Calorie comparison!
LauraSrock18
Posts: 125 Member
Hey everyone! I’ve been playing with my calorie intake and was hoping to get some insight! I’m 24, weigh 168 & my goal is 150! I’ve been up & down from 168-169 for a month! I have had my calorie intake to be to lose 1.5lbs a week at 1,700 after reading some posts I’ve seen most people recommend it to be 1- .5 lbs a week which would make my calories 1,950! Any thoughts or opinions?
I’m pretty active, I’m a hairstylist so I get lots of steps & I workout 3-5 Times a week with weights and HIIT training! I did decide to put the scale away to stop the habit of weighing myself everyday so I can focus on physical progress and not base my success on a number!
How many times do you weigh yourself? I’d like to try once a week and then possibly once a month and do measurements every week! The scale has been really effecting me negatively lately and it’s becoming obsessive.
Thoughts?
thank you!!
I’m pretty active, I’m a hairstylist so I get lots of steps & I workout 3-5 Times a week with weights and HIIT training! I did decide to put the scale away to stop the habit of weighing myself everyday so I can focus on physical progress and not base my success on a number!
How many times do you weigh yourself? I’d like to try once a week and then possibly once a month and do measurements every week! The scale has been really effecting me negatively lately and it’s becoming obsessive.
Thoughts?
thank you!!
1
Replies
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It depends on what's sustainable to you.
I'm surprised that you're getting such high calories, though. Are you putting yourself as sedentary or active?0 -
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Your diary suggests that you are not losing weight because you are eating more than you think. Get and use a food scale. If you are not losing weight at 1700, you will definitely not at 1950 using the logging methods you are doing now.
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I think moving yourself to sedentary would be very helpful. And then you can log your activity of steps and work outs and eat back those exercise calories. Also, with little to lose it can be harder to make the scale move. And I agree with Roxie, getting a food scale can help you be more accurate on what you are eating.
Good luck!7 -
Then be really careful about eating back exercise calories. I believe that most people put themselves as sedentary and use fitness trackers/tools to calculate extra calories to eat back. Try the 1,700 out for a little bit and see if that works for YOU. If you get too hungry or want to cheat, bump it up to the 1,9501
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Your diary suggests that you are not losing weight because you are eating more than you think. Get and use a food scale. If you are not losing weight at 1700, you will definitely not at 1950 using the logging methods you are doing now.
I use my food scale and measure everything I eat
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laura_johnson15 wrote: »
So are you including your exercise in your activity level AND eating your exercise calories on top of it? Is that what I'm reading?? So you're basically double eating the exercise calories? If that is the case - you should either 1) not eat back the exercise calories or 2) drop your activity level to not include exercise (which is how MFP was designed) and add exercise calories separate.
I personally wouldn't consider 10,000 steps to be very active but that's just me - I'm pretty darn sedentary and I can manage 10,000 with little effort. I agree with the above, if you're not losing on 1700 you're definitely not going to lose by eating more.
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Then be really careful about eating back exercise calories. I believe that most people put themselves as sedentary and use fitness trackers/tools to calculate extra calories to eat back. Try the 1,700 out for a little bit and see if that works for YOU. If you get too hungry or want to cheat, bump it up to the 1,950
That’s the frustrating part! I don’t eat back exercise calories during the week but I typically will Friday and Saturday at social events! My bet calories usually end up being 1,000-,1400 during the week! I did change my activity level to “lightly active” & that changed my calories to 1,640. When I tried not active it was down to 1,300 which I really don’t think I can sustain!
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laura_johnson15 wrote: »Your diary suggests that you are not losing weight because you are eating more than you think. Get and use a food scale. If you are not losing weight at 1700, you will definitely not at 1950 using the logging methods you are doing now.
I use my food scale and measure everything I eat
*MOST* of the things you eat. There are still quite a few generic entries, like "1 bagel" "2 slices of bread" "0.5 banana". Keep in mind that those slices are NOT created equal and need to be weighed too.
You also overate Friday and Saturday. I didn't go past that, but keep in mind that any surplus can wipe out a lot of deficit.
Most accurate plan of action would be to actually weigh your breads, fruits, packaged items, and to set yourself to sedentary or lightly active and eat back ~half of your exercise calories.4 -
*net calories. And my weekly calories are always under my goa!0
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okay, I'm 27 and eat 1700-2000 and lose between .5-1lb a week. BUT I log everything as accurately as humanly possible and when I can't I err on the side of estimating high.
I weight myself daily and use HappyScale to watch my averages over time.
I would say you're probably eating more than you think, are you taking little bites here and there that aren't weighed? Trying food as you cook it? Is your scale not calibrated correctly? There are lots of possibilities but like was stated before if you are logging accurately and being honest with yourself about that then you won't lose at 1950 if you aren't losing at 1700.
That being said a month isn't a long time to be plateauing. My weight stayed stable for 2 months while I knew I was eating at a deficit and then one day it just dropped. Over the course of a couple of weeks I suddenly lost 10 lbs.
Good luck.7 -
laura_johnson15 wrote: »Then be really careful about eating back exercise calories. I believe that most people put themselves as sedentary and use fitness trackers/tools to calculate extra calories to eat back. Try the 1,700 out for a little bit and see if that works for YOU. If you get too hungry or want to cheat, bump it up to the 1,950
That’s the frustrating part! I don’t eat back exercise calories during the week but I typically will Friday and Saturday at social events! My bet calories usually end up being 1,000-,1400 during the week! I did change my activity level to “lightly active” & that changed my calories to 1,640. When I tried not active it was down to 1,300 which I really don’t think I can sustain!
Which is why we suggest the lower weight loss goals of 1-0.5 lbs/week. That way you "earn" back more food IF you're active, but you still stay in deficit if you don't exercise.
Try to set to sedentary with a reasonable weekly weight loss goal, and re-evaluate in a couple of weeks. This process really is a lot of figuring out what works for YOU.1 -
laura_johnson15 wrote: »Your diary suggests that you are not losing weight because you are eating more than you think. Get and use a food scale. If you are not losing weight at 1700, you will definitely not at 1950 using the logging methods you are doing now.
I use my food scale and measure everything I eat
Okay.. the other posters have great suggestions .. adjust your calories how you need to monitor it over 4-6 weeks. best of luck.2 -
Ready2Rock206 wrote: »laura_johnson15 wrote: »
So are you including your exercise in your activity level AND eating your exercise calories on top of it? Is that what I'm reading?? So you're basically double eating the exercise calories? If that is the case - you should either 1) not eat back the exercise calories or 2) drop your activity level to not include exercise (which is how MFP was designed) and add exercise calories separate.
I personally wouldn't consider 10,000 steps to be very active but that's just me - I'm pretty darn sedentary and I can manage 10,000 with little effort. I agree with the above, if you're not losing on 1700 you're definitely not going to lose by eating more.
ALL OF THIS and also the bolded. 10,000 Is me grocery shopping and making TWO trips to my car instead of one, and maybe taking a 30 minute walk.5 -
You can continue to argue, OR you can start logging everything accurately and stop having cheat weekends. 1700 should be more than sufficient for weight loss for you. It is about accuracy. Truly.
I lost my last 15-20 pounds at 1700-2000 (I'm 5'7",) it took about nine months. I'm much older and less active than you. If it worked for me it *should* work for you - assuming you have no other medical issues. I think you should be able to eat more than 1700 considering how young and active you are, so it's again about accuracy.9 -
Ready2Rock206 wrote: »laura_johnson15 wrote: »
So are you including your exercise in your activity level AND eating your exercise calories on top of it? Is that what I'm reading?? So you're basically double eating the exercise calories? If that is the case - you should either 1) not eat back the exercise calories or 2) drop your activity level to not include exercise (which is how MFP was designed) and add exercise calories separate.
I personally wouldn't consider 10,000 steps to be very active but that's just me - I'm pretty darn sedentary and I can manage 10,000 with little effort. I agree with the above, if you're not losing on 1700 you're definitely not going to lose by eating more.
ALL OF THIS and also the bolded. 10,000 Is me grocery shopping and making TWO trips to my car instead of one, and maybe taking a 30 minute walk.
Serious question, how are you getting that many steps grocery shopping.... I can go grocery shopping for an hour and a half and get like 2500 steps. I know I miss some by not swinging my arm but there's legit no way that what you listed would get me near 10,000. How do you do it?!?! lol18 -
You are taller right? I think your calorie levels are fine. I am 5'8.5", and have been averaging about 2100 calories net. I'm losing about 1/3rd pound a week.
How long have you been stuck? Are your really stuck? I'd actually suggest weighing every day and tracking weight trends. I prefer just to do it in Excel (see my profile picture) but there are apps that do it as well (Libra for Android is one). My weight bounces around a lot and I didn't track every day I might not notice any loss.
I'd look at your accuracy in logging too and maybe just be more patient.1 -
Rather aggressive diet loss rate for only 18 lbs left.
1 lb is more reasonable and setup less stress for your body to want to adapt to. In fact as you hit 15 abouts, 1/2 lb weekly is more reasonable.
And, you are actually making it more extreme by not including exercise.
Life lesson MFP is trying to help people learn concerning weight management.
You do more, you eat more.
You do less, you eat less.
In a diet, a tad less in either case.
You are eating as if not exercising - great way to get workouts that eventually turn out to be very non-worthwhile for what they could be anyway.
Body does adapt if you throw enough stress at it - besides water weight gain purely from the stress.
What you should really do since you are more than willing to miss your weekly calorie goal by some %, is being willing to miss your goal weight by the same %.
Doing it that way - you may already be close enough and be done!5 -
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8EbfzFB0mBrMGJ6V2N5QWNfeTg/view
I use Happy scale and this adaptive tdee spreadsheet that uses your actual weight, average weight and calories to give you your specific TDEE.2 -
cmriverside wrote: »You can continue to argue, OR you can start logging everything accurately and stop having cheat weekends. 1700 should be more than sufficient for weight loss for you. It is about accuracy. Truly.
I lost my last 15-20 pounds at 1700-2000 (I'm 5'7",) it took about nine months. I'm much older and less active than you. If it worked for me it *should* work for you - assuming you have no other medical issues. I think you should be able to eat more than 1700 considering how young and active you are, so it's again about accuracy.
I’m not arguing, I was trying to clarify Incase what I said was misunderstood, after seeing the responses I understood what was being said.
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