3500 Caliories

Tegan74
Tegan74 Posts: 202
edited October 2024 in Health and Weight Loss
Ok, I know people keep posting on this but I think I'm mildly retarded or something cause I really dont get this mess. I want to lose 2lbs a week ~ ok, honestly I want to lose alot more but I'll settle for 2lbs a week ~ I need to use/burn 7000 calories a week. Heres my thought process: I burn 1200 a day doing nothing but breathing, so I eat 1200 a day so I can keep breathing. In order to lose 2lbs a week I have to exercise and burn 1000 calories a day. Is that right and if it is HOW IN THE WORLD DOES ANYONE DO THAT?? Yet I see where people are losing 2 lbs a week and then some on here......... So thats why I'm oh so confused. I feel like I have GOT to be missing something somewhere......

Replies

  • dipsl19
    dipsl19 Posts: 317 Member
    you definitely burn more than 1200 just breathing. 1200 is how much youd eat to LOSE weight just with diet alone. in the "goals" section it says how much you burn a day, its probably something between 1600-2250 (im 5'6, 197 lbs, and i burn 2,080)
    anyway, that gives me a deficit of 800 calories a day if i DONT do exercise. :)
  • meerkat70
    meerkat70 Posts: 4,605 Member
    MFP works from your Base Metabolic Rate, which is typically much higher than 1200 - your BMR is actually what your body needs to fuel itself at its current size. The site will calculate this for you automatically when you sign up, but also have a look in 'tools'. MFP will then take off 500-1000 of those calories and set this as your goal weight, depending on how much weight per week you're aiming to lose.

    Hope that helps.
  • MrsBlobs
    MrsBlobs Posts: 310 Member
    I kinda never bothered to go into it to that depth and I just let MFP do the Maths for me. Brain hurts a lot less that way, but I think yes (lol) yoiu are a bit confused. If you eat 1200 a day and burn off 1000 your body would be in famine mode!!
    MFP takes in your age, height, weight and activity level on board and does it all for you. So the calories it says you have for the day have already been adjusted to include a deficit enough for weight loss.

    Hopefully someone a bit more diet/caloric techy will come along and put you straight, but for me, I'll just take the word of MFP and stick with what it is telling me.
  • DizzieLittleLifter
    DizzieLittleLifter Posts: 1,020 Member
    The 1200 calories a day that MFP gives you includes a deficit to lose weight. If you didn't workout at all and consumed only the 1200 calories (healthy food choices of course) you would lose weight. You don't need to burn 1000 calories a day for weight loss and if you did you would need to eat those calories back. I think it's best to workout (strength AND cardio) to reduce body fat and not lean muscle. I hope that this helps. :flowerforyou:
  • Awkward30
    Awkward30 Posts: 1,927 Member
    Looking at your ticker, I don't think you can safely lose 2 lbs a week. I know I can't according to mfp. (they don't let you net less than 1200 and that's 1.3 lb per week for me. So not all goals are reasonable all the time.

    There are some good stickied posts about the math, but basically you should try to eat 1200 calories + anything you exercise and see how that works
  • MarieNevada
    MarieNevada Posts: 395 Member
    you need more than 1200 to keep breathing. go to Tools and figure out your BMR. that's how much you need to keep breathing just lying in bed. multiply that by how active you are, probably 1.2 which is mildly active. that's a good middle road. That number is the amount of calories your body needs to basically do the day to day stuff to survive. want to lose weight? cut that by about 25%, which is a good place to start, making sure you don't go below 1200 calories. so if it's 1800 say ( just an estimate) cut that by 25% so that gives you 1350 calories a day in order to lose weight. that gives you a weekly deficit of 3300 calories, which should result in 1 lb loss a week.

    wanna bump that up to 2 lbs a week? exercise. Burn 500 cals a day in exercise and you burn another 3500 cals a week. don't eat back your exercise calories and voila, 7000 calories burned, 2 lbs a week weight loss. any more weight loss is almost impossible and extremely hard on your body and not recommended.

    Trust the numbers that MFP gives you after you do its little quiz. bump up your nutrient values so you're eating about 40 percent carbs, 30 percent protein and 30 percent good fat. you can do that by going to goals, selecting change and custom. don't eat back your exercise calories. make sure you hit your caloric goals every day. drink tons of water. work out like a fiend but 500 cals is about 45 min on the elliptical. you can totally do that. add strenght training immediately. the more muscle you have the better your metabolism burns those calories. you wont lose 2 lbs a week every week becuase your body doesn't believe in math, but your general weight loss will happen.
  • Angelabec
    Angelabec Posts: 505 Member
    You do a lot more in a day that breathe, you walk around, go to work or school or whatever, just general stuff that uses energy. According to MFP, with my sedentary lifestyle, I burn around 2400 cals per day just doing my normal routine, so if I eat 1400 cals per day that gives me my 1000 cal deficit to lose 2lbs per week. Any exercise I do will then either give me extra cals to eat, or help me lose quicker (there's a whole different argument there, which I wont get into!) but anyway, I hope that clears things up for you, feel free to message me or add me if I can help or try to explain more clearly, good luck on your journey :happy:
  • Rae6503
    Rae6503 Posts: 6,294 Member
    I try for a half pound a week.

    That's: BMR + activity calories + exercise calories -250 = 1750-2350

    It's a lot of food and I like it.
  • dad106
    dad106 Posts: 4,868 Member
    Thats a thousand calories over the course of a week.. and your not burning those thousand calories, you eating a thousand less calories a day.

    So basically eat the 1200 calories, plus what you burn off for exercise(or at least some) and you should lose weight.
  • Stuartm1
    Stuartm1 Posts: 101 Member
    Assuming your setting is sedentary, look for a BMR calculator and whatever the resultant figue is multiply by 1.2. This will give you the total number of calories you need to survive.

    Divide by 24 that will tell you how may calories you need for an hour then divide by 60 and whatever that is when you excercise you take off that number of calories per minute. for example if your BMR was 2400 that would be 100 calories per hour and around 1.6 calories per minute.

    Therefore if you do 1 hour you need to take off 100 calories eg:- say 450 burnt 350 registered. MFP will tell you how many calories you can eat any excercise and you can est these back as well if you want to.

    I personally found it is best to vary this ie sometimes eat some back sometimes all sometimes none but everyone is different you have to find whats best for you.
  • EDesq
    EDesq Posts: 1,527 Member
    Ok, I know people keep posting on this but I think I'm mildly retarded or something cause I really dont get this mess. I want to lose 2lbs a week ~ ok, honestly I want to lose alot more but I'll settle for 2lbs a week ~ I need to use/burn 7000 calories a week. Heres my thought process: I burn 1200 a day doing nothing but breathing, so I eat 1200 a day so I can keep breathing. In order to lose 2lbs a week I have to exercise and burn 1000 calories a day. Is that right and if it is HOW IN THE WORLD DOES ANYONE DO THAT?? Yet I see where people are losing 2 lbs a week and then some on here......... So thats why I'm oh so confused. I feel like I have GOT to be missing something somewhere......

    Ok, the word "Retarded" is totally not PC. Now, you are TOTALLY wrong about what you have stated. The only thing I can advise you is to just INPUT what you want to TRY and lose each week and go from there and see what happens. After doing that about 3-4 weeks, if you want to reduce calories or add, do so. The BODY has a mind of its own.

    Just get an eating plan and try to follow it, ie>>>1200 Calories, Low Glycemic; or 1400, 1600 Calories per day...Exercise for 30 minutes3-4 days per week. Look, leave the "Science" of Wt Loss to peeps who have nothing better to do. I have learned that the "science" only works for a few...the rest of us are all exceptions...we had to LEARN what works for us by trial and error.
  • Fidgery
    Fidgery Posts: 1 Member
    Eat 5 times a day, my trainer said some of the fattest people she has ever met don't eat breakfast, your body shuts down when your not eating and starts to store. Eat healthy. Workout 5 times a week for one hour a day. If its walking your into, push yourself to jog on and off. The key(I'm learning) is to get out of your exercise comfort box and really make your self and your body do something its not use to doing. Also, it's not going to drop off, the slower you lose the better your chances of keeping it off. I am 314 lbs., I've been on an exercise regime since last December, I've lost 16lbs and 14 inches. I have a physical trainer who kicks my butt. I don't look at the scale, I look at the inches. Get measured to bcuz it feels just as good to hear (& feel) the inches come off as much as #'s. Food is getting better for me. I work out 5 days a week, 1 hr per day. 3 cardio, 2 strength training. I feel great! I bought a bike, swim alot, and I've done 2 5k's this year and I'm going to do another one the end of September. I've joined jazzercise in my community and get a Zumba class in whenever I can. If you get bored, switch it up, sometimes I have to. Also, make a schedule of workouts appointments, make them like detramental urgent appts that you cant miss and do it!!!
  • EDesq
    EDesq Posts: 1,527 Member
    Eat 5 times a day, my trainer said some of the fattest people she has ever met don't eat breakfast, your body shuts down when your not eating and starts to store. Eat healthy. Workout 5 times a week for one hour a day. If its walking your into, push yourself to jog on and off. The key(I'm learning) is to get out of your exercise comfort box and really make your self and your body do something its not use to doing. Also, it's not going to drop off, the slower you lose the better your chances of keeping it off. I am 314 lbs., I've been on an exercise regime since last December, I've lost 16lbs and 14 inches. I have a physical trainer who kicks my butt. I don't look at the scale, I look at the inches. Get measured to bcuz it feels just as good to hear (& feel) the inches come off as much as #'s. Food is getting better for me. I work out 5 days a week, 1 hr per day. 3 cardio, 2 strength training. I feel great! I bought a bike, swim alot, and I've done 2 5k's this year and I'm going to do another one the end of September. I've joined jazzercise in my community and get a Zumba class in whenever I can. If you get bored, switch it up, sometimes I have to. Also, make a schedule of workouts appointments, make them like detramental urgent appts that you cant miss and do it!!!


    WOW: The most healthy people I have met eat ONE Meal Per Day. They don't live in the US, don't eat "Fast" Food and a lot of sweets, nor a lot of refined carbs. Western cultures are the ones with all these "Diet" Theories...they/we are the best educated, wealthiest/most affluent, fattest, most drugged out and unhealthiest cultures in the world.

    Heck, do what works for YOU and let everyone else decide for themselves what works for them.
  • caroln3
    caroln3 Posts: 217
    you need more than 1200 to keep breathing. go to Tools and figure out your BMR. that's how much you need to keep breathing just lying in bed. multiply that by how active you are, probably 1.2 which is mildly active. that's a good middle road. That number is the amount of calories your body needs to basically do the day to day stuff to survive. want to lose weight? cut that by about 25%, which is a good place to start, making sure you don't go below 1200 calories. so if it's 1800 say ( just an estimate) cut that by 25% so that gives you 1350 calories a day in order to lose weight. that gives you a weekly deficit of 3300 calories, which should result in 1 lb loss a week.

    wanna bump that up to 2 lbs a week? exercise. Burn 500 cals a day in exercise and you burn another 3500 cals a week. don't eat back your exercise calories and voila, 7000 calories burned, 2 lbs a week weight loss. any more weight loss is almost impossible and extremely hard on your body and not recommended.

    Trust the numbers that MFP gives you after you do its little quiz. bump up your nutrient values so you're eating about 40 percent carbs, 30 percent protein and 30 percent good fat. you can do that by going to goals, selecting change and custom. don't eat back your exercise calories. make sure you hit your caloric goals every day. drink tons of water. work out like a fiend but 500 cals is about 45 min on the elliptical. you can totally do that. add strenght training immediately. the more muscle you have the better your metabolism burns those calories. you wont lose 2 lbs a week every week becuase your body doesn't believe in math, but your general weight loss will happen.

    you have enlightened me
  • Tegan74
    Tegan74 Posts: 202
    ok, that does help some ~ its just trying to figure out what to lose to get 2lbs a week off is driving me nuts lol. I think I'm going to just ignore it and eat what I'm supposed to calorie wise and exercise and cut fat out an see if that helps.

    Thanks for all the answers, I had to go out for a few right after I posted this :)
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