Weight-Loss So how many calories do I really need?

Weight-Loss
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kathar

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I've used about ten different formulas for calculating the amount of calories I need per day to maintain my weight. The range is anywhere from 1500 to 2300. This is quite frustrating.

The basics:

Gender: Female
Age: 19
Height: 5'2. I've had it measured before at 5'1 and a half, but I think I've inched up a bit. Or half-inched, to be more precise.
Weight: I'm at college and I don't have a scale. On spring break I was 145. I wouldn't be surprised if I'm 150 now, but I doubt I'm much more.
Frame size: Small, bordering on tiny. (now if only that was weight...)
Body fat percentage: 32% last time I got it measured. This is depressing.

Exercise: Since a few weeks ago, I've tried to go to the gym every weekday. Note "tried". Realistically it's on the lower range of 1 to 4 days per week. While there, I walk/run on the treadmill for 30 minutes (calories burned usually comes out between 200-300) and do the strength training machines. I walk to class sometimes, but not all the time.

My goal is to get back to the vicinity of 115 pounds. Preferably 1-2 pounds a week.

Diet: I rarely eat unhealthy food. I just eat too much in general, most of it from boredom.

How many calories should I be eating? As I said earlier, I've used about ten different formulas and have gotten widely varying ranges. Right now I'm shooting for about 1200 calories per day. Is that too few?

For an example of my diet, here's today.

Breakfast - Package of raisins, 130 calories.
Lunch - Pita with baba ganoush, spinach, tomatoes, pineapple, and hot sauce - 410 calories. (according to the Pita Pit site.)
Lunch - Orange, 70 calories.
Snack - Berry-almond Luna bar, 180 calories.
Dinner - Asparagus, 80 calories (it was a lot of asparagus)
Dinner - Yogurt, 60 calories
Snack - Oatmeal, 200 calories

That's 1130, but there was assorted random crap like gum and such that should put it at 1200 or above.

(also, I notice that I didn't eat any meat today. I'm not a vegetarian, but I'm limited by what's at the dining hall. Today, there was a baked potato bar and pork chops. Even if I wanted to eat pork chops, they were too high in calories.)
 
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the stickied thread in this forum has a link to the harris benedict formula - use that

spend some time reading around this forum because when you do - you will learn that there is no one size fits all number - 1200 is probably too low - because it gives you no wiggle room - you're better off starting higher and see how your body reacts.

No one is going to be able to tell you to eat 1546 calories and you'll lose weight - just pick a close enough number and see how your body does
 
I'm REALLY not a fan of trying to pinpoint your maintenance intake. Why spend so much trying to figure out a number that's just an estimate anyhow and it's a moving target?

I'd much rather spend my time doing more effective things like learning more about weight loss, going for a jog, lifting some weights, etc.

Maintenance is generally estimated at 14-16 calories per pound of body weight. You can expand on that and say it's usually between 12-16. Not that I haven't seen people go outside these boundaries.... but in general it's a good starting place.

If you don't exercise much of you feel like you have a 'slow metabolism' (hint: most don't) then shoot for the lower end of the range. If you feel like you exercise a lot of have a fast metabolism, shoot for the higher end.

Just keep in mind that eating the most food possible while still triggering a weight loss is your best bet for long term consistency.

Once you pick your maintenance intake, create a deficit by picking a caloric intake below your maintenance. 25% or so is a good starting point. So if your maintenance was 13 calories per pound, you'd shoot for 10 or so calories per pound for weight loss.

Doesn't seem precise 'enough' I'm sure, but it doesn't need to be. From here, you simply track your progress. If things are heading in the right direction, great, you're on the right track. If you're losing too fast or too slow, adjust accordingly. It's not rocket science.

I'd track progress with a multi-factor approach.... measurements are best and you can throw in pictures once or twice a month and weight.
 
I like numbers because I rarely get hungry. Most of my overeating is out of pure boredom, or inertia, such as: ("Oh, I'm in the dining hall and have nowhere to go. I might as well stay here and go get a bowl of cereal to waste half an hour.") Just trying to eat healthier isn't going to help me lose weight (although I'm not perfect); what I need to do is eat *less*. The only way I'm going to do this is consciously working at it. Numbers work for that.

According to that formula, my daily calorie expenditure comes out to 1930, which is in the higher range of the numbers I've seen. I could probably stand to bump it up by 100 or so. Too late for that now, though, for today.
 
I'm not saying don't count calories, silly.

I'm saying don't be so anal on finding a starting point. It's futile.
 
All right.

Anything I should work on fixing with the diet? This is basically what I'd eat "normally," only less of it and without the unhealthy stuff I buy/pick up on impulse and don't really want in the first place. In other words, I'm not forcing myself to eat stuff I don't want. I'm forcing myself to eat less of stuff I do want. Everything I ate today, I enjoyed, except the asparagus. That wasn't because of the asparagus, but because the %^@#!* dining hall felt it necessary to cook it with peppers. Hot sauce took care of some of the taste, but not all. (I guess this is illogical, since hot sauce is basically peppers, but I never claimed my food preferences had logic.)

I don't see maintaining to be a problem; every time I've gained weight, it's been from adding too much of the impulse/boredom stuff. It's been from getting bored and hitting up the vending machine, or eating pizza at a party because it was there, even though I knew I'd already had dinner and wasn't hungry, or getting a biscotti at a coffee shop (I'll reserve that last one for cravings, though; there are far worse things I can eat.)

The biggest problem I'm anticipating is protein. Until May 2, I'm bound to dining-hall food. It's rare that I actually want to eat the meat dish. Take tomorrow. Lunch is baked chicken (which sounds like it'd be good, but something's driving the calories up beyond what I want to eat for lunch), or beef brisket. Dinner is either spaghetti and meatball or, again, beef brisket. So I'm out of luck there.

Cooking my own food isn't an option until I leave. We don't have a kitchen and even if we did, my freezer doesn't actually freeze things. Any suggestions?
 
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I'd do something like that if I knew where to find it. The grocery store on campus doesn't carry it (it's basically a glorified gas station), and I don't have a car here.
 
peanut butter isa good fill in when campus food sucks... and doesn't require refridgeration... if you've gota hot pot - soups are another alternative...
 
Excellent. I'll go pick up some more peanut butter today. (there's some here but I think it might be my roommate's.) I'll see about the whey protein when I get home; I'd need instantaneous shipping for that to work out right now. Just bad timing, I'm afraid.

This should be less of a problem when I get home. Two scenarios. One, my mother cooks. When she cooks, it's generally healthy, because she's trying to diet; when she's off the diet, she doesn't bother to cook. If that happens, I make something myself or go pick something reasonable up.
 
Since I started my "diet plan"....I have one of my friend quite fat, and she ask me for help to lose weight.

well...I didn't tell all of my position about food. But I said... If she avoid processed food and candys, eat more vegetable, veggies (raw or cooked without satured fat...),whole grain, fresh fruit, some dried fruit like almonds or nuts...she can lose weight.


And off course, she started and at moment she have good results.

Avoid processed food.
Avoid unhealthy source of fat, carbs and protein on your daily rotine.
And limited the salt on your diet also.

And than you will see the results.
 
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