Confused with the "Math" part of calorie counting
 

Ok, so I looked at freedieting.com
and got my numbers but I'm still confused.
I'm wanting to track my deficiets each day....

How do I know how much I need just to live? Is this my BMR?

On freedieting it doesn't give me my BMR, just tells me how much I need to maintain which is 1415cals per day.
Isn't that low? I chose the desk job option because I do not yet have a steady workout routine.


How can I figure out each day what my deficiet was?
I want to be able to think about it like this:

Required Calories to live - Food Consumed = (hopefully get about a 500 cal deficiet here per day) + exercise to boost my metabolism, overall health and my results.


Does this make sense?

Free dieting will give you a BMR from the drop down list (where you choose how many days you workout) you can choose it .. just keep in mind that its not 100 percent accurate but its the best I have found online!

You should look at it like this:

Required calories to live + food consumed - workout calories burned to give you a deficit of 500 calories. The best thing to do would be to eat 250 less calories and then burn off the other 250 calories..

No I used the same tool choose 30years old (guessing) put in your weight and 5'6 and got 1405 as your BMR. This means if you did nothing all day except lay in bed you would burn thi smany calories. Simply walking to and from your car burns calories. If I choose desk job from the list I get 1686 as maintenance using the inputs above. So it really depends on your age/weight/etc.

Does this help? When you start to workout go back and redo!

I get different numbers depending on where I look, so yeah, all these calculators just give an estimate. But they help you figure out where to begin (also people on this forum help a lot; I went by others' experiences when I was deciding). Then you can adjust later depending on your results.

FYI, we are the same height and ~ same weight and I chose 1400 calories for losing weight. I exercise at least 4 hours/week, trying to ramp up to 7. When I actually count those 1400 calories AND exercise I do lose weight, slowly. But I had the mid-30s major metabolism shift so my pounds are hanging on for dear life. Hopefully you won't have that problem :)

You might want to look into calorie cycling as well. It's an option lower down on the freedieting page. Keeps things interesting and allows you higher-calorie days (but of course you have to do lower-calorie days as well, boo)

you have to be careful with the online tools that generate those things, because it's hard to know if the formula they use is the generally accepted one.

The biggest loser diets recommend consuming 7 x your body weight in calories daily, which means that every week you recalculate and have a new calorie guide. I compared mine (1805) to my RMR, and there was a slight deficit, add in all the calories i burn a day sitting, standing, typeing, cooking, eating, etc, and the deficit is enough to get some loss without excersize.

FreeDiet put me 200cals higher than MyPlate. When I did what Medina said (7x current weight), it was only 3 cals off the guide of MyPlate. To me, it sounds like FreeDiet may be a touch inaccurate?

See I would argue the other way around.. If I do the 7x my current weight I would only be allowed to consume 1316 each day! No way! Sounds like my plate and biggest loser are saying for people to eat way less calories than they should start off with IMO. I personally feel you shouldnt go from over eating to basically feeling like your starving... which is what I would be if I only ate 1316 cals per day :)

I have consistently over a year now followed free diet's calorie allotment and when I did it lost 38lbs (the last 4 months of the year I was off the wagon). I eat 1800 calories per day work out 4-5x per week 30-45min cardio and 15-30minutes weights and lose weight on 1800 calories.. Why start low when there is not much room to go down from there?

Howdy,
My thoughts, and $5 will get you a coffee:-), is that you will need to experiment with what works for you. Pick a number which is close to a bunch, round down, and start. Allow a week between adjustments up or down. This isn't a race but a way of life.

Thanks ladies!

I don't think that x7 thing would work for me....I'm about 147lbs now so that puts me at 1029cals and I know that I shouldn't go below 1200cals.

I think I'll just start with 1500cals and go from there. I don't want to go too low at first.

Thanks again!
Ginny

I was going to use the biggest loser calculation for my caloric needs but it does seem really low! I don't think I could eat that little food and be able to workout like a I do.

I read this article that said if you want to lose more then 1-2 pounds per week you need to do more cardio along with your weight training. It said to do like 2 sessions. (morning and night) that way you are still eating enough calories to keep you going through your workouts and won't be losing muscle. I eat around 1300 calories a day. give or take. And if I tried to stay at 1300 every day it would be a little tough. I only work out once a day but pretty intensely. I'm not aiming to lose more then 2 pounds a week but the article seems to make a good point that more exercise to get the calorie deficit is better then from calorie intake.