Weight-Loss Calorie Consumption Question

Weight-Loss

Tamii

New member
I've read a number of times now that to find how many calories you should be eating a day is by taking your weight and adding a zero and decreasing by 500 or so if you're trying to lose weight rather than maintain.

I'm currently 205 and have been staying around 1300 calories a day. I'm also burning between 280-400cals a day during my workout. I guess my question is whether I'm going to do more harm than good cutting back that much. Should I be intaking a few hundred more a day or can I stick where I am?
 
These two posts helped me out quite a lot with a similar concern.
I'm going to give you the details behind the numbers, but keep in mind that you don't have to remember all of this. I just want you to know where I'm getting my numbers from, so you'll see I do know what I'm talking about. :)

The medical standard for determining your BMR is the Harris-Benedict equation. For women that equation is: 655 + (9.6 X weight in kilos) + (1.8 X height in cm) - (4.7 X age in years).

For you, that would put your BMR at 1960. Then you use an activity multiplier to determine your current maintenance calories. For you, at lightly active, that multiplier is 1.375, which puts your maintenance at 2694.

If you reduce that by 30% (a safe and healthy rate to lose weight), you get a calorie level of 1886 calories per day. Add a little more exercise to that (even some walking each day) and you'll be on track lose a safe and healthy rate of 1% of your body weight per week.

It's not that far off from what you came up with ... but 400 calories can make a huge difference both in the level of nutrients you get and in the amount of energy you'll have to keep your metabolism up.

BMR and maintenance are not the same thing - people get them confused.

BMR is what your body needs to survive if you did nothing but lie in bed all day and breathe. Your maintenance calories are your BMR calories multiplied by an activity factor to allow for your daily activities - everything from moving around, showering, walking around, any exercise you get, etc.

At 180 lbs, it's entirely possible that your maintenance calories are around 2800-3000. A good estimate is to multiply your current weight by 15 or 16 (if you're a man) or 13 or 14 (if you're a woman). That should give you your MAINTENANCE (not BMR) calories.

Also, one of the first things most of us found out when we got here was that we were underestimating our calories, or getting the right amount of calories from not so great foods.

You weight more than me (I'm at about 197) and my intake should be in the 1400-1500 range. That will still let me lost about 2 pounds a week, even if I do nothing but sit still and breathe, which is a fairly safe loss.

Not only that, but my BMR when I was judging it at 215 pounds was around 1600-1700...again remember that this number is the one to start with if you do nothing at all except exist.

Any activity you add beyond breathing is going to burn calories, brushing your hair and teeth, walking to the fridge, letting the cat out, etc.

So the short answer to your question is yes, if you truly are only getting around 1300 a day then you should add a few more so that you don't lose the lean muscle you're trying to build.

But the first thing I would do is compare a few calorie counters to make sure your count is correct. When in doubt, I go with the higher estimates on calories, and lower on calories burned. (For example, I found a counter that says I burn 400 calories brushing my hair, but I have short hair that I don't do anything to and takes about a second or two to brush, so I don't think 400 is accurate in that respect)

To be honest though, trying to remember all of these figures and numbers is a little intimidating to me. Instead I track what I eat and stay within good portions...like actually sticking with the serving size on the package and weighing or measuring out my portions instead of guessing. And I try to incorporate better foods, whole grains, lean proteins, veggies, stuff like that.

If I got this wrong someone smarter will come in and correct it, so don't follow what I said until you see another poster come in and correct me. :) But I think I got it pretty close this time.
 
Thanks for the info!! I have been using the FitDay log to monitor my calorie and fat intake. I acutally found that the nutrition info on there was a bit different than the food I was acutally eating, so I've been creating custom foods with the exact nutrition info on the label. When I first started I was shocked that on a day I thought was eating very healthy, I still managed to intake almost 60g fat and 3000 calories! (Realized majority of it was because of the amount of dairy I was eating) It defenitely has put things in perspective for me. My BMR calculated at 1610, so I think I will up my calories by a few hundred and see if it makes a difference in my energy level. Thanks again!
 
These two posts helped me out quite a lot with a similar concern.



Also, one of the first things most of us found out when we got here was that we were underestimating our calories, or getting the right amount of calories from not so great foods.

You weight more than me (I'm at about 197) and my intake should be in the 1400-1500 range.
How did you arrive at that number from what Kara posted?
 
How did you arrive at that number from what Kara posted?

Mostly by reading helpful, useful, informed, good, information then not following it...oh and being too lazy to use math, I do that a lot too.

In my defense, I did also say don't listen to me until someone smarter comes in an verifies it.:D I've made what? 50 posts? Like I really know what the hell I'm talking about. :)
 
Since there have been about a zillion (really) posts about calories lately, I just created a sticky on the subject:

http://weight-loss.fitness.com/nutrition/40273-how-many-calories-should-i-eat.html
 
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