Fitness

Im a bit confused about my calorie intake on active days...like say I do pilates for 20-40 minutes 6 days a week, and 3 days cardio for 20 minutes on the elliptical. Im 19 years old by the way, so still a teen, though Im turning 20 in november.

I keep getting all different kinds of numbers..like 1800, 1900, 2,000...always in between those ranges. I dont want to lose weight at all.

I entered this stats

19 yrs old

5'4

110 pounds.

 

I need calories for maintenance only. 

Also on days I dont do exercise, do I lower my intake? like say I burn 1600 on a sedentary day...do i eat that amount?

 

what do you think? the calculators here give me 1800 for my activity level...but 2 other websites give me 1900 and 2,000 cals a day to maintain.

 

help?

 

EDIT: What intensity should I log in too...light or moderate? thing is i dont know what intensity is pilates....Im really confused.

bump* anyone?

i'm really confused about this too. i get 1900 to 2200 hundred to lose, which one is it? and according to heart rate monitor i burn 700 to 900 calories during my daily workout, so do i have to eat more? any help appreciated

two that need help here hehe, second bump*

It depends on your individual goals and stats, really - the RMR formula is based off some fairly extensive testing and there isn't a lot of difference between the various formulas (Harris-Benedict, Mifflin-St.Jeor, Katch-McArdle), but there can be a large difference in the 'activity factor' used by the various calculators.

 In general the CC guidelines are good for weight loss, but needs some fiddling for maintenance - you can do a manual check using several different formulas with Phord's calculator.

 You can either set your activity level to something -light,moderate,etc - or you can set your activity level to sedentary and log your exercise separately through the activity tool to get a figure for your total daily burn.

 Your goal for weight loss is to have your burn meter be 500-1000 kcal more than your eat meter at the end of the day; you get varying recommendations because some of the tools use a more agressive approach closer to the possible max; which is not always either possible or useful.

 Check with Phord's calculator and fill in as much as possible, and you'll get a fairly detailed explanation of current Best Practice ;)

For both of you I would say try 1900 for a bit and see what your weight does.  If you weigh regularly you can adjust your intake to prevent yourself from losing weight.

If you want to maintain and you burn 1600 at sedentary, then add 700 cals of exercise, you should need about 2300 to maintain.

thanks melkor!

Well Im pretty sure I am supposed to maintain my weight at 1600...its basicly what all calculators everywhere gave me for my stats....Ive been doing what you pretty much explained there....the whole adding my calories burned during exercise to my sedentary intake...I was just worried I wasnt doing it correctly. Still Ive been fluctuating a pound up and down for the last two weeks which I believe could just be perfectly normal so I dont fuzz over it (at least thats what I hope hehe)

anyway ill def use the calculator u recommended :)

thanks again!

EDIT: apparently the calculators give me a more estimated number to around 1800 calories on exercise days :) so Ill def follow that. hehe problem solved ( i will still monitor my weight and see what happens)