Question about how many calories? Help please!
I'm not a newbie, I've read tons of posts about the meters, how to use them and I still am not sure if I've got it right. Here's why-I'm sedentary at home and active at work. But, I don't work every day. If I'm not working, I'm sedentary again. I'm a decorative painter so when I do work it's very physical, painting walls with brushes (no rollers) for 6-7 hrs a day. Lots of ladders and some heavy lifting. I do exercise. I walk a lot, mostly around my neighborhood daily for at least an hour. On weekends I do longer walks and some long hikes. I go to the gym at least two days a week but aim for three or four. I do 20 min. of cardio and hit the weights pretty hard.
CC recommends that a person my size (5' 2" female, 121 lbs) should eat 1200 cal a day to reach my goal of 110 lb. I thought that was the absolute minimum a woman should eat. I've calculated my RMR and it comes to roughly 1250 ( I say "roughly" because I've done it multiple times at different sites and gotten multiple answers). 1250 was the average. I've read in the forum on CC where someone said one should eat their minimum and then add the calories burned through exercise, eat them too. Is that better, more accurate? I've gone to the freedieting, as well and gotten a totally different answer, says I should aim for 1148 or something like that!
1. I don't want to be hungry
2. I don't want to mess up my metabolism by eating too few calories
3. I want to lose the weight!!!
As recommended here on CC, I've tried upping my calories to 1300 and then 1500. I saw no real difference. Weight goes up and come down again for 1-2 lb.s
Help!!
Bump!
I'd just try to set your activity level at light and try that out for a bit. If you are either hungry, or don't lose weight, adjust. Everyone is different, and CC's recommendations are just guidelines.
If you eat a healty diet even at 1200 cals a day you won't be hungry. I know it sounds hoaky but that's exactly what I'm doing. I have original shredded wheat in the morning, a smoothy 3 hrs later(just fruit and 1/2 cup milk), a sandwich for lunch with a 0 cal soda, a rice cake if I want to munch, and lots of veggies or a salad for dinner sometimes with a little rice. Most of the time I still have cals left for sherbet or something like that. It's easy if you're eating the right foods. Good luck! OH I've only been doing this for a week and I can see results already, and my husband noticed it too!
Angela, I'm eating 1200 cal a day based recommendations of CC. I stick to it pretty closely, and I am STARVING all the time. Oh, and the weight loss is slow. You are fortunate that you don't feel hungry and you are seeing quick results. I've recently added fiber to my diet to decrease the hunger pangs, but it is not helping. Sticking to my 1200 cal/day is a major battle every day.
Hi Angela,
I am a numbers geek and I run a strategy of the deficit. A deficit of 1000 calories per day should equal 2 pounds a week of weight loss. This is not that hard to do.
Set your activity level at sedentary. Find Standing; Moderate/Heavy - Lifting More Than 50 Lbs, Masonry, Painting, Paper Hanging as this one looks like it would be close to your work. Enter all the hours you work. Enter all your walking. Enter everything except normal everyday stuff such as hygiene. I add my sleep as it uses so few calories I do not want my numbers to be estimated too high.
Try this for 1 month. Is your deficit reflected on the scale? If not there may be a flaw in your calculations or your metabolism is not up to par. You should be able to tweek your numbers to match the scale. Just remember that metabolism is a fickle being and has a mind of its own sometimes.
Good Luck
