1200 calories a day??

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Munchkin300380
Munchkin300380 Posts: 8 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hello all. I’m 39, 5ft 1 and 9stone 8. I do lots of exercise (3 x bootcamp, 3 x short run and 7x yoga a week plus ave 1400 steps a day)
MFP has worked out my calories for weight loss as 1200. If i use this as a base but include exercise in my calorie adjustment will that be ok??
My fitness instructor says 1700 but I am a small person!! Thanks all xxx

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  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    MyFitnessPal is a calculator but you control the outcome by the selections you make plus your stats.
    Choosing a fast rate of loss has a huge impact on your calories.

    You may be short but you exercise a lot and that exercise needs energy (calories).

    Your steps sound very low - did you mean 14,000 or 1,400? That makes a big difference to the activity setting you select (which is entirely separate from exercise).
  • Duck_Puddle
    Duck_Puddle Posts: 3,224 Member
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    Munchkin300380 wrote: »
    Hello all. I’m 39, 5ft 1 and 9stone 8. I do lots of exercise (3 x bootcamp, 3 x short run and 7x yoga a week plus ave 1400 steps a day)
    MFP has worked out my calories for weight loss as 1200. If i use this as a base but include exercise in my calorie adjustment will that be ok??
    My fitness instructor says 1700 but I am a small person!! Thanks all xxx

    Yes. As long as you add in your exercise and eat those calories it will be fine. I would imagine you’ll end up eating 1700+ with all the exercise you do.

    My base calories are also 1200 (I’m just a bit taller and a bit older than you). I’m training for a marathon. I add in my workouts, eat the exercise calories and lose a bit less than 1 pound a week (which is exactly as projected). FWIW-I’m currently eating about 2k calories a day (this changes with my running/workout volume) while “on 1200”.

    It’s a problem if you don’t add your exercise in and/or don’t eat those calories.
  • Duck_Puddle
    Duck_Puddle Posts: 3,224 Member
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    What is your activity level not including any of the exercise you do? Meaning how many of those 14k steps come from your runs?

    You are very active as a person.

    Your mfp setting should reflect how much activity you do not including any exercise you intend to log.

    My example again-I’m currently averaging 29k steps a day. I am set as sedentary (correctly) because 25k of those steps come from my runs (which I log separately).

    You should not be eating 1200 calories total. No question. But I don’t think you’re intending to do that. Your base calories should be set based on your activity level not including any exercise that you will log separately.

    If you are not active aside from all of your exercise, you don’t want to set yourself up as such-and then add exercise on top of that.

    If you are active aside from your exercise, do set yourself up that way. And add exercise on top of that.

    I would expect with the level of exercise that you’re doing-if you’re set at 1200 and you log your exercise - you’ll be eating more than 1700/day.

    If you set yourself as some kind of active and then add your exercise on top of that, you could be eating 2000+/day. That might be closer to (or above) maintenance.

    So be sure that what you’re setting is your activity level not including any exercise that you plan to log.
  • Go_Deskercise
    Go_Deskercise Posts: 1,630 Member
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    If you have 75+ lbs to lose 2 lbs/week is ideal,
    If you have 40-75 lbs to lose 1.5 lbs/week is ideal,
    If you have 25-40 lbs to lose 1 lbs/week is ideal,
    If you have 15 -25 lbs to lose 0.5 to 1.0 lbs/week is ideal, and
    If you have less than 15 lbs to lose 0.5 lbs/week is ideal.

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