newbie - question about calories needed per day

Hi all!

I keep reading about a deficit in calorie and how it is bad to have one over 1000.

I am not sure how to figure out how many calories I should be eating so I do not ruin my metabolism while still trying to lose weight.

Here is where I am at right now:

height - 5'2 3/4"

weight - 126-130 (i rarely weigh myself)

age - 27

I have calculated my BMR to be 1394.42 based on a sedentary lifestyle.  I work out about 6 days a week for about an hour.  This usually includes burning up to 700 calories from cardio and then lifting weights.

I would like to lose 5-10 more pounds but I am not sure what kind of calories I should be eating each day to help me do this.  Currently I eat around 1200-1500.  But should I be including my excercise in this as well?  So that would mean I am taking in 500-800 on an active day.  That does not seem right and I am afraid I am hurting my body more then helping it.

I love this site and would appreciate any help I can get.  Thanks!

 

bump

 

if someone could help me or direct me thanks!

Ok Anne_stace, here is what i have learned on this site so far. Don't know if it'll help...

You should not eat below 1200-period. Just not healthy. So if you are eating 12-1500, sounds like that is good for your body and height, etc. If you are eating 1200, and burning (with exercise) 700 exercising, your deficit on average would be about 500. That's not bad at all. If you keep it at that rate, you will steadily lose about a pound a week. (you must burn/ have a deficit of 3500 calories to lose one pound----so 500 deficit a day, times 7 days a week, equals 3500 calories lost)

I hope that actually helped! Hope it goes well with you!

 

Klutzykles has the basic idea down. :)  To determine what your needs are place all activities that you do for a 24 hour period into the activity log.  There are 1440 minutes in a day, the easiest thing to do is to keep track of your active minutes then subtract those plus your sleep from 1440 and log watching tv or something nonactive that you are not sleeping.  If you can do it minute for minute then do it, it will be much more accurate.  Do this for a few days, if your schedule is pretty much the same then just do it two days but if your schedule is different then pick three or four days.  This will represent your daily caloric burn then you can set your caloric deficit based on that number so if you average burn is 2000 calories each day then consume 1500 to create a 500 calorie deficit.  In your case much more and it would be to much of a deficit.  To dial it down go to this linkto figure your BF%, then take your BF% x weight = Pounds of fat to lose.  Take that number * 31 to see how big of deficit you can have before you go beyond what the body can do (read thread already posted).  So if you are 130lbs at 22% BF = 29lbs of fat x 31 = 887 calories. So 1000 would be way to much for you and 500 - 700 would be perfect that way you have a cushion so you don't go to far.  With you a solid weight training program 4 days a week with some cardio mixed in after your work out would shred that fat in no time.

thank you both for the help!!

I am new to the site as far as using the tools and posting but I have been hiding in the background for the last month reading the forums. I am trying to understand the whole calorie thing because I do not want to go into "starvation mode" as I have seen it called.

thanks again! I will start working on my activity log.