I need help finding my calorie deficit. Plz halpp!

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LadyDaenerys
LadyDaenerys Posts: 89 Member
edited October 2023 in Health and Weight Loss
I’ve been trying to figure out my calorie deficit, but I keep gaining fat and I need to figure this out so I can reach my goals. Every calculator I use on the Internet gives me different answers. They’re all over the place and I just don’t know where to start and it’s very overwhelming for me. I used to be 210 pounds and I dropped down to 125. I have now bloomed up to 140 and I want to get back down but my old ways of losing weight aren’t working, in fact I keep gaining. Plz send help 😭

140lbs
5ft6in
32% body fat
Female
38 yrs old

10,000 steps a day 30 min LISS cardio a day and beginner strength training at the gym about three times a week. I currently eat between 1300 and 1500 cal. High protien moderate fat lower carb. Fasting at 8pm-12pm

Replies

  • Retroguy2000
    Retroguy2000 Posts: 1,514 Member
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    How do you know you're 32% body fat? Rhetorical question really, just saying most home scales are not very accurate at all for that.

    Calculators are all just starting points. Make sure you're tracking your food and drink inputs diligently, tracking everything including "cheats", checking the entries you're using for items are correct, weighing as needed, and then your weight change over a few weeks will tell you what your maintenance level is. If you're genuinely taking in 1500 per day, and gaining 1 pound per month say, then you're in a surplus of about 125 per day.
  • musicfan68
    musicfan68 Posts: 1,124 Member
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    Have you set up the MFP app? It walks you through the set up and will give you your calories you should aim for, once you have realistically answered the questions. Set it up to lose .50 lb a week, maybe 1 lb, since you don't have much to lose. Go with that calorie number for about a month/6 weeks and make adjustments if you need to.
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,114 Member
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    LadyDaenerys wrote: »
    I’ve been trying to figure out my calorie deficit, but I keep gaining fat and I need to figure this out so I can reach my goals. Every calculator I use on the Internet gives me different answers. They’re all over the place and I just don’t know where to start and it’s very overwhelming for me. I used to be 210 pounds and I dropped down to 125. I have now bloomed up to 140 and I want to get back down but my old ways of losing weight aren’t working, in fact I keep gaining. Plz send help 😭

    140lbs
    5ft6in
    32% body fat
    Female
    38 yrs old

    10,000 steps a day 30 min LISS cardio a day and beginner strength training at the gym about three times a week. I currently eat between 1300 and 1500 cal. High protien moderate fat lower carb. Fasting at 8pm-12pm

    What time-frame are we talking about here, regarding the 'I keep on gaining, old ways of losing weight are not working'? How much weight over how much time?

    And what are those old ways of losing weight that aren't working anymore?

    You mention beginner strength training at the gym. The word 'beginner' implies it is new, which might explain weight gain, since strength training can cause water retention (for muscle repair): how likely this is as a cause depends on the scale of the gain and the time-frame.
  • Ian_mc84
    Ian_mc84 Posts: 41 Member
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    Weight may have gone up but with weight training is this proportional to any size increase? Have you considered its muscle being added? For a few weeks take measurements of waist of waist and hips to see if they change also. (Can include thigh and biceps as well since they will go up with increased muscle mass although it’s a slow growth)
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,393 Member
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    Muscle doesn't show up out of nowhere over a short period of time. It takes months and years to build muscle. It's either eating too much, water retention for any of a 100 reasons, or not having been to the loo quite so often and retaining more poop for a few days.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 33,958 Member
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    Yeah, with so little to lose it's going to be a matter of diligence. That's it.

    Stick to your chosen numbers for couple months and then adjust after you get some good trending data.

    You already lost a lot of weight. You know that the end part is the hardest and takes the longest.

    Stay
    The
    Course
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,898 Member
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    Go here: https://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/change-goals-guided or More > Goals in app.
    1. Put in your stats.
    2. normal daily activities refers to your job.
    3. Ignore How many times a week do you plan on exercising? - that does not get included in the equation.
    4. Select Lose 0.5 pound per week.

    The resulting calories is your daily calorie budget. It's normal to go a little over or under, but since weight loss is already included in these calories, you don't want to intentionally go hundreds of calories under.

    With only 15 pounds to lose, it's going to be slow, and should be slow, as you do not have the fat stores to support a more aggressive rate of loss. I suggest using a weight trend app, such as Happy Scale for iphone or Libra for Android.

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    If the weight training is new you are likely retaining water, which is masking fat loss on the scale.

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  • LadyDaenerys
    LadyDaenerys Posts: 89 Member
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    Sorry I haven’t been around to reply to all of you. I’ve been busy, but thank you so much for all of your insight. I’m going to start this Monday going hard with the numbers I’ve chosen, tracking everything and see where that takes me. I know the last bit of weight is always the hardest, I refuse to give up. Thank you all for replying. 💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻
  • tomcustombuilder
    tomcustombuilder Posts: 1,622 Member
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    Use whatever your current weekly calories are as a baseline and deduct from there there is no reason to re invent the wheel for your intake per the calculators.

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