cals

[diane88]

if i eat 1200 cals then excerise  do i need to eat my net cals to = 1200 net cals

[MikeBuck]

1200 is not a lot of calories.  You can almost burn 1200 calories doing very little.  The point is to burn more calories than you eat.  If you eat too little you body can shut down and not lose weight because it goes into starvation mode.  I find that if I can condition my body to burn more by exercising three times daily at around 25-30 minutes each, eat lean protein, and at least 5 servings of vegies/fruits a day.  I actually have to increase my consumption to lose weight.  Measuring how many calories you burn is not an easy science as it is influenced by you own metabolism.

[diane88]

myfitness says to eat 1200 not much.................i try not to go over 1500 ?but still no weight loss

[Ukase]

Weight loss is simple. Calories out must be greater than calories in.

Fat loss is not so simple.

So - what is your bmr? Have you entered this information into the fitbit dashboard, so your Fitbit can give you a guess as to how many calories you burn a day?

Once you know your bmr, you eat 300-700 calories less than that a day, and you'll lose weight. All this talk you hear about "starvation mode"  - that's essentially rubbish. That only applies if you've not eaten for a day or two. If you skip breakfast, I promise, even thought it's foolish to do so, your body is not going to go into starvation mode unless you've skipped the previous day's meals as well.

But - the more you exercise, the more you need to eat. Muscle requires more calories to maintain. So, when you're calorically deprived, you need to eat, or your body will "eat" your muscle before it "eats" your fat.

So - get up in the morning. Do a low intensity fasted walk for about 20-30 minutes. Come back inside, have a decent breakfast. Breakfast calories should be about 40-45 percent of your daily intake.

Go about your day. Get a workout in at some point, cardio, weight training, vacuuming, whatever.

have lunch. Lunch should be about 30-35% of your calories for the day. Dinner gets the rest.

The body was not designed to sit behind a computer. Limit this time. No tv. Get out and do something. Go windowshopping. This works a lot of calories! Not buying anything uses even more calories!

You just have to do it.

Don't be like me and say, "Peanut butter is nutitious" and eat the whole jar in two days. That's not good for anyone. Stay away from snacks altogether. Let your liver make your snack for you.

Later in the evenings, you may have cravings for junk food. Eat all the raw veggies you want. But, go for a brisk walk or do some sit-ups before you give in to the cravings. That will raise dopamine levels in your brain and cancel out the cravings.

[diane88]

thanks............I'm hard person to lose weight. i eat 1200 to 1500 cals a day.. i walk 30 mins to a hour...i do curves 30 a day............i do water aerobics about3 times a week.........i burn in 24 hours 2700-3400 cals a day .buts its been ?a year and only 67 pounds which is a lot but not to me :(. i wish i could lose at ?least 1 ?to 2 lbs a week but that don't happen. i just dont' know what else to do.i have had the fitbit for 2 months i love it but i'm always under.......i wish i knew exactly how many cals to eat and to burn......i have put all info in fitbit and i use myfitness too.......but i'm stuck.........?

[MikeBuck]

Everyone is different.  I am 54, started off at 262 two months back and am down to 228.  Not sure why but I seem to lose weight quickly after becoming more active and changing my eating.  I limit my carbs because I am prediabetic, what ever that means.  Doctor said eat less than 55 carbs a day and I would loose weight.  So eliminated breads and pasta, no potatoes, lots of veggies (whose carbs put me over 55 but eat them anyway), some fruits, lean protien, eggs, and never eat after 7pm.  I recorded 2000+ calories yesterday and lost 1.6 lbs.  Sat in front of a computer all day (20 minute walk at 10 am and 3pm) did a 3.8 mile hike at 8pm ( in the dark up a mountain side with not trail and lots of loose rock).  Its not hydration as I drank over a gallon yesterday (have kidney stone also). Why did I lose?  I weigh everyday.  If I lose I check what I did different and do that again.  Okay, don't call it starvation mode.  Body builders can eat easily 5000 to 6000 calories a day but maintainless than 7% body fat.  There used to be a pair of twin body builders that used to make fun of people trying to lose weight by sever caloric restrictions.  Get your body metabolism going and that is most of the battle.  Make it fun, take hikes, go bowling, ride a bike, join a gym, swim in a lake, walk a beach, find a rural dirt road and enjoy the stars, walk your dogs(I did all those things last week) just avoid sitting and watching tv at night.  I do that and I gain weight, and you will gain also.  I work two jobs so I have no time to calculate percentages of cals in the am.  I find what works and go for it.  Starvation mode - rubbish? If you don't like the name call it some thing else - talk to a body builder whose metabolism is running high and what affect cutting calories does.  We are not working out 8 hours a day but we also are not consuming 6000 calories a day.  Hey if weighing every food, calculating calories, determining percentages, works for you, then do it.  If it doesn't try something else, my system works for me, might not work for you.  But if something does not work, don't hang on to it, adjust or modify till it does works.  If you do the same thing with the same results don't expect different results from doing the same thing.

[diane88]

i have tried so many things.its so hard i don't ?like fruits or veggies i have tried them . when i burn 2500-3500 cals a day how many cals should i eat..........i eat now 1200-1500 still nothing in a few months....

[MikeBuck]

You have to change what you like.  Sounds dumb but I had to do it.  I loved big steaks and potatoes.  French fries with my hamburgers.  Chips in front of the TV.  Ice Cream, I love Ice Cream!  But those are foods killing me.  Just lost my father to diabetes.  That was after he lost toes, then feet, then legs.  That is much worse than not eating a quater pounder with cheese.  I love sauted brussel sprouts , I eat asparegus like chips in spicy hummus.  I grill some type of meat almost daily.  Stir fry with all the veggies.  A salad everyday.  I even go to mcdonalds and get mcchicken patties alone.  deep fried so have to limit those.  Radishes, carrots with ranch yogurt dip, snap peas, edemame...  Keep on eating them and you'll start to like them.  Apples and oranges daily.  Hard at first but lossing weight makes them look better.

[diane88]

I just don't like veggie at all to the point of throwing up.............I have tried to eat veggies and salads I just can't

[MikeBuck]

Can't help you in eating poor nutritional foods.  Have to eat good food to lose weight.  Good Luck.

[Algenon]

1,200 calories is a lot to burn off through exercise as a previous poster said.  I work out on my eliptical for two hours at a 30% incline, rpm=72, at level 6-8 and I only burn 400 in 45 minutes.  I would move around as well as exercise.    You may not be burning as much as you think....Are you logging in the activities separately?

[MikeBuck]

I can sit in front of my computer all day and the dashboard will show me burning 2000 calories.  It is hard to live by the dashboard readings.  Exercise hard.  Take walks, work out at the gym, don't eat late in the evening.  I end my days with a walk or hike.  Do something different that what you normally do, that sometimes is the trigger to weight loss. 

[diane88]

thanks mikebuck...........

[Heybales]

From all that info provided, do this.

Take what Fitbit estimates you burn.

Take 25% off that figure.

Now how much deficit is there between what you eat in total (not net), and what you burn?

Studies have shown that's about the max suppression you can cause your system when you undereat by too much for a short period of time (3 months easy to cause).

Now, do you correct the Fitbit burn with manual entries of non-step based exercise that it is badly underestimating? Your daily burn could be higher if you don't.

If the deficit from above math is within 300-400, you could have really bad food logging sucking up the difference.

But with that much more to lose, where exactly do you imagine the calorie eating level going to keep losing?

You know you have to eat less when you weigh less, right?

And that would include the level of exercise still burning the same amount. Yikes.

What happens if you get injured or sick or vacation for a week and can't do that level of workouts?

Now how little do you have to eat to not gain fat?

Do you binge eat from discouragement or hunger or whatever? That's all going to be added fat likely, since it's going above maintenance, which is where you are eating right now.

And how low will maintenance be?

Can you adhere and sustain that? Hence the reason most fail in maintenance and become experts at losing weight - they do it so often.

Were you following the MFP method the whole time correctly?

1200 is bottom of barrel recommendation for safety for a sedentary woman.

Were you actually sedentary eating that much?

Or shooting your body in the metabolism by thinking bigger is better and eating 1200 and exercising a lot?

Weight loss can be easy with a healthy body - yours likely stopped being healthy a while back, it's going to be a fight now.

Since you are on MFP too, try this spreasheet below.

Stay on the Simple Setup and Progress tabs only.

Look at stats in yellow cells to see what's going on, change them to see changes, then delete all sample data in only yellow cells.

Enter your own stats.

Enter in your own workout time, see what an estimated TDEE is.

How does that compare to what Fitbit reports on average?

That can be messed with later.

That's a reasonable deficit, if you actually burned that much - which you don't know.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Amt7QBR9-c6MdGVTbGswLUUzUHNVVUlNSW9wZWloeUE

And as to what you did to your system, starvation mode, adaptive thermogenesis, metabolic efficiency, whatever are the terms. Many have myths that go along with them that are false. But the effect is very real.

And this study shows it only took 3 months to get it with a mere 25% deficit off measured TDEE.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/heybales/view/reduced-metabolism-tdee-beyond-expected-from-weight-l...

That's what I believe you did to yourself.

For a much more negative few of your future - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i_cmltmQ6A

So your choice now is heal up like any injury (though this isn't really damaged, body doing exactly what it supposed to) and then lose again reasonably and successfully.

Or eat even less right now (or workout more/harder or combo) hope you can sustain and adhere until weight is gone, stick on maintenance that is 20-25% less than possible, and heal later.