what am I doing????!!

I love this site but really dont understand what my daily sugar intake, cholesterol intake etc should be- heres my overall stats. can anyone tell me what they should be and where Im going wrong. I would really aprreciate it. Need to lose weight, Im miserable :( 5'4 about 190 lbs, 34 years old, Medium framed.

Thanks a bunch. I love all ya for your advice.

 

Daily Calorie Intake - 1,856 cals
Daily Sodium Intake - 3,360 mg
Daily Sugar Intake - 66 grams
Daily Cholesterol Intake - 414 mg
Daily Saturated Fat Intake - 26 grams
Daily Fiber Intake - 12 gram

To lose weight you should aim for 1400-1500 cals a day.  Make that up with mostly fresh vegetables and fruit.  Add in some wholegrains... wholemeal bread, brown rice, high fibre breakfast cereals, wholewheat pasta, porridge oats.  Also moderate portions of lean meat, oily fish, dairy products.  Include things like pulses (legumes), beans, lentils, chickpeas, nuts and seeds rather than eating meat every day.  Include fats in small amounts such as butter and olive oil.  Drink plenty of water and other fluids.

Prepare and cook as much food for yourself as possible with fresh ingredients.  Highly prepared, processed, diet' and 'low fat' foods tend to be the ones with lots of salt and sugar and very little fibre.

Rather than trying to hit particular benchmarks for salt, cholesterol etc. eat 'real food' as much as you can, trim your intake to 1400-1500 cals, do some exercise and you'll be fine.

Decrease your sodium intake. Your are probably retaining some water. Decrease your cholesterol intake and increase your fiber intake to about 25 grams this will help you fill full. Your sugar intake is pretty good. I agree that you need to add more fresh fruits and vegetables as well as whole grains such as wheat bread, oatmeal, anything high in fiber. This will also help with  the regulation of your bowel movements preventing  bloating due to constipation.

It's reccomended that you have a lower sodium intake than that but if you're like me than it doesn't really make a difference. The thing that stands out the most when I look at your daily intakes is the fiber: that's really low. If you can't find a way to work more fiber into your diet then try supplementing with fiber, Fiber Choice tablets are good. Other than that, I don't know how much you exercise, if you're like me than you exercise a lot and you can afford to eat 1850 calories a day and still lose weight, but you're probably not so I would try decreasing your caloric intake by a few hundred calories. Finally, your saturated fat intake is a little high (but mine always is too). That probably won't hurt your weight loss, but if you're sensitive to it it might cause health problems.

Do you exercise at all?  That would help give you a bigger deficit to lose with.

 

Your Estimated BMR (calculated at http://phord.com/cc):
BMR=1630 :: Sedentary Burn=1956

Your customized recommendation:
EAT 1630 calories :: BURN 1956 calories :: LOSE 0.65 lb per week

Reasoning:

Deficits: Your deficit is the difference between how many calories you eat and how many calories you burn. Your recommended deficit is 326 calories. This is the least of your Activity Deficit (326 calories), your Safety Deficit (950 calories), and your Maximum Fat Calorie Expenditure (which cannot be calculated without knowing your body fat percentage).

Activity Deficit (326 calories): This is the number of calories you burn in your daily activities (such as being awake, driving to work, exercising, doing homework, etc.). This is an estimate based on the amount of exercise you indicated you do each week in the form above, averaged out for daily deficit numbers. For sedentary individuals this is 20% of your BMR.

Safety Deficit (950 calories): Nutritionists say that you can safely lose no more than 1% of your body weight per week. For the weight you gave (190 lb), you can safely lose about 1.9 lb per week. Because each pound of body fat contains 3500 calories of energy, your safe deficit is 1.9 lb * 3500 calories per pound per week = 6650 calories per week, which comes to 6650 / 7 = 950 calories per day.

 

Thanks so much- I still dont quite understand those numbers but my doctor says my cholesterol is high and I really dont eat right, not a big fan of healthy foods - but Ive been trying to follow everyones advice and it looks like it has helped - in one week here are my new Overall stats

Daily Calorie Intake - 1,637 cals
Daily Sodium Intake - 3,222 mg
Daily Sugar Intake - 57 grams
Daily Cholesterol Intake - 334 mg
Daily Saturated Fat Intake - 22 grams
Daily Fiber Intake - 15 gram

Still working on that fiber thing, and I know the rest is still above what it should be but its progressing. Ill definately take your advice and keep working on the #s and pay attention to what it is that Im eating

Thanks again :)