Erika,

You can calculate your calorie needs though on of the web calculators like this one. http://nutrition.about.com/library/b...tion_guide.htm

You can use a heart rate monitor to find out how many calories you've burned or use an online calculator like this one http://www.caloriecontrol.org/exercalc.html

The whole point is you need to make a deficit of around 500 cals, burn 500 more calories than you consume so that you body starts burning stored fat.

I suggest you log your food and exercise in a diary and calculate the deficit. If you burn around 3500 cals in a week, you'll lose 1 pound. I also suggest that you plan your meals and exercise ahead.

Good luck!

You can log in your food intake at www.fitday.com it is free and it gives you a place to log in your food and exercise It tells you how many calories consumed and burned.

Fitday is a great place to keep track of your foods as a journal, but beware of the calorie counts there.....too many people from this forum, including me, have fallen short of our goals basing our intake on what fitday says. They grossly overestimate our metabolisms! There are several online basal metabolic rate calculators that are more accurate-this is the one I use, but they are basically all the same.....
http://www.internetfitness.com/calculators/bmr.htm

Based on your stats, you have to consume about 2100 calories per day with no exercise to stay at your same weight. I would suggest starting out at around 1700 a day and go from there. You don't want to go too low, and if you are adding in a substantial amount of exercise you will end up with a good calorie deficit. For example:
2100 base rate
-400 less intake
-400 exercise burn
-----------------
800 calorie deficit for the day. You must burn 3500 calories more than you consume to lose 1 pound, and so on.
Keep in mind that this number of 2100 is a basal metabolic rate. It's what you burn just sitting down all day-depending on what your routine is like, say if you have a job that requires you to walk around alot, or kids to chase around for a couple of hours, it will be slightly higher-but not by terribly much. And the bigger we are, the higher it is-I'm only 5 ft 3 in, so mine is on the lower end, too-about 1500-and if I eat more than that even though I exercise I tend to gain. And as you lose weight, your body mass is smaller and therefore requires less fuel to operate, and your calorie needs will continue to go down. For each of us this number is different depending on our past and current health issues, activity level, and even genetics. So don't take these numbers too seriously and just try to learn by trial and error. If at 1700 calories a day you lose too much, bump it up a little. Or if you decide to start a little higher and don't lose after a week or two, drop it down. Good luck to you!

I'd be surprised if somebody weighing 289 at 5 feet tall were only using 2100 calories per day. I plugged those numbers into FitDay, and it showed a basal calorie number of close to 3,000.

The OP might want to look around some and double-check those numbers.

I'm a big FitDay fan, myself. I just take the exercise numbers with a grain of salt.

This is why fitday is so confusing....
I use fitday for a food journal, although I'm not as religious about it as I should be, and out of curiosity I plugged in the stats of 289 lbs and 5 ft tall. I was given a basal rate of 2059, and a "lifestyle" rate with sedentary listed added another 412. The lifestyle calories that fitday adds are what are notoriously inaccurate, and there have been numerous threads here about that. Using those stats, if you change the lifestyle to "housework", it allows for another 1750 calories! I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous-no amount of vaccuuming and washing dishes is going to burn that off, or there would be no need for any of us to go to the gym
When I use my own stats, I am given a basal rate of 1491, with lifestyle adding another 1280-which brings my total allotment to almost 2800 calories per day. Believe me-I WISH I could eat like that. I can only tell you that from my own experience, if I eat more than 1500 per day consistently I gain weight-and if I took fitday for what it said I would gain about 6 pounds a month or more.
Basal metabolic rate is just what it means-it's the base rate, with no exercise, of calories we burn just by living. Highly active people can add more and not gain, because consistent exercise raises our metabolism even when we are at rest. People with damaged metabolisms due to past yo-yo dieting or a health issue such as an underactive thyroid, etc will burn less-there is no magic number. All we can do is guess and try.
My husband is 6'2", and 215 pounds. A nutritionist told him that he has to consume between 2500-2700 calories a day to maintain his weight-he's very active at work 12 hours a day and is pretty active in general. Men burn more than women. Taller burns more than shorter-so I think 3000 is WAY on the high end for anyone who isn't a 6 ft tall olympic in training. I'm no expert by any means, and I agree with double checking those numbers-but please don't rely solely on what fitday says-it has set many of us "fat chicks" up for failure.

I agree with the other posters about the metabolic calculators. If I want to try to figure out my calorie deficit I generally leave out the lifestyle numbers; I take the Basal add it to my intentional exercise calories burned then I subtract my calorie intake from that. I know it sounds confusing, but the numbers I come up with seem to match my weight loss (in terms of how much weight I have lost/time)

In my humble opinion, Fitday is fantastic for tracking calorie intake - I've used it as a food log for more than five years. But it's completely and utterly useless as a means to track energy output or daily calorie needs.

My very humble two cents!

There's a lot of great info here, but it's a LOT and the problem is, a lot of it is guessing (as most of us don't know our BMR and everything).

I personally don't believe we necessarily have to starve ourselves to lose weight. I weighed about what you did when I started calorie counting and I picked a number of calories to start with that seemed like it would be okay, based on all these calculators -- I picked 2000/day.

Then I tracked my food (for me a critical component) and watched what happened.... I lost weight! Pretty steadily, too! At 283 (my calorie counting start) I lost just over 2 pounds/week on average for a long while at that level.

All of which means I was, in fact, creating a calorie deficit!

As my weight has gone down, I have moved down my calories (and also really increased my exercise) to maintain a calorie deficit. I am still losing an average of about 1 pound/week, and currently (100 pounds later) try to keep my daily calories on average around 1800 (well, I want to move it a little lower, but given that I'm losing still, there's a little less incentive!)

So, there is some guesswork involved, but you don't have to overwhelm yourself initially with all the math behind it. The bottom line is that if you lose weight eating xx many calories/day, you are creating the magical deficit!

This is what I rely on for the calorie thing:

Womens Nutrition Health Guide

I use fitday just to keep track of my daily!

Wyllenn I think that was really well put. I love the philosphy (probably because it is so close to mine - lol).

Luv_Losing

Help!!!! There is so much information being thrown at me that I just clicked one link and done the info that it asked me for!!

Here is what it gave me.....

These results will help you to know how many calories you need to maintain your current weight, and the number of calories needed per day to achieve your goal weight in a healthy, steady manner.

You need 2558.7 calories per day to maintain your current weight without exercise.

You need 2405.5 calories per day to reach your goal weight slowly and maintain that weight without exercise.

If you reduce your current caloric intake to 2058.7 calories per day you will lose one pound per week without exercise.

If you increase your current caloric intake to 3058.7 calories per day, you will gain one pound per week.

Exercise and Calorie Needs

If you exercise for 30 minutes each day, you may increase your caloric intake to 2839 calories per day and still maintain your current weight.

If you exercise for 60 minutes each day, you may increase your caloric intake to 3189.4 calories per day to maintain your current weight.

If you exercise for 30 minutes each day, you will be able to reach your goal weight with 2667.5 calories per day.

If you exercise for 60 minutes each day, you will be able to reach your goal weight with 2994.9 calories per day.

Macronutrients

The United States Department of Agriculture suggests that approximately 50% of your calories come from carbohydrates, about 30% from fats, and approximately 20% from protein sources. 1 gram of protein has about 4 calories, 1 gram of fat has about 9 calories, and 1 gram of carbohydrate has about 4 calories.

You need 319.8 grams of carbohydrates, 84.4 grams of fat, and 127.9 grams of protein per day for 2558.7 calories to maintain your weight of 289 pounds.

You need 300.7 grams of carbohydrates, 79.4 grams of fat, and 120.3 grams of protein per day for 2405.5 calories to maintain your goal weight of 253 pounds.

Opinions vary greatly about the percentages of fats, carbohydrates, and proteins that should make up your diet. About has two great sources of information for Low Carbohydrate Diets and Low Fat Diets.

Please remember that these calorie counts are an average, you may need to adjust your calorie needs up or down slightly to get the results you want.


So what the crap does all this mean?!

I really appreciate all the help that you girls are giving me!! Thanks so much!

I've been accused of being too simple many, many times. So, for you, I'd cu and paste this ....

reduce your current caloric intake to 2058.7 calories per day

exercise for 30 minutes each day

It's so easy to get thrown off track by all the ins and outs and statistics ... boggle headed by numbers. Just start somewhere! We'll help you tweak.

Have you tried putting your normal intake into fitday?

Yes, Keep it Simple...

Reduce your calories to the 2059 like that site said and write down everything. Focus on your calorie intake first and then when you get that together, add your 30 minutes of exercise per day.
I have to focus on my diet first then I will add my exercise back in after I make sure I understand and get my calorie intake where it needs to be to loose weight.

I had to force myself to only weight once a week because I got depressed if I didn't see results right away. Some people even say only weigh once a month.