How many calories do i need?

L

leeuk87

New member
Hi, I posted a few days ago, but didnt get a reply, just wondered if someone could help me out with this, im really stuck!

Im a 20 year old male, 6'3, and weigh 210 pounds. I started dieting a few months months ago, and lost 40 pounds. But I didnt really research how to diet healthily, and I was eating 1200 calories a day - Ive now been the same weight for the past 5 weeks and its really starting to frustraite me. After reading up on plateaus, and learning how it may be caused by the metabolism slowing down due to lack of calories, I gradually increased my calories to 2100 a day, and ive been eating 2200 a day, and every other day i might eat around 2400, for the past 3 weeks and still ive lost no weight. I also go to the gym 3 times a week, and split the hour up into 20 mins running, 20 mins cycling, 20 mins on weights.

I was just wondering If someone could tell me how many calories I should be eating to lose weight? Ive used various online calculators, but they vary a great deal, with some saying as little as 1500, and some saying 3000! So I just want to know if im not eating enough and need to increase calories, or if im eating too much and need to reduce.

A few calorie calculators say to maintain my weight i need around 2100-2200, which would mean to reduce weight i would need to eat 1800? Is this correct?
 
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Personally, I eat at 1800 calories a day (most of the time). I find it a perfect number and haven't plateaued yet. If I do plateau, I will refeed; I will up my calorie intake to about 2200-2400 calores for about a week, and then continue with the 1800. But like I said, I've never encountered a plateau lasting more then 3 weeks.

Perphaps, what you can do is find an accurate number of your BMR and subtract 20% from that. You can subtract up to 30% but do not go lower then this. Your body is out of fast mode, so reducing the calories know should show good effects relating to weight loss.
 
Hi,

I'm brand new to the forum and will do a bio soon, but wanted to reply to your post. You are concerned that you are not losing any more weight, but at the same time you are going to the gym and working out. You may be losing fat and gaining muscle, which is a good thing.

It's probably best to have a body composition test done (ask at your gym) and see. I bet your percentage of body fat is dropping but the weight is being offset by a gain in lean muscle mass.

David C
Brand Spankin Newbie...
 
Sounds like you've hit what's called a plateau. It happens to anybody losing any amount of weight. Don't give up what you're doing....you'll find that in a week or so, your weight will plummet several pounds at once. Keep with what you've been already doing--eat right & exercise.

To help you speed up this plateau, try mixing up your exercise routine, do more resistance training instead of cardio, etc. Whatever works for you!

And here is one more idea. I would suggest a cleansing diet. I learned that cleansing will help the body get rid of toxins. Toxins come from a lot of things like fast food, pollution, food additives and preservatives and lots of other things. The toxins get stored in the fat in our body. To get rid of the fat, we have to get rid of the toxins by cleansing the body. This made sense to me and I decided to try a cleanse program and it worked. The weight came off fast and this kept me motivated to keep going. Check out following link for more details about different cleansing methods (LINK REMOVED)

Good luck, and stick with it!
 
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Good for you on upping the calories, severly restricting intake makes it much harder to lose. I just increase my exercise if I hit a plateau, always works.

My "diet", lol:

Breakfast - Large bagel with cream cheese, cereal with fresh strawberries.
Lunch - Sandwich (egg salad, tuna, ham), chips, slice melon, 1 orange
Dinner - 1/2 lb. spaghetti with sauce, salad (vinegar, oil, mustard, pepper, salt) and 1-2 bread rolls. Add to this some vegetables and fruit.
Snacks - Fruit, vegetables, chips, brownies, ice-cream, cookies, etc.

Because I exercise I don't have to watch my calorie intake that much. Low carb = low energy, doesn't work. Just look at the diets of the top distance runners from Africa, they get 70% of calories from carbs and their second highest ingredient for calories is....sugar. So much for conventional logic.
 
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