Do I need 1200 calories?
mittencat77
Posts: 137 Member
I am 4’11, 112lbs, aiming to lose about 10-15 pounds (fairly athletic; was my normal weight until a serious injury that left me unable to exercise for 3 years when I was 45). MFP says 1200. I workout quite a bit, but my size means I don’t tend to get many exercise calories (e.g. today: 30 mins kickboxing + hour walk gave me 45 extra exercise calories; yesterday 30 elliptical + hour weights gave me 132 based on my Garmin) so it is hard to be in a deficit. My question is: am I supposed to eat 1200 (I see so many posts saying you need to; but I am so much shorter than everyone else). Or is it ok that I am in the 1100 range each day? I am trying to get a deficit going and I like to see at least 50 calories under each day. Super hard when I get so little from exercise. I may just need to work on my patience.
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Yes you do need to eat a minimum of 1200 plus exercise cals.
Your Garmin looks as though it may be underestimating your exercise calorie burn.
Ie: your hour walk if walking at 3mph, quite an average pace, would be closer to 100 cals.
Your weight lifting for an hour closer to 140 cals.
(I am extrapolating those burns from my data at 102lbs, 5’1 so not exact).
Work with 1200 plus, at least, your Garmin exercise cal burn for 6 week then review your results.
At your weight, and with a BMI of around 22.5, you have little to lose. Your loss per week should be 0.5lbs a week or a little less.
(Lowest weight to be within a healthy weight range, BMI 19, is 94lbs)
Cheers, h.16 -
The min cal intake of 1200 for women and 1500 for men is,a generally accepted nutritional guideline but (as they say) everyone is different and there,is always an exception.
Are you one of those expections? Only you and/or your doctor can determine or decide.
If you have never eaten fewer than 1200 cals/day b4, go slow pay attn to maintaining a "nutritious" (or balanced) and keep track of how you feel (tried, hungry, depressed, moody, etc.) and (if you are exercising) how well you perform on a lower cal diet.
FWIW, I'm a guy (5'8" 153#) and eat a net of of about 1500 cal/day based on a cal inrake of 1800 and a cal burn of about 300 cals/day rowing to maintain my wt at or about 153.
While the net is theoretically 1500, I am still eating and gaining the nuttitional benefits of eating 1800 cal/day and zi feel well and am performing my exercises well.. So, there is no evidence that I am being nutritionally deprived by eating & exercising in this manner.
Just eating 1500 cal/day (whether exercising or not) would probably be another matter.6 -
@middlehatch : thank you for your insights. My Garmin actually says I am in considerable deficit everyday. It gives me lots of exercise calories but when it syncs with MFP I seem to get very little in the calorie adjustment.
Thought I should follow MFP, but maybe I should follow what my Garmin is saying. Would make life much easier!! I would get more food and log more deficit each day. MFP seems to say my exercise is worth nothing. I see others logging huge calorie burns from exercise and see I do to when I log exercise in manually. But syncing with my Garmin result in MFP saying my exercise is worth very, very little.
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mittencat77 wrote: »I am 4’11, 112lbs, aiming to lose about 10-15 pounds (fairly athletic; was my normal weight until a serious injury that left me unable to exercise for 3 years when I was 45). MFP says 1200. I workout quite a bit, but my size means I don’t tend to get many exercise calories (e.g. today: 30 mins kickboxing + hour walk gave me 45 extra exercise calories; yesterday 30 elliptical + hour weights gave me 132 based on my Garmin) so it is hard to be in a deficit. My question is: am I supposed to eat 1200 (I see so many posts saying you need to; but I am so much shorter than everyone else). Or is it ok that I am in the 1100 range each day? I am trying to get a deficit going and I like to see at least 50 calories under each day. Super hard when I get so little from exercise. I may just need to work on my patience.
I am usually one to urge caution, but there is nothing magical about 1200. For most women, it is not even enough calories. But in your situation, as someone who is small, I think 1100 plus your exercise calories would probably be fine. MFP calculates your sedentary maintenance to be around 1300-1315 so 1100 would only be a less than 250 calorie deficit. I think that is probably fine.
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mittencat77 wrote: »@middlehatch : thank you for your insights. My Garmin actually says I am in considerable deficit everyday. It gives me lots of exercise calories but when it syncs with MFP I seem to get very little in the calorie adjustment.
Thought I should follow MFP, but maybe I should follow what my Garmin is saying. Would make life much easier!! I would get more food and log more deficit each day. MFP seems to say my exercise is worth nothing. I see others logging huge calorie burns from exercise and see I do to when I log exercise in manually. But syncing with my Garmin result in MFP saying my exercise is worth very, very little.
What do you have your MFP activity level set at?1 -
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MFP says I have a 90 calorie deficit today. My Garmin says I have a 436 calorie deficit today. I am not sure what to do with this conflicting information.1
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mittencat77 wrote: »Active
That is why. MFP is already building a lot of calories into its calculations for your activity. You are getting such small burns because you are only getting above and beyond what is already factored in from your activity level.
Based off of that, I revise my prior answer and think you need at least 1200 calories. My assumption before was that you were considering yourself sedentary. Since you are not, you should set your rate of loss to half a pound per week and eat the amount of calories that MFP suggests, plus any adjustment calories.8 -
mittencat77 wrote: »MFP says I have a 90 calorie deficit today. My Garmin says I have a 436 calorie deficit today. I am not sure what to do with this conflicting information.
Pretty much what everyone else had said already. And it sounds like this is due to your activity level, MFP giving you your calories up front.
But I think there's something about one of them estimating your calories for the whole day and the other up 'til "now." What do yesterday's numbers look like?1 -
I do believe, and someone correct me if I am wrong, that if you are syncing an activity tracker for calorie burn then you should have your activity level on mfp set as sedentary. That way it just gives you what you need to survive, and your tracker adjusts those accordingly throughout the day. E.g I am 5"1 and my daily calories are 1300, but most days my garmin ups them to around 1400. Double check what I have told you though, but it has worked for me!10
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I would say with your activity level if wanting to drop under 1200, check with doctor and do it under doctor's supervision.
Getting too low of calories can be dangerous, especially if active!. Height plays a part, but activity level plays a bigger part.
1200 is generally the minimum calories needed for someone who is short and very sedentary to lose weight.
Trust me, damaging heart or even messing up hormones isn't worth dropping a few pounds. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
Losing 10-15... Take it slow!
Good luck!
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mittencat77 wrote: »MFP says I have a 90 calorie deficit today. My Garmin says I have a 436 calorie deficit today. I am not sure what to do with this conflicting information.
Pretty much what everyone is suggesting regarding setting mfp to sedentary.
Your other option is to disconnect the Garmin and track food/weight/exercise individually. Manually enter your exercises and calorie burns. You can use the numbers mfp gives you or calculate and enter your own using something like this.
http://lamb.cc/calories-burned-calculator/
From there, simply track your weight. If you begin losing too much too fast, eat more. If your weight loss stalls, eat a bit less. It's trial and error for a lot of folks finding your own personal sweet spot, so give it some time, a month or so.
All that said, I have to echo middlehaitch on her caution regarding your weight as you are already very close to a healthy weight for your height. Your view of where you need to be may change as you continue to exercise and get stronger.
Best of fortune with your goals.
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No u dont need 1200! U need more. Fuel your body. Try around 1700 and see how it goes x31
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No u dont need 1200! U need more. Fuel your body. Try around 1700 and see how it goes x
1700 calories on a clearly very petite woman unless she’s doing moderate to heavy exercise on a daily basis would result in weight gain.
I’ve just run my own stats (an inch taller and approx 10 years older) through a TDEE calculator and also the OPs as far as I can estimate from information given and her sedentary maintenance is 1252, it only approaches the 1700 you suggest as a calorie intake (which in your mind includes her deficit, because she’s stated she’d like to lose a little), at the moderate exercise level - 1618, heavy exercise - 1800. On your suggestion she’d likely gain half a pound a week or closer to a pound, taking into account the time, intensity etc of the exercise she says she’s currently doing.7 -
That's why I said start at 1700 and see how it goes. I'm 4'9 and 133lbs currently losing 1lb a week eating between 1500 and 2800 a day22
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No u dont need 1200! U need more. Fuel your body. Try around 1700 and see how it goes x
My maintenance when set to sedentary is around 1500 so I'd definitely gain if I ate 1700. I don't think any short and petite woman, unless a serious athlete, could get away with these calories with so little weight to lose.6 -
Why?
why not start at something the calculators say is right for you and then tweak it, - why start at something clearly too high?6 -
No u dont need 1200! U need more. Fuel your body. Try around 1700 and see how it goes x
My maintenance when set to sedentary is around 1500 so I'd definitely gain if I ate 1700. I don't think any short and petite woman, unless a serious athlete, could get away with these calories with so little weight to lose.
See my second post^^9 -
paperpudding wrote: »Why?
why not start at something the calculators say is right for you and then tweak it, - why start at something clearly too high?
Could say the same thing about eating too low! I dont want to be stuck on 1500 maintence calories for thr rest of my life because I've lowered my metabolism so much28
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