Weight-Loss Im a little confused :S

Weight-Loss
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MrJ

New member
I have just entered everything I've eaten/drunk today into FitDay, and what I intend to eat tonight, and its only come to about 1400 calories, and the BMR calculator says my BMR is about 2400. So I should eat about 1700 to have about a 30% cut right?

It seems I've eaten more than 1400 calories, and I dont know what else to eat to get it up to 1700, and I'm scared to eat more incase it just adds weight

Any help would be much appreciated

What I have eaten today is in my diary but it would be helpful if i added what I've eaten/intend to eat:

Breakfast: Bowl of corn flakes with semi skimmed milk and a coffee with a sweetener

Lunch: Ham and light mayonnaise sandwich on wholemeal, a banana, 2 snack-a-jacks and a handful of dried apricots/apple slices. Another coffe with sweetener

Dinner: Having shepherds pie for dinner
 
BMR is not the same as your maintenance intake. You want to calculate your caloric intake off of maintenance.
 
In addition to what Steve said, I'll add this:

"a handful of dried apricots/apple slices"
Unless you're weighing your "handful" it could be considerably more than what you think it is. Dried fruits are very sugar heavy, which makes them very calorie heavy.

I've found that estimating food amounts gets me in trouble every time. Unless I know for sure the amount or unless what I'm eating doesn't make a huge difference (like, for example, a cup of spinach), I measure/weigh EVERYTHING when I'm trying to lose. It's too easy to add in 100, 300, even 500 calories a day just by mis-estimating what you eat.
 
Three must haves (at least in my opinion)

Digital scale
Measuring cups
Measuring spoons.


I actually have extra M cups and M spoons at my desk in work.
 
Yup. And like Matt, I keep a set of measuring cups/spoons at work too. :)

Here's the scale I have. I think I paid $25 for it because it was on clearance.
 
Hmmm I may have to invest!

So how do I work out my maintenance intake as Steve was saying?
 
Sorry for the brevity before... I was heading out for my lunch. You can get quite complex to calculate maintenance, but that's silly IMO. I keep it very simple. 14-16 calories per pound can generally be accepted as maintenance. If you're sedentary, something like 12-14 would be maintenance.

There's no point in making it more complex than this since metabolism is ever-changing, which means your caloric needs are ever-changing. Why waste time worrying so much about a starting point when it won't be your starting point in a while?

So use the above formula to workout your maintanance. From there, cut something like 20-30% to generate an energy deficit.

If, after a number of weeks (2-3) things aren't heading in the right direction (scale, measurements, pictures), then adjust your intake accordingly. If you're losing to fast, bump up the intake. Losing to slow... knock them down. Adjusting in 10% intervals every few weeks if needed is a decent idea.

Not to mention calories is only part of the puzzle. Nutritional quality is something to consider too.
 
I will do Steve. Thanks for the help!

So at 252lbs, my maintenance intake is about 3500, and 30% off that would leave it at 2450. So I'm undereating?
 
Maintenance is probably between 32 and 3500, ya.

Under eating? That's too vague a term. Are you starving? More than likely not. What comprises said calories has more to do with how nutritionally deficient you are.

But in general, with most of my clients, I like for them to be eating as many calories as possible while still allowing for fat loss.
 
Based on what I'm seeing here, you're very carb heavy, and fat deficient. I'm not seeing any healthy fats at all actually. where are your fish oils? oilve/canola/coconut oils? Nuts? etc. Seeing as you're way low on calories anyway, adding a few ahndfuls of peanut butter or almonds would be a great way to get healthy fats and calories in.

To add to the above, you're way carb high and potentially protein heavy. Your protein intake should .4-.6 g/lbs body weight if you're physically active (workout a lot) and .2 g/lbs if you're not. I'm just about sure you're low.
 
Your protein intake should .4-.6 g/lbs body weight if you're physically active (workout a lot) and .2 g/lbs if you're not.
Click to expand...
Yowza. That's even lower than what the US gov't recommends ... and that's low to begin with.

The government nutritional recommendations are .8g of protein per 1kg (.4g per 1 lb) if you're NOT active.

And every trainer and reputable sports/training site I know says that if you're active, lifting weights, or looking to lose weight, you should aim for 1g per 1lb of bodyweight or for at least 30% of your calories to be from protein.

I personally try to meet the 1g / 1lb ratio, but find myself usually around .7g / 1lb of bodyweight. But I definitely train better and lose weight faster when eating as much protein as I can.
 
unless the us government changed their standards lately, the recommended intake has always been based around the lemon study in 1980. regardless, you are right, my numbers are a teeny bit low, (been a while since I had to remember them) but your numbers are way high.....

rda is
.36g/ lbs sedentary
.55-.8g/lbs active/strengthtraining/endurancetraining with strength training being on the upper end of that

I'm in agreement with you. I think the lemon study shortchanges the numbers a bit as while they are the proper baseline for nitrogen balance, then don't factor in synthesis diminishing returns. For anyone doing actual mass gaining I start at 1g/lbs.
 
I'm not one for letting the government dictate protein suitable protein targets, lol.

I suggest looking into current research pertaining to protein requirements in exercising populations.
 
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