Calorie Counting Question
 

I've been thinking of calorie counting but I have no idea how many calories I need daily...anyone know the formula to go by?

Check out this thread in the "Calorie Counters" forum!

http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/calo...ease-read.html

I like http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/cal...ulator/NU00598 as a starting place. Most calorie calculators give me way too high a number and this one is a little more realistic for me.

Please remember that this is a starting place. We are all experiments of one and have to learn what works for us by trial and error. I suggest start with whatever the calculator suggests and then adjust after seeing how it works for you.

Let us know how it goes!

Sorry, I gave you wrong info! That calculator gives you a number to maintain. To lose 2 pounds a week, you need to consume 1000 calories/day fewer than you burn and to lose 1 pound a week you need to consume 500 calories less than you burn. Prevention Magazine has another calculator that explains this well but they tell me that I can eat many more calories than I actually can. However, I think I burn less than most people.

Hope this helps

It is good to know your bmr, which is what your body burns when it is resting. There is a good website I know but I am not allowed to post links yet grr! Just type calculate bmr in google and it should be the fourth one down. Titled, "Caloric needs - How to calculate your caloric needs."

and I use slim-fast's website to keep track of my calories and all the other nutritional things (its free) but from what i here there are a lot online if you don't like them.

slim-fast also can also keep track what you burn when you workout

don't forget! the number of kcals required to maintain/lose is also different according to your current weight!

so if-for example- you need 2500kcals to maintain and you create a 500kcals deficit, i.e. eat 2000kcals- or eat 2250 and excercise away 250 more/day, once you drop some weight you need to re-evaluate and re-adjust!

and don't push your body too hard, cos you'll go into starvation mode!

I just picked a number...I wasn't scientific about it. (Not going below recommended amounts). I ended up tweaking the number (up) to give me more freedom on weekends. Never had a plateau, never passed out, no stalls, no problems. My doctor took a look at my plan, his only suggestion was to make sure all the food I ate had high nutritional value. Which I was basically doing. (A hard boiled egg has way more staying power, vitamins, minerals, omega 3 fatty acids, than a fun size snickers for the same amount of calories....) Now that I reached my goal, I can actually eat quite a bit more (than my losing calories) to maintain my weight. Though I admit sometimes I go nuts and have to reel myself back in.

Body fat is the worlds most perfect fuel. A morbidly person will not go into "starvation mode" as long as they have lots of excess fuel to burn. Nope...starving children go into starvation mode, not morbidly obese women.

I just picked a number also and have had great success. There are quite a few of us on this forum who calorie count so there will be lots of support for you! I love calorie counting and have found it to be truly sustainable long term.

lori, the only problem i could see with that (even though i am very glad it's worked for you) is the fact that if someone needs 3000kcals to maintain and they actually drop too low (but still above 1200)..lets say 1300, creating such a big deficit could potentially leave one too hungry, tired, disheartened and prone to quit.

of course this will not account for everyone! but in my humble opinion it's better to play it safe and be consistent.

just my 2c

grrrkgrrrl

There are many "calorie need calculators" online.

But the simple rule of 10 times current weight to maintain if you aren't esp active puts me at 2570. Subtract 500 to lose 1 lb a week puts me at 2070.

I aim for 2000 ish and call it good enough, and I'm seeing some loss.

I'm not going to change it til I'm don 10% from start, which would be at -26 lbs.

Hope that makes sense.

A.

at 323 lbs., I started at 2000 cals, after about 50 lbs., I went to 1800 and stayed there! I'm still eating about 1800 and losing about 1/2 to 1 lbs a week which is slow but liveable. I was SHOCKED when I first started at how quickly 2000 cals can be reached in a day LOL especially with the crap I was eating.

I'm sure you just used 3000 calories as an example, because unless you are a high performance athletic/swimmer/body builder, MOST normal weight women would gain a lot of weight consuming that many (3000) calories a day.


Anyway, I guess it all depends on how you want to end up. If you constantly want to have to take calories AWAY to keep losing then that's great. Like your reward for losing 30 pounds is to eat less calories...Yay! Most people don't make it 6 weeks on a diet plan. (Statistically) If they never eat at a calorie level needed to maintain their "goal", it's no wonder that only 2-5% of the people who lose to a healthy weight actually keep it off. A normal weight average activity level woman doesn't need any more than approx. 1800 calories a day to live healthfully. In my opinion, it is the mentality of more, more, MORE that makes us fat, Fat, FAT.

The OP opened one of 3FC's greatest Pandora's boxes. :D

hahah true, lori

i think at the end of the day it really depends on the individual and the choices they wish to make, i just wanted to present both options to the OP.

for me, personally, it helped me to go lower and lower in kcals (until i was eating 1300 at the lowest) as my weight adjusted-and it felt easier to do so!

i dont think there's one answer, so long as people keep it within healthy limits and don't compromise on nutrients!

p.s. and by 3000kcals i meant weight maintenance for a high-bmi individual/starting weight, not when they're at goal.

Wow! Thank you, I really needed to visit this topic. I started by calculating my rmr, and came up with 1550. Then as I was losing weight, I took it down a notch to 1500. I used to be able to consistently lose 1.5 lbs a week on WW, and I think that the points represented about 1500 calories...but lately I have been getting very frustrated with how slowly the weight is comming off.
Now this is where it gets confusing:
Some people advocate eating more ( to get out of starvation mode). While this may be true, I have to wonder why concentration camp survivors, who ate very little and burned alot of calories, became so emaciated... I guess every body is different...and you will have to just see what works for you, but I will be cutting down to 1300 to see if that gets me out of this 6 week stall.

i think "starvation" mode is just one step when you're depriving your body. it won't last forever, especially if you're leading an active lifestyle through work/excersise.
but when the body ends up burning, it means it's burning fuel you wouldnt really want it to burn like muscles (even the heart muscle). that's why it's so dangerous imho. and that's why you need to keep your body above starvation mode but still with a deficit enough to lose.

Wow! I wasn't expecting so many responses. Thanks to you all :D. Trial and error is my middle name lol :^:. I had one site tell me 1950 and anoter tell me 1800...so I'll meet in the middle and start with 1850 and see what happens. That number still seems a little high but I'm definately not the expert here.
I've started a FitDay account so that I can track a little better.

sorry, that concentration comment threw me! There's a huge difference between dieting at 1300 cals and forced starvation. Most people can't sustain long term at 1300 cals and give up - yes they'll lose weight but it will come right back as soon as they go back to their normal lives. Forced starvation thru circumstances or war, well it's ridiculous to compare the two. Of course they become emaciated, as they were probably given 800 cals a day, barely enough to sustain life. Ugh I'm getting upset, sorry, I know you didn't mean anything by it so I'll shut it.

I gotta say, I started at 1200 and here three months in I feel like I could sustain this for life. There's no need for me to go back to the way I used to be. For me, my stomach adapted. The first three weeks were awful, but ever since then I've had no problem sustaining it at all. I don't even have to remember to eat slow or savor every bite or any trick of the trade. My stomach knows how much it's going to eat and that's 200 calories six times a day.

But I already know I'm weird. :D I never had binge problems or really any problems a lot of women had to overcome to get where we are today. I'm just fat because I got fat without any good excuses for why.

I did not mean to upset you....This is where I am comming from: I have been stuck at around the same number for quite some time, and feel like I have to do something, some folks think a stall could be caused by eating too little. I think that is possible, yet not probable in my case. I did not mean to be insensitive to your feelings.