[jaimie39]

Hi all I have a couple of questions. Im one week into my diet and I know that counting calories is the best way for me to go. However I have no idea what my calorie limit should be? I lost 3 lbs this past week, felt like I ate well and wasnt hungry, but Ive noticed that most days Im right at 1000 calories, some days even less. Im tracking calories at fitday.com Its the less than 1000 that has me concerned because Im reading that limited amount of calories can stall weight loss. Need a little help figuring that one out! This leads me to my next question...today I am HUNGRY! Yesterday I did 20 minutes of yoga folllowed by 25 minutes of past-paced walking. This morning I did a 40 minute workout and since then I have shampooed carpets, vacuumed, did laundry, and painted a room! Obviously feeling a little more energetic but I cant seem to get enough to eat today. So does exercising more make you a little more hungry? And if so, is it ok to up the calories for that day? TIA!

[MyBestYear]

The general rule of thumb, and has been for some years now, is not to go below 1200 calories for women. I would at least bump it up to that, or you do run the risk of burning muscle, slowing your metabolism, and triggering your body to hold on to fat. These are all very real scenarios that could make losing weight a lot more difficult than it already is lol...

Yes, you will tend to feel more hungry when you are working out, because that work-out is taking liquid out of you (so drink plenty of water!) and burning even more calories.

Just my opinion would be to raise your calories to at least 1200 on the days you don't work out and 1400-1600 on the days you do work out. I personally think 3 lbs is a bit fast to be losing per week at your size (since you aren't significantly obese or anything). It feels really good when the weight comes off, but research has shown that people who lose a bit slower (1-2 lbs per week) tend to keep it off longer.

Try that for a couple weeks, and tweak as necessary.

Good luck!

[jaimie39]

Thanks for your response "mybestyear"! I agree with everything you say. I upped my calories yesterday to 1492. I think I will try your suggestion of less calories on non-workout days and see how it goes. Im glad I caught this mistake early in the game! BTW..congrats on your weight loss

[angelskeep]

Hiya, Jamie! Good advice to try it at a higher calorie count for a bit. If you are sure what you feel is HUNGER, not something else such as boredom or anger, etc. Then you are probably needing mroe food...depending on how hungry you are. Feeling a little hungry isn't too bad, but feeling ravenous and running out of energy for your activities or even just daily regular tasks is not good.

Each person is different, so you have to adjust until you figure what works best for you. Each time you change something, I would suggest changing just one aspect nd then giveing it two or three weeks before deciding or making a different change. It can take some time for your body to decide what to do after a change.

Barb

[ncuneo]

When I was in the 180s I was eating 1300-1500 and losing pretty well then as I got thinner my activity started to increase because I felt stronger and then I was STARVING and my loss stalled. So I upped to 1650 daily average and started zig zagging to hopefully keep the plateaus aways and so far that has been working great. I've had the natural slow weight loss weeks due to TOM and what not but so far I've been losing 1-4lbs a week. I used freedieting.com to figure out my calorie allowance and zig zag schedule and although the cal allowance seemed high I went for it anyway and it seems to be working great. I get my extra cals be eating small snacks in between my meals or adding extra veggies. I decided not to make my meals more calorie dense because it seems easier to cut out a snack if need be then to cut out part of a meal. Eating more often seems to have really amped up my metabolism. But this is all what works for me, it's totally an individual experiment. Good luck!