Hi everyone! I'm new to several things recently. Let me start by giving a little background, I'm 25, 5'5" and 156 pounds. I would like to loose 25 pounds or so. I haven't ever had a flat stomach or been considered thin, aside from when I was a little kid. I've always been called thick or other similar words which are just nicer forms of chubby. (Pretty sure I've been called that too) I feel like if I could just loose these 25 pounds I might be in my goal body that I've never seen!
I've tried many things like cutting things out completely that are considered "bad" and I have always failed because I really just love food and I can't stand to deprive myself to be honest! Recently I had a big change in my schedule and I was feeling really blah to say the least so I decided to start Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred (side note, it seemed fitting because I'm counting down to moving to a different city and to being reunited with my boyfriend) and I'm actually sticking to it! Today I start level two. I've never completed level 1 of a workout before!!
Usually I do a workout for a few days and stop maybe try again in a week or two or not. So now that I'm all pumped up and feeling motivated I figured I'd try calorie counting again. I had tried it before but rather blindly, now I've done a lot of research and I'm still finding myself confused.
I have used several calorie calculator sites to try to figure out how many calories I should be eating. It seems the general calculation is, to maintain my weight I should eat 2000 something, to lose weight 1600 something and severe weight loss 1200 something (I think the somethings are usually in the 70's) I'm working out intensely for half an hour everyday, sometimes an hour and I walk quite a bit. I set my calories at 1500 and that's just based of a friend's calorie limit, I know it's different for everyone.
So basically what I'm trying to say is I'm worried because when I put in how much I exercise it tells me I should eat 1900 something!!
That just seems like way too much. I'm really concerned because I keep reading things that talk about your body going into starvation mode if you don't give it enough to do what it needs to do and it starts storing fat. Am I depriving myself of food for how much I exercise with 1500 calories or do you think I'm on the right track?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated! I just want to do whats best to meet my goals without starving and without taking way long hopefully!