Extremely Confused: Mayo Clinic/CC Differences

 

Hello,

 

I've been researching healthy recipes to cook for the family. I ran across what looks to be a very good site for this. Their recipes appear to be much healthier than those I currently cook and they also give a nutritional analysis for each of them. The site is Mayoclinic.com in the healthy recipes section. However, in doing all this I also found the Mayo Clinic Healthy Weight Pyramid Tool. After putting in all my information, it says I should eat 1400 calories per day to lose weight and gives a breakdown of how many servings of vegetables, proteins, dairy, etc, I should be eating. It also states that along with this calorie deficit, I should be doing between 30 to 60 minutes of moderate to intense physical activity daily.

 

CC says that in order for me to reach my goal of 180 pounds by July,30 2010, I should be eating around 1978 calories per day, at this weight. I know that number will go down as I lose weight. My stats are 33 years old as of September of this year, 6' 1” in height, 290 pounds, female. This is even at sedentary activity. I generally do it for sedentary and add my physical activity on an individual basis. I do 50 minutes of Tae Bo daily and walk 1 mile every evening. This adds up to around 1 hour and 10 minutes of physical activity daily.

 

Here is a list of my calorie intake for the past week:

Tuesday – 1590

Wednesday – 1655

Thursday – 2160

Friday – 2205

Saturday – 1521

Sunday – 1924

Monday – 2491

 

According to CC, I've been burning a total of 934 calories daily for my physical activity. Not including what I burn doing nothing.

 

I'm very confused at this point though. If I do between a 500 to 1000 calorie deficit, I should be eating around 2200 calories per day at this weight and level of physical activity. But, the Mayo Clinic says I should eat 1400 calories per day while doing between 30 to 60 minutes moderate to intense physical activity daily. Which should I do? Isn't the Mayo Clinic supposed to be rather trustworthy in terms of weight control?

 

Thanks much.

Hey there 'mom' ;)

I was having this exact frustration, the Mayo Clinic doesn't mention anything about net calories which seems to be such a big topic elsewhere in the weight-loss world.  For myself, I decided that because I am such a tiny person as well as someone with chronic anemia-- what works for a more average person is not going to work for me. (esp. since I am within a healthy BMI and just want to lose 5-10 lbs)

In the end, what the MC says is probably accurate if you want to lose 2lbs a week -- the thing is, it's hard to get in the right nutrients when you're eating that few calories... I'm only 5'0 and 107 lbs and I was miserable eating 1300-1400 calories. You may be better off doing what CC tells you... I know it's a cliche, but "listen to your body."

The other thing is that in the end, it's all estimates -- the calories you burn, the calories in food, it's all math and every body is different -- not to mention every "medium sized" apple. There's so much room for error when even the baseline formulas we depend on for BMI, etc, are all just general estimates.

This probably wasn't terribly helpful. I share your frustration. I think I will, once again, submit a related question to their "ask a specialist" section... *sigh*

 

Yeah, it can be so confusing. I wonder if I have my activity calories burned figures right constantly. 500 to 1000 is a small deficit if you really think about it. Especially when you consider all this counting is an approximation. It would be very easy to miscalculate and end up wasting months of your time.

I have found that depending on what information you are reading you will be told something differnt in regards to losing weight. For me it was just trial and error. When I first joined this site it said I should eat 1900 cal a day because I burn a little more than 2200 cal a day. I thought that sounded high so I started eating around 1500-1600 daily to see what happened. I lost weight but not as well as I wanted. I went to the doctor (unrelated) and asked her what she thought. She said that I could eat 1200-1300 cal a day and lose weight at a healthy rate. I have been eating between 1100-1300 cal a day for 6 weeks and I have lost about 14 pounds. So to end my rant, since as said above, these are all just estimates play around a bit and see what works for you. One thing about my diet is that with decreasing my caloric intake I make sure that all of my calories are nutritios so I never lack protien, fiber, or even the recomended healthy fats. One thing I found helpful was visiting the mypiramid website and reading what is actually considered a serving. Serving sizes are way out of proportion even on the healthy stuff. Like for your grains when it says 6-11 a day, OMG, sounds like a ton, however after reading what is actually considered portion sizes, its really not hard to get it all in.

Sorry if this didn't help, but good luck

 

I just tried playing around with the Mayo Clinic tool and basically it makes no sense.  No matter what size or age or height you are as long as you are female, it recommends 1200 calories for weight loss.  So a 6'1, 18 yr old female at 140 pounds is told to eat the same as a 5'1, 18 yr old female at 101 pounds.  Basically, the weight loss tool is useless--all females seem to be told to eat 1200 calories to lose and all males 1400 to lose.

The weight maintenance tool seems to be more accurate but unfortunately, I would not rely on the website for weight loss purposes.

If you are looking for a better caloric calculator I would try Phords (you can find it by running a search function on this site) or http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calc ulator.htm

good luck!

Proof of the pudding etc.... Are you losing weight at your current intake and exercise level?  If so, then you should trust the CC suggestion and trust your own judgement.  As you lose weight you'll need to trim your intake a little but 1400 is usually only recommended once you get well below 200lbs and only doing a light amount of exercise i.e. less than half an hour a day. 

i think medical diets are often drastic, because the goal isn't necessarily achieving a sustainable change, it's losing weight fast to qualify for a medical procedure.  say you need a bypass but you're morbidly obese and they're afraid you'll die on the table.  they want to get you there ASAP.  what happens after the surgery - well, that's someone else's problem.