I need help - 3 Fat Chicks on a Diet Weight Loss Community

DMNewman · 07-30-2008, 10:26 AM

I joined sparkpeople a while back and it told me that I needed to stay between 1200-1500 a day. So I have been doing ok with that and today I changed my information to my current weight, my goal etc and now its saying Consume between 2000 & 2500 calories per day. That is a HUGE difference! Does it sound right to anyone else?
I put in that I am currently at 196(thanks to vacation) and my goal is to be 180 by September 25th.

midwife · 07-30-2008, 10:30 AM

I think that online calorie recommendations can be notoriously inaccurate. I would suggest taking a week and entering everything you eat into whatever program you use. See what you are eating now and then reduce your daily intake by about 500 calories, taking care to not go too low. Then see what your body does with the change. If you are maintaining a higher weight on 2800 calories a day, reducing your intake to 2300 should show results. On the other hand, if you are maintaining on 1800 calories, eating 2300 will likely result in a gain. So you should see where you are now to figure out where you need to go.

ETA: I see you have been losing at 1200-1500 calories---if that is working I would not suddenly jump to > 2000 just cause some online calculator suggests it.

DMNewman · 07-30-2008, 10:34 AM

Well like I said I stay between 1200-1500 and lose 2 pounds a week. Yesterday I had 1320 calories so if I subtracted 500 that would NOT be good lol I don't understand why they think I should UP my calories? I think i'll just keep doing what i'm doing

midwife · 07-30-2008, 10:43 AM

You are correct, you do NOT want to go too low. My vote is to eat as much as you can and still lose weight. So, if it is working for you now, don't change it.

The problem with online calorie calculators is that they do not take into account individual variations. As obese and formerlly obese people, we cannot cling to the guidelines for people who have always been a normal weight. If I ate according to the government's recommendation, I would be overweight again. There is so much that researchers don't know and are trying to learn about obesity science, but the studies seem to be indicating that we need to be more careful about calories and exercise in order to maintain a healthy weight than people who were never obese.

Mrs Snark · 07-30-2008, 10:44 AM

If you are feeling healthy, have energy, and feel satiated at your current calorie level I definitely would NOT up it.