conversion with questions.

    You have been eating 1500 cals (6276) as per MFP sedentary calculations. without exercise, are a male in his 40's.

    You are now exercising and off site calculators are advising 1900 cals (8000) Is this with exercise? If so that is reasonable, if not a little low given the exercise you have stated above.

    I would either go with the 8000 and see how your weight loss progresses, or stick to your MFP calories and eat back 75% of your calorie burn. With either of them you may have to do some adjustments depending on your results. Calculators are only estimates.

    Also be aware that because you took the lowest calories MFP would give you, you have no room to move those calories any lower and your weight loss will naturally slow as you reach your goal.

    With 10kg to go look at losing between .25-.5kg a week.

    Cheers, h.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,072 Member
    If you've been counting kj for 220 days, why not just trust your own data? If you've been losing weight at the rate you want, stick with what you've been doing.
  • blambo61
    blambo61 Posts: 4,372 Member
    edited January 2017
    1kcal = 0.239006 kj
    1kj = 4.184 Kcal

    6276kj = 26,258.78kcal
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 25,434 Member
    TmacMMM wrote: »
    If you could do a quick KJ-to-calorie conversion, that would be useful. You might get more responses. I'd like to help but it's too early in the morning for math. ;)

    Divide by 4.

  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 25,434 Member
    AusManok74 wrote: »
    Hi all, I'm 42 and I've been calorie/kj counting using mfp for over 220 days now and it's really made a change to my life. I've dropped over 21kg. I still need to lose another 10kg to get below overweight using bmi as a guide.

    So anyway I'm doing cardio daily and weights 4 to 5 days a week and I'm struggling to figure out how many kilojoules I should be aiming for. Using mfp I've been on 6276kj since I started. That was using the most aggressive settings in terms of weight loss and lack of exercise. Looking at other suggestions online I'm getting up to 8000 as my suggested kj per day but that seems too high to me. Can anyone suggest how I can work it out? Thanks for your help.

    Use the information MFP gives you and eat 50-75% of your calories back.

    If you feel like you're losing too fast, then up your kj a little bit. It doesn't have to be 6276 or 8000 ... it can be 6500 or some other number you like. Try that for a while, see how it goes, and adjust as necessary.

  • AusManok74
    AusManok74 Posts: 38 Member
    DanLoginov wrote: »
    Refrain from doing alot of cardio, 2 days a week at high intensity is all you need. Do weight training, you will not put on muscle while at caloric deficit. Change up your exercise routine frequently (1-2 weeks).

    Find your BMR, maintenance calories and work out a deficit (5-25%) and check out Scoobysworkshop.com for diet plans (custom diet plans) as it gives you everything you need to know (daily macronutrients, grams of food and other useful statistics). The website is free.

    Thanks Dan, I'm curious as to why you'd suggest doing Cardio only twice a week, my first thought is that would reduce my weight loss and fitness level, but I'm sure you have a reason behind this. Any suggestions are always appreciated.
  • AusManok74
    AusManok74 Posts: 38 Member
    lynn_glenmont wrote: »
    If you've been counting kj for 220 days, why not just trust your own data? If you've been losing weight at the rate you want, stick with what you've been doing.

    Thanks, I have until now, the only reason I'm thinking about this is that I'm wanting to try and get a balance of not losing too much muscle as I get closer to my goal weight. If I use some online calculators, such as the one at 8700.com.au it suggests 9400kj per day which seems way too high to me. Anyway, I've upped my kj slightly to 6900 now and I'm seeing how that works out.
  • AusManok74
    AusManok74 Posts: 38 Member
    Machka9 wrote: »
    AusManok74 wrote: »
    Hi all, I'm 42 and I've been calorie/kj counting using mfp for over 220 days now and it's really made a change to my life. I've dropped over 21kg. I still need to lose another 10kg to get below overweight using bmi as a guide.

    So anyway I'm doing cardio daily and weights 4 to 5 days a week and I'm struggling to figure out how many kilojoules I should be aiming for. Using mfp I've been on 6276kj since I started. That was using the most aggressive settings in terms of weight loss and lack of exercise. Looking at other suggestions online I'm getting up to 8000 as my suggested kj per day but that seems too high to me. Can anyone suggest how I can work it out? Thanks for your help.

    Use the information MFP gives you and eat 50-75% of your calories back.

    If you feel like you're losing too fast, then up your kj a little bit. It doesn't have to be 6276 or 8000 ... it can be 6500 or some other number you like. Try that for a while, see how it goes, and adjust as necessary.

    Thanks, my weight loss has been fairly steady so far, with a few peaks and troughs as I'm sure is normal. I've just upped my kj count to 6900 to see how that works out.
  • AusManok74
    AusManok74 Posts: 38 Member
    middlehaitch wrote: »
    Ok a quick conversion with questions.

    You have been eating 1500 cals (6276) as per MFP sedentary calculations. without exercise, are a male in his 40's.

    You are now exercising and off site calculators are advising 1900 cals (8000) Is this with exercise? If so that is reasonable, if not a little low given the exercise you have stated above.

    I would either go with the 8000 and see how your weight loss progresses, or stick to your MFP calories and eat back 75% of your calorie burn. With either of them you may have to do some adjustments depending on your results. Calculators are only estimates.

    Also be aware that because you took the lowest calories MFP would give you, you have no room to move those calories any lower and your weight loss will naturally slow as you reach your goal.

    With 10kg to go look at losing between .25-.5kg a week.

    Cheers, h.

    Thanks for your thoughts. Yes the 8000kj was including exercise, I've also had other suggestions from online calculators up to about 9400kj. Generally I haven't been eating back my calories/kj from exercise at all, except on a very few days when I've had to attend a party or some other out of the ordinary reason. I'm thinking that maybe I've been too aggressive on my calories, but 21kg over more than six months isn't that rapid for weight loss I wouldn't have thought? Anyway as I've posted in one or two other replies I'm trying to up my kj a little and see how that goes, so far so good!
  • AusManok74
    AusManok74 Posts: 38 Member
    robertw486 wrote: »
    AusManok74 wrote: »
    Hi all, I'm 42 and I've been calorie/kj counting using mfp for over 220 days now and it's really made a change to my life. I've dropped over 21kg. I still need to lose another 10kg to get below overweight using bmi as a guide.

    So anyway I'm doing cardio daily and weights 4 to 5 days a week and I'm struggling to figure out how many kilojoules I should be aiming for. Using mfp I've been on 6276kj since I started. That was using the most aggressive settings in terms of weight loss and lack of exercise. Looking at other suggestions online I'm getting up to 8000 as my suggested kj per day but that seems too high to me. Can anyone suggest how I can work it out? Thanks for your help.

    MFP is designed to calculate for you based on your weight loss settings. If you are logging your food correctly and accurately, then you move to your workouts which can be a bit trickier to be precise with since effort and power measures are rarely exact.

    For that reason use the numbers as a guide and adjust where needed. If your food logging is good, chances are you could be overestimating your workout calories burns.


    As for actual numbers, for anyone to really help on that we would need your weight and loss goals. If you open up your diary that would also let people look at your exercise logs to potentially point out possible issues.

    Hi, thanks your suggestions. I've now set my diary to be viewable by friends, I'm not really sure whether opening it up to everyone is a good or a bad idea, but I'm more than happy to add you or anyone who wants to have a look over it. In regards to food logging I've tried to be very accurate, but I'm sure there are times when a few things have slipped through. For instance on Christmas day I intentionally didn't log everything, hopefully I didn't overdo it too much!

    I've been logging my steps through Google Fit on my smartwatch to hopefully get a reasonably accurate step count, but I haven't logged many of my workouts which probably isn't that helpful. I should really try and do that in future. In terms of goals I'm currently aiming to get to 72kg, which for my height is the top end of what the BMI considers a "healthy" weight. I know BMI isnt' entirely accurate, but I've used it as a guide, I'm sure I'll adjust my goals a little as I get closer.

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