How many calories when disabled?

Michelle7897
Michelle7897 Posts: 108 Member
edited November 19 in Health and Weight Loss
I need to lose about 60 pounds. I am 5 ft 4 in but completely sedentary and must use a wheel chair some days due to health issues. How many calories should I be eating since I can't exercise? I have been eating between 1000 and 1200 the past 2 weeks and have lost 7.2 pounds. Is it okay to eat that little considering I won't burn much?

Replies

  • earlnabby
    earlnabby Posts: 8,171 Member
    Michelle7897 wrote: »
    I need to lose about 60 pounds. I am 5 ft 4 in but completely sedentary and must use a wheel chair some days due to health issues. How many calories should I be eating since I can't exercise? I have been eating between 1000 and 1200 the past 2 weeks and have lost 7.2 pounds. Is it okay to eat that little considering I won't burn much?

    When you plug your stats into MFP, make sure you set your activity level as sedentary, then eat the calorie amounts MFP gives you.

    MFP is set up to not include exercise so those who are unable to are also able to get a good calorie target.
  • Strudders67
    Strudders67 Posts: 989 Member
    Sounds too low to me - and losing weight quickly is less likely to be sustainable. The recommendation is no faster than 2lbs a week.

    Have you put your figures in to MFP to see what it suggests for target calories? If not, that should be your starting point. Having been on here for 5 months, I have read (multiple times) that you don't need to exercise to lose weight. You just need to eat less.

    Google TDEE and enter your details to get a maintenance level. Then track everything you eat or drink - weigh solids, measure liquids. If your intake is lower than your TDEE, you'll lose weight. But don't go below 1200 a day.
  • trystin
    trystin Posts: 7 Member
    Just diet will help you a lot with the initial weight loss. But when you get down to that last 20 lbs will be more difficult with our exercise of any kind. Don't crash diet and don't go under 1200 calories. Try a keto diet and even light exercise is best
  • Seffell
    Seffell Posts: 2,244 Member
    I was almost completely sedentiary (sometimes bedrest) when I started using MFP in Feb 2016. I found out (after taking data in spreadsheets for several months) that for my stats (I was barely overweight) the sedentary calories given by MFP overestimated my burns by about 250cals per day. My true burns were 1500 and mfp gave me 1750. That is, it assumes up to about 5000 steps made per day for the sedentiary mode. I can't say for your particular case but I can advise you to either take 200-250cal from what mfp gives you or if you like data to make your own trial and error research.

    Most importantly you have to keep in mind that for a completely sedentiary you CANNOT aim for 2lbs loss per week because you can't burn any extra in the form of exercise so you need to tap into BMR calories which would put you in starvation (too little intake like less than 1000cal per day to eat).

    You have to settle for 300-400cal deficit max which is max 3lbs loss per month.

    I've lost my extra 27lbs so far at this and even lower rate.

    Just be patient and work towards a small deficit which should eventually after the first several years become your regular diet that you need to follow forever if you want to maintain.

    My diary is open to public and you can see how I ate last year around Feb, Mar, Apr 2016 etc.
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