maintance calorie question that I'm sure has been asked many times

Hello! Are my maintance calories what my goal intake is or what my Burn Meter reads?

Also....ok...so today I fell off the wagon. After all is said and done and stuffed down my throat I'm looking at having eaten about 1550 calories today. I'm planning to work my butt off tonight with circuit training and weight training. But it estimates out to about 320 calories I will be burning. My Burn Meter shows that I burn about 1510 cals a day. Did I screw myself up with today's splurge?

And one more.....should my calorie intake always be below or equal to what I am burning at the moment or is it ok that it goes over and I burn the rest of the calories later in the evening? For example: At 1:00 I was at 1000 intake where my burn meter read 825 cal burned. Is it ok to be upside for a few hours?

Unless you're very small, very old or completely bedridden there's no way your maintenance intake is 1510.....   The typical (120-160lb) lightly active adult female between the ages of 21 and 50 needs 1900-2100 cals a day to maintain her weight.   If you're 5'1", 111lbs ... thirty-something?... and you do half an hour to an hour of exercise more than three times a week you need about 1800-2000.   On that basis, I'd suggest recalculating.

All the burn meter does is to take your total energy needs and divide them by the number of hours you're awake.... it's a pretty arbitrary figure, therefore.   As long as you're eating regularly (three meals a day minimum) then it doesn't matter when you take in the calories.

I'm 5'2 1/2, 111 lbs, in my 30's. With the calculation on here, it stated my goal was 1200 with my BMR of 1510. So I thought if I was to maintain I could eat at least 1510 cal plus additional if I exercise. This is wrong?

I thought if I was eating lets say 1900 cals and I wasn't burning that off then I would gain.

The 'BMR' is the amount of energy your body needs to do nothing at all.... i.e. just pump blood around and make your lungs go in and out. It doesn't include any movement - not even getting out of bed. Redo the CC calculation setting the activity level to 'light' and it'll come back with a recommendation of 1800-1900. That's why you really need 1800-2000. 1800 on days when you don't do much exercise, 2000 on days when you do.

the thing i did told me that 1200 is a good calorie intake for my age weight and lack of exercise and 1450 once i started exercising more. as for all the calculating that your doing i have no idea i dont really look that deep into it all. i think jsut go with the flow and exercise try to stay within the recomended calorie intake and take a multi vital if your not quiet reaching the calories indicated

goodluck with it though

and remember life isnt a race its a journey, one to be enjoyed

 

(edited as i had my figures wrong the first time i went back and dbl checked what it was lol)

I maintain on around 2000. I am 5'4, 110 pounds. My identical twin sister is maintaining on a much less number but she assured it was "good for her." We both run about 3-4 times a week for 30-40 minutes. I will definitely show her this post. Thank you gi-jane for clarifying this!