Starting tonight - calorie intake?
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Fattack
Posts: 666 Member
Hello everybody! I'm starting tonight and am very excited.
A little history about me - I lost quite a lot of weight on MFP last year. I did this by netting 1200 calories and exercising pretty much 6 times a week. I initially started with cardio, but around the last 5-7lbs or so, I started to go to body pump 2-3 times a week (in conjunction with my cardio) - and I LOVED it! I was burning around 700 calories most days and eating them all back.
Whilst I lost a lot of weight, and got down to 138lbs (still overweight for my height), I still felt I looked very flabby, and my BF% according to my scales (I know they're not the most accurate measure) still put my body fat at 41%.
In Autumn, I gained all my weight lost back, and then some. Basically, I lost my job and became depressed and didn't really want to leave the house. I then moved to a new country and found it difficult to adjust. I'm back on track now, have lost 13lbs from just cutting calories, and want to resume exercising. The book recommends a lot more calories than I have been intaking (1200NET), so I'm quite unsure what to do. I still have 40lbs or so to lose (I'm currently 161, and just over 5ft tall), and obviously would rather do this sooner than later. The book recommends nearly 2000calories for my maintenance on rest days, and nearly 2300 for my maintenance on workout days (therefore 1700, and 2000 using their recommended deficit of 300 cals). But this seems like WAY too much for me. Does anybody have any advice as to calorie intake when losing weight and doing the plan? I understand that I can't effectively build much muscle whilst losing weight, and losing weight is my priority, but I really want to get involved in strength training.
TLDR: Want to lose weight and do the plan, not sure about calorie intake. Currently doing 1200NET (which leaves me quite tired) and not exercising, but lost a lot of weight last year doing 1200NET, exercising, and eating back exercise calories. I've considered having 1500gross on non-exercise days, and 1800gross on exercise days (I do walk 45 minutes on weekdays anyway as part of my commute) but am very nervous about not losing weight
A little history about me - I lost quite a lot of weight on MFP last year. I did this by netting 1200 calories and exercising pretty much 6 times a week. I initially started with cardio, but around the last 5-7lbs or so, I started to go to body pump 2-3 times a week (in conjunction with my cardio) - and I LOVED it! I was burning around 700 calories most days and eating them all back.
Whilst I lost a lot of weight, and got down to 138lbs (still overweight for my height), I still felt I looked very flabby, and my BF% according to my scales (I know they're not the most accurate measure) still put my body fat at 41%.
In Autumn, I gained all my weight lost back, and then some. Basically, I lost my job and became depressed and didn't really want to leave the house. I then moved to a new country and found it difficult to adjust. I'm back on track now, have lost 13lbs from just cutting calories, and want to resume exercising. The book recommends a lot more calories than I have been intaking (1200NET), so I'm quite unsure what to do. I still have 40lbs or so to lose (I'm currently 161, and just over 5ft tall), and obviously would rather do this sooner than later. The book recommends nearly 2000calories for my maintenance on rest days, and nearly 2300 for my maintenance on workout days (therefore 1700, and 2000 using their recommended deficit of 300 cals). But this seems like WAY too much for me. Does anybody have any advice as to calorie intake when losing weight and doing the plan? I understand that I can't effectively build much muscle whilst losing weight, and losing weight is my priority, but I really want to get involved in strength training.
TLDR: Want to lose weight and do the plan, not sure about calorie intake. Currently doing 1200NET (which leaves me quite tired) and not exercising, but lost a lot of weight last year doing 1200NET, exercising, and eating back exercise calories. I've considered having 1500gross on non-exercise days, and 1800gross on exercise days (I do walk 45 minutes on weekdays anyway as part of my commute) but am very nervous about not losing weight
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Maybe try it and see what happens? That's what I'm doing. Will re-evaluate in a month like the book says.
I'm kinda jealous of everyone's calorie goal. I'm really short (4'10 1/2") and it gave me 1500 to eat on days I don't work out, 1750 on days I do work out, and 2000 on days I work and work out. If I do a 300 calorie deficit, that brings me back to 1200.0 -
On the positive side though, you are a fair bit lighter with 15lbs or so less to lose than me!
I guess my main issue is that I'm not *that* far into my weight loss this time around, and feel a bit demotivated in general because I was only 18lbs from goal last year because I gained it all back and then some I want to get stronger, but I do still want to decrease my weight! 0 -
I'm new to the program and I'm playing around with the calories as well. I have 40 lbs at least left to loose and I was loosing at 1360 cals a day plus eating back excercise cals. Then I stumbled across some MFP users that said eat more and lift heavy and I was confused lol. So I caved an got NROLFW and the cals they said for me are about what the other MFP user said I should be eating. With the 300 cal deficity it puts me at 2000 on non-lifting days and 2300 on lifting days. I also run on 2 of the days I don't lift so I have to take into account excercise cals on those days too. right now I'm going to try to eat 1800-2000 depending on the workout (lifting or cardio) and then 1500-1700 on my rest days. Hopefully this will be a step in the right direction since I've plateaued eating the low cal and doing cardio method!0
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True. I don't have all that much to lose comparatively and theoretically it should come off quickly and easily. But I've been on a plateau for 6 months. I even gained ~9 lb back (I was up to 42 lb lost before it came to a halt). I'm at a point where I'm starting to think I'm just incapable of losing more, despite the fact that I am still overweight.On the positive side though, you are a fair bit lighter with 15lbs or so less to lose than me!
I guess my main issue is that I'm not *that* far into my weight loss this time around, and feel a bit demotivated in general because I was only 18lbs from goal last year because I gained it all back and then some I want to get stronger, but I do still want to decrease my weight!
Hopefully this works for both of us. What have we got to lose at this point?
At least you can be assured with the higher calorie intake that you'll be building muscle instead of wasting it.0
