My force telling me really low calories

[kelketchum]

I have had my force since Christmas. I am doing cardio & weight lifting swapping out every day. I try to get in 1500. I am 35. 5'2 & 118. I have been at a plateau for months!! Nothing I seem to do has worked. I have been doing a diet plan for thr last month that had me at barely 1200 calories a day. Some days fitbit would say I was right on for my calories. I am not sure if I should rely more on what the fitbit tells me versus trying to get all the 1500 calories in to hopefully get over this stand still. I am trying to gain muscle but I am sure due to the lack of calories that I am really struggling to get in...the muscle isn't coming. I eat clean & eating 1500 calories is very challenging to me. I always seem to have problems with not eating enough! Or do I go by what fitbit is saying most days & I eat to much? Fitbit has me well below 1200 most day. Any advice?

[Baltoscott]

Hi @kelketchum.

I plugged your sex, age, weight, and height into this TDEE calculator.  It has your BMR at a little less than 1200 calories/day and assumes that without exercise but doing desk work (Sedentary), you burn around 1400 calories/day.  

So that would be an average for someone like you.  Your numbers might actually be 20-25% higher or lower.  According to the TDEE calculator you are already in your "ideal  weight" range of 110-123, and your BMI of 21.6 puts you in the normal weight range.

I am not totally clear on what you mean by being at a plateau for months.  Are you trying to lose more weight? If so you probably should eat closer to 1200 and maybe increase the cardio.  

But you also say you are trying to build muscle.  If that is the direction you want to go you probably need to eat more.  Shoot for 1800-2000 (you need to eat a surplus to build muscle), drop a day of cardio and add another day of weight lifting.  Check that you are getting protein at every meal and try to make sure you are getting 100 grams or more of protien/day.  (Buiding muscle requires protien and shooting for around a gram pound of body weight when you body weight is in the normal range is a good target).  If you are having trouble eating that many calories adding some nut butters, avocados, whole grain pasta and bread, healthy oils for cooking, whole fat dairy ... 

Because you need to eat at a surplus to build muscle, you also wind up gaining weight and fat.  But that doesn't have to be permenant.  Once you get toward to higher end of your "ideal range," say 123 lbs, go from eating 1800-2000 to around 1200-1500 to get back down to where you are now.  In order to preserve the muscle you build on the way to 123, keep eating about 100 grams or more of protein and keep lifting weights 3 or 4 times/wk even as you reduce your total calories.  That will result in more of the weight loss coming from fat than the muscle you work so hard to build. 

Hopefully that gives you some ideas for what to try next.  

Cheers.