[Shannon in ATL]

Jay, in my "weekend binge" thread your answer led me to some other questions...

I have been counting the calories hit or miss for a while, consistently every meal for 12 weeks. I bought a food scale, have composed this enormous spreadhseet with nutrition info on foods I eat a lot, have built the recipes I fix regularly, have info on several acceptable items from about a dozen of the restaurants I go to regularly. I think I'm doing okay there - I did realize I left out the tbsp of olive oil I was using in a lot of the dishes, I've added it to some recipe data, edited others to use fat and calorie free cooking spray.

I came up with my calorie limits before I started exercising, using my BMR and figuring out maintenance calories - 500. That gave me roughly 1200, so that has been my target. I have since started exercising consistently 45-60 minutes 6-7 days per week at 70-90% of my target heart rate for most of the time. I have a "cheat day" planned in where I don't have to be so careful - I let that day go to 1700-1900, with the thought that on that day being that I'm not going over my maintenance calories for the day. It feels like a little reward at the end of the week. Now, this weekend got crazy out of control, I admit that...

My question is, if I keep to those numbers does that sound like a crazy plan?

I usually do better than chicken fingers and pizza - my big day often includes something like enchiladas or tacos made with ground turkey breast when I cook at home, or a slightly healthier eating out meal that might have more calories than a normal day. I looked back at the last twelve weeks and I've been averaging 1250-1350 calories per day each week. I don't feel like I've been starving on the lighter days, well at least not after the first week or so when I wanted onion rings every day...

[lorilove]

Your plan sounds fine to start with or should I say Not Crazy. But you will never know until you give it a try.

Just remember that what works for one person may not work for another so even if it sounds fine on paper you never know till you give it a whirl. Just remember that no matter how much analysis you did (sounds like a lot). You need to be prepared to adjust if necessary.

Also remember that this may work fine for several weeks or months and then stop working. Again you always need to be prepared to reevaluate and adjust.

Best wishes

[JayEll]

Um, I don't understand how you came up with 1200 cals starting with BMR and "maintenance calories." Do you mean your BMR was 1700 cals, and you are trying for a deficit of 500 cals per day?

The reason that I ask is that my BMR is (calculated, not measured) 1,317. Now, I can't subtract 500 cals a day from that without going way below the 1200 limit.

FitDay says that my resting metabolic rate (RMR) is 1400 something. I exercise almost every day, so my average calorie burn is 1700 something. If I tried for a deficit of 500 cals, I'd still be pretty low--so I've opted to settle for less of a deficit, knowing it could mean a slower weight loss.

However, you weigh less than I do, and are probably younger. So, I think your plan does sound do-able, assuming your calculations and assumptions are correct. Please note that last part! Sometimes calculations aren't correct since they are based on generalizations.

I do believe that hit or miss is not the way to count calories, though. Assumptions or not, it helps to know for sure.

Jay

[Shannon in ATL]

Thanks! I have been counting everything pretty obsessively for about 12 weeks now, so much so that DH thinks I'm going a little over the edge... I have a spreadsheet and log every thing now... I just had to stop talking to him about it so he wouldn't lecture me about being OCD...

I used the wrong acronym in my first post, I was meaning my estimated calorie burned per rather than BMR - it gave me an estimated 1732 burned per day, so I cut that down to 500 off that to give me the 1200. (I'm getting all the different terms mixed up, I think I've bookmarked 50 websites that all say something slightly different for how many calories a woman my age should consume! :-) )

I have noticed that I've seen some differences in calorie counts for some fruits between The Daily Plate & nutritiondata.com - anyone know which one is more reliable? Some of the differences have been big ones...

Thanks again! It is nice to have somewhere to ask questions where you don't get the "here she goes again, getting crazy" look!