How much should I really eat?

Okay so the basic history of my weight loss is that about 2 years ago I went on weight watchers and lost 38 pounds over about 6 months.  I kept it off until last fall when I went back to grad school and have slowly put it a lot of it back on over the last year and a half.  I have always tried to eat healthy and have really started back since September but I can't seem to loose any weight.  I am 5'9", weigh 188, and am a 23 year old female.  I eat around 1700 calories a day and do cardio for about 45min 6 days a week and lift weights 3-4 days a week.  My cardio varies from day to do to give me variety.  Some days I run, or take a spinning class or do the eliptical.  Even over the time period of gaining weight back I still worked out I just wasn't eating as healthy.  I know that with weight lifting I will gain muscle, but I haven't seen any weight loss since i started back.

Exactly how many calories should I consume a day?  Caloriecounter says that someone with my characteristics should eat 1700 to loose about 1 lb per week.  I know that with workign out you should eat more, but I feel that anything over this is too much.  Does anyone have any suggestions on things I can try?

Hi,

I don't think you need to eat any extra because you're excercising, just think of the excercise as a bonus to help your weight loss along.

Depending on what rate you want to lose at i'd go for a "kick-start" fortnight of between 1300 and 1400 a day (this worked well for me). Then even it out at between 1500 and 1600. The weight should come off then at about 1-2 lbs a week. If its going any quicker add 100cals a day until it evens out to 1-2lbs a week.

The point where you may need to add a few calories because of your excercise is when you reach the weight you want to be and want to maintain rather than lose any more!

Hope this helps!

Laura xx

I would set your activity level to sedentary, and then add the calories you burn from exercise. From there you should be eatting 500-1000 less than what you're burning, not going under 1200.

Example:

Sedentary metobolic rate: 1900cal

exercise 45 min elliptical: 500cal

Total: 2400cal

so you should consume 1400-1900cal that day, if those were your stats.

Just edit your account settings to sedentary, and add the exercise.

I punched your info into this website: http://www.phord.com/cc/ and it lists you as having a BMR of 1675 - which means if you lay in bed and did *nothing* all day, you'd burn 1675 calories.  So, you shouldn't eat less than that.  The 1200 cals/day minimum is for a sedentary tiny woman (5 feet; 100 pounds) - which you're not.

If you sit around all day, doing the standard go-to-work/make-dinner/take-out-the-garbage day-to-day stuff but no extra exercise, you'd burn just over 2010 calories per day.  If I set you to "very active" (which it almost sounds like you are), it says you burn 2900 cals/day.  So, your problem might actually be that you're not eating enough for your exercise.  Try increasing your calories to 1900 or 2000 cals/day.  That'd still give you a huge deficit and might kick your weight loss in gear.  It's still less than your sedentary burn so, other than possibly retaining water for a few days (which goes away!), it can't possibly make you gain weight.