Is 1500 enough?

I'm a nurse, I work roughly 60 hours per week at the moment. My Fitbit states that I walk up to 16000 steps a day when I'm on duty. When not working I'm in the gym doing cardio and resistance training. I try to eat as clean as I can but allow treats into my calorie allowance most days to stop me feeling deprived. However I feel sometimes so tired and drained, like my body is running on empty. The only way to help me focus is by eating, but I always go over my 1500 marker, anyone any advice how to beat this?

Replies

  • nosebag1212
    nosebag1212 Posts: 621 Member
    edited June 2017
    Likely not, how much does your fitbit saying you burn? Eat 500 less than whatever that is.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,409 Member
    How many calories does your fitbit say you should be eating?
  • Rogstar
    Rogstar Posts: 216 Member
    Not sure of your personal stats or what your weight loss goals are, but for someone as active as you are, 1500 seems incredibly low.

    For reference, I'm female, 5'-7", 197lbs, desk job but I get 10k-12k steps in outside the office. I set up to lose 1lb/week and am given ~1600cal before adding exercise in. I will often eat some of my exercise calories back depending on what I did (usually after kickboxing is when need it most!) I feel fine, but I'm only on my feet recreationally!

    You might need to eat more depending on what you want to achieve and to keep yourself happy and satiated!
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,089 Member
    Very unlikely 1500 is enough with your activity level. How long have you been trying to limit yourself to 1500, what do you actually average, and what has the result been (in terms of weight change over what period of time)?
  • Luna3386
    Luna3386 Posts: 888 Member
    From the beginning of your description I thought it was too low. When you said you felt drained, that sealed it.

    You are very active. If you have a Fitbit, why don't you look to see what it says. That way you don't need to do as much guesswork to figure it out.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,235 Member
    Look at your Fitbit's daily burn figure... eat 15% to 20% less than that.

    connect fitbit.com to trendweight.com and enter your daily-ish weight in figures as they happen.

    Evaluate your progress 4-6 weeks from now based on your weight trend over time.
  • cristareid
    cristareid Posts: 6 Member
    PAV8888 wrote: »
    Look at your Fitbit's daily burn figure... eat 15% to 20% less than that.

    connect fitbit.com to trendweight.com and enter your daily-ish weight in figures as they happen.

    Evaluate your progress 4-6 weeks from now based on your weight trend over time.

    We look at our total burn correct? Not just active burn?
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,235 Member
    edited June 2017
    cristareid wrote: »
    PAV8888 wrote: »
    Look at your Fitbit's daily burn figure... eat 15% to 20% less than that.

    connect fitbit.com to trendweight.com and enter your daily-ish weight in figures as they happen.

    Evaluate your progress 4-6 weeks from now based on your weight trend over time.

    We look at our total burn correct? Not just active burn?

    Total!

    Also data export is now non premium and you can get a month of total daily calories at a time by doing a CSV export of ACTIVITIES from your dashboard...

    https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1133
  • campbellmel11
    campbellmel11 Posts: 2 Member
    Hi guys thanks for your help, I looked at my Fitbit says I'm burning 2500 calories per day, these are the days when I'm not in the gym but at work, on gym days I'm burning around 3000 calories per day? That seems quite high? What I'm going to do is up my calorie allowance to 1800 to keep me sane, ill maybe drop it back down 1500 twice a week when I'm not moving as often. Hopefully this will help me :)