ITT: Ask me anything about losing weight..

I've decided to include 'bad foods' into my daily diet...like one bar of chocolate or something every other day...do you think this is a bad/good idea?

Hello, thank you so much for doing this. I have a question.
I am 29
5'5
SW 183
CW177.8
GW155

I have been tracking my calories and exercising at least 5 days a week (rockin' body right now) for almost 2 months now and during this time I have only lost 5 pounds. I do not count my calories one day a week but I do watch what i eat I don't overeat or anything like that on that particular day.
My current level is set to sedentary and MFP gave me 1460 calories a day to lose 1 pound per week. I do eat most of my exercise calories back which I track with a chest strap HRM.

Do you think this is a good calories intake and if not what should I be doing? My issue is that I feel like I am not losing weight consistently every week. Do you think I am doing something wrong? Please help

Why do you eat back the calories you have burned? A pound is 3500 calories, this means you should eat your 1460 everyday and you must burn at least 3500 calories weekly to see a pound loss. You do this by exercising, writting down how much you burned and keeping track of it. This means that you need to burn atleast 500 calories every single day through exercise for 7 days to loose one pound.
And if you choose to exercise only five times a week you would need to burn at least 700 calories through exercise daily. It is recommended people exercise between 5 - 7 hours a week.

The day you don't count calories you should be exercising to make sure you don't eat and store over 1460 calories.
It is advised to add more exercise before cutting back their calories...

Can you please give me your qualifications to be making these statements - your degree and medical qualification details will do.

Absolutely! But if you look at my profile, you could read them or better yet you can go to my website but here you go:
I am a CERTIFIED AS A SPECIALIST IN FITNESS NUTRITION, ISSA
CERTIFIED NUTRITION COACH, PNN
CERTIFIED FITNESS TRAINER, ISSA
CERTIFIED MADDOG ATHLETICS SPINNING INSTRUCTOR
CERTIFIED KETTLEBELLS INSTRUCTION
CERTIFIED TRX TRAINER , FA
CERTIFIED ZUMBA INSTRUCTOR

You're a lot of things, but you're not a CERTIFIED MFP USER

If you were, you would know that your profile is set to private or friends only. And more importantly, you would know that MFP's calorie target factors in a calorie deficit or surplus depending on the user's goal. That's why the user you're replying to eats back exercise calories.

You are absolutely right, I just got on this website three days ago...I was looking for good support group for my clients. People need support but sadly when you are on the internet, you get groups like this, no moderators, alot of misconception and yes! I do not agree with the caloric suggestions here , because in order to loose weight in a healthy weight, you can not rush physiology. Loosing weight more than 3% in 4 weeks is too agressive, but people that are desperate to reverse the damage of years, do not want to listen.
And may I say, that I was just being an advocate to all the people here that need help and are looking for some type of answers. We can not allow just anyone to have such an important influence in our lives without proper studies....but hey! thayt's just me...someone that has lost close to 100 pounds over 5 years ago and decided to take charge of the information I would listen to and decided to pay for education in this matter.

Sometimes, people don't want to hear the truth:
Eating more, exercising adecuately and feeding your body the correct nutrients. No diet pills, no diets...hard healthy empowerment for the body .. Anyone can loose weight...but not everyone should be allowed to give advise , specially without credentials...but hey! we are in America, the land of the free, freedom of speech and freedom to choose what we listen to, freedom to delete posts and freedom to be angered at the minority that finds it is a responsability to give advise to those who are in need.

I am totally confused now - you challenge someone for eating their execise calories back and then you say that folks need to eat enough

Anyway, on the first day of joining MFP you decide to basically hijack a thread that a lot of people were enjoying and getting a lot of good information from by challenging the OP on his credentials (which he never even insinuated he had). I am totally amazed that someone would try to become a self appointed moderator without even knowing how the site work on their first day. In my opinion, a lot of the people on here have far better advice than people who may or may not be certified in a bunch of fitness classes. You came, you saw, you did not like, so just don't recommend to your clients - simple as that.

I've been following this entire thread. It saddens me that people can't simply take the responses for what they are - friendly suggestions - granted they were very knowledgeable responses but still it was a gesture of "hey, I've been there and this is what I've learned" type of help. We are all adults here (or should be) and have independant minds. We can read, take what we feel fits with our individual situation and leave the rest for the next person. Sublog clearly stated he was done and has not been back which is too bad because if nothing else it got everyone talking in one thread about this struggle.

I have a friend who asked me if she should bump her calories up, after I told her I went to a dietitian who upped my calories because I'm burning way more than I thought. She said that what she's been doing has been working, so my first thought was to keep doing what's working for her, and when she stops losing to eat at maintenance for a couple of weeks and then switch it up. But I'm not certified in anything, and only know what I've read, so I'm asking here in hopes of getting a better answer for her. TIA! :flowerforyou:

Hi there,
I am just a little confused about the estimated calorie/day number. I am 21yrs old, 166lbs, 5"4' and I have calculated my total resting energy expenditure to be 1600 calories per day. The way I understand, I need to be at a net of less than 1600 cals/day to lose weigth. However this site is telling me my goal should be 1200 calories perday. That seems too low, considering my weight and how much I am used to eating. I would like to lose a moderate amount of weight (1-2lbs/week). So I guess my question is, what caloric goal should I be striving for?