Can someone please help me figure out calorie intake?
I am 250 lbs and 5'6". My BMR is about 1900. I try to keep my calorie intake at about 1300-1400 per day. I feel like I'm eating a lot though. Since I started counting calories I have started making myself eat. I usually would skip breakfast and sometimes lunch. My main meal would be dinner. I always got a lot of calories from soda and sweet tea but I have totally quit both soda and sweet tea. I ONLY drink water. I'm not sure exactly how much water I drink but it is at least 4 16.9 oz bottles a day, but I think more like 6-7 bottles. What I am confused about is how can I lose weight if I am eating more now than before when I was not losing weight?
A typical day for me is like this:
Breakfast: 8:30 am
raisin bran cereal with 1/2 c milk
Snack: 10:30 am 1 medium green apple
Lunch: 12:30 salad with 2 tbsp dressing, 6 croutons and cherry tomatoes
Snack: 3 pm 1/2 c of grapes
Dinner: 6 pm Deli sandwich on wheat with 1 tbsp mayo, mustard, lettuce, tomato and 1 light & fit yogurt on the side.
That's it for the day. I don't eat after dinner although I do continue to drink my water. Is it possible to lose weight considering I am eating more now than before I started counting calories? Is 1300-1400 calories about how much I should be eating in order lose weight? Sorry, this might seem dumb but I'm confused. Edited to add: normally I cook dinner but my kids had pizza so I just had a deli sandwich. I normally cook something like baked chicken, California style steamed veggies creamed potatoes. And I have about 1/4c of the potatoes, 1 serving of meat, 1 c of veggies.
Last edited by MyLilSweetPeas; 07-07-2012 at 11:47 AM.
How do you know how many calories you were eating before ? I don't think the sample you gave adds up to anywhere near 1300 calories.
You could probably eat more calories and lose weight, how active are you ? Do you exercise ? I would guess that if you are only moderately active you would need about 1500-1600 to lose.
There are lots of programs that can tell you how many calories you are eating. I use My Fitness Pal. That way you can enter in absolutely everything you are eating and get a total calories. It would be impossible to tell from what you wrote how many calories - some dressings have super high calories and some are low. You can have a low calorie sandwich or a really high calorie sandwich. With a program like my fitness pal you can figure it out pretty exact.
Your BMR, according to myfitnesspal.com, is 1846.. I would not eat less than that, as it's what your body needs for fuel to survive if you were to lay in bed all day (meaning no exercise). Exercise will create your deficit for weight loss. Any less than 1846 and your body goes into starvation mode which = holding onto fat stores for survival. Your BMR will go down as you lose weight, so you won't always eat 1846- even losing 10 lbs will bring your BMR to 1800. Try not to skip meals, and you need fuel throughout the day- for example, I eat around 200-400 cals for breakfast, 50-80 cals for snack, 300-600 cals for lunch, 50-80 cals for snack, and the remaining cals for dinner (my BMR 1451).
Last edited by girlsenberry; 07-07-2012 at 03:48 PM.
A couple of things that might help; (Granted, calories in versus calories out ultimately determines weight loss, but for a lot of people, a better balance of protein and fat keeps them feeling satisfied, helps build muscle, and actually takes more calories to digest than carbohydrates...)
Quote:
Originally Posted by MyLilSweetPeas
A typical day for me is like this:
Breakfast: 8:30 am
raisin bran cereal with 1/2 c milk *Do you measure your cereal? There is a ton of sugar in regular raisin bran - a 1 cup serving has 18 grams! The milk also has sugar in it. Sugar is not going to kill you, but too much of it can hinder weight loss for a lot of people. Also, this is pretty low in protein. I suggest something like Plain Greek yogurt, eggs, egg whites, etc. to add some in there.*
Snack: 10:30 am 1 medium green apple *Again, it's healthy, but pure sugar and some added fiber. Balance this out with some string cheese, deli meat, almonds, etc. Unless you are on some sort of specific diet plan, you should be striving for a balance of protein, carbs and fats in your meals.
Lunch: 12:30 salad with 2 tbsp dressing, 6 croutons and cherry tomatoes *Protein??
Snack: 3 pm 1/2 c of grapes *Same as before... nothing but sugar here
Dinner: 6 pm Deli sandwich on wheat with 1 tbsp mayo, mustard, lettuce, tomato and 1 light & fit yogurt on the side. *The light and fit yogurts aren't horrid, but they are all sugar. I suggest Greek yogurt (Plain) and a piece of fruit so that you get the fiber from it as well. I also don't see any fat here in this meal. Your body NEEDS fat!
Just to reiterate; I am not demonizing sugar. I eat plenty of it, but I also eat plenty of protein and fat as well. Your diet is like 80% sugar at this point and I see virtually no fat or protein.
Hopefully that helps a bit. You might want to try logging a sample day on My Fitness Pal and look at the stats at the bottom of the page. I think you'll be shocked to see just how out of balance your current diet is.
Also, aside from your salad, I see no real veggies in there. Where is your broccoli, asparagus, mushrooms, peppers, leafy greans, etc? You have no roughage in your diet. I also see no "real" protein (I see deli meat as okay in moderation, but it's all processed to heck.) What about some chicken breast, fish, beef, turkey, tofu??
Take the whole thing back to the drawing board and focus on real foods.
It's easy to think you're eating "more" when counting calories, because most people don't just count calories, when they want to lose weight, they also gravitate towards healthier food choices (which are naturally lower in calorie and bigger in bulk).
So while you feel like you're eating more (and volume-wise you may be), you probably are not eating more calories than before calorie counting. And food volume/mass has nothing to do with weight loss. You could eat ten pounds of hay, and it wouldn't contribute to weight gain, because humans can't digest cellulose/dietary fiber.
Fiber calories should be subtracted from calorie counts (because humans can't digest them) but they often aren't. Legally they can be subtracted, but not all calorie-counters and food manufacturer's do. It means low-fiber food counts are more reliable than for high-fiber foods.
Regardless, though. Getting more volume for your calorie "buck" means you feel like you're eating more, when you're actually eating much less.
Your weight loss will tell you if you're in the right calorie range. I also would suggest increasing high-fiber, low-calorie vegetables and decreasing carbs. My experience (and a recent research study) found that low-carb actually may help people burn around 300 extra calories. Before I read a report of this study, I found that I lost about the same amount of weight on 1800 calories of low-carb as on 1500 calories of high-carb).
Aside from the calorie perk, I'm far less hungry on low-carb than on high-carb (even 1500 calories of low-carb is far, far, more filling than 3000 calories of high-carb). And in addition to the reduced-hunger, there's also a volume/mass advantage.
1800 calories of low-carb (including a very generous alottment of non-starch, high-fiber veggies) fills a lot more plates of food than does 1800 calories of high-fat, high-carb "normal" food (even when conmming from the "healthy" stuff like healthy fats and whole grains).
Eating "more" (volume and mass), while eating less (fewer carbs and calories) really has been the secret to almost effortless weight loss for me. It's been difficult to train myself to avoid the low-volume, high-carb/calorie foods, but the more successful I am at eating more for less (more volume, less calories/carbs) the easier the weight loss is - and the less I suffer for it.
As much as I love high-fat/high-carb foods like pastas with creamy sauces and general tso's chicken, pizza, cheesecake, and other high fat/sugar or carb foods, they don't love me. They trigger a hunger/craving backlash that just is so rarely worth the few moments of enjoyment.
Eating "bigger" low-calorie/low-carb, higher volume foods mean I feel like I'm eating "more" even though I'm eating half the calories I was on the more "normal" foods.
Thanks for the replies! Considering everything you all have said, I have started using my fitness pal. I was getting better quality meats in besides deli meat, just not on the day that I posted. I mostly like chicken the best but sometimes eat beef, tuna and pork loin. Anyway, Im really not big on asparagus but I love broccoli, turnip greens, cabbage, carrots, black eye peas... Stuff like that. So, taking your advice, I have increased those kinds of foods. I have decreased the sugars. My fitness pal really helped me see how much sugar I was still eating, although I didn't see that before. I only thought I was doing so much better because I wasn't eating frozen pizza, pot pies, garlic bread, a ton of spaghetti, drinking a six pack of soda a day, pudding cups, I cream sandwiches... So you all can see how I thought I was doing better. After reading all the responses over and over I started trying to change some things in my diet. I still have to get to the grocery to get some things that would be more healthy than what I have on hand. One thing on my fitness pal that I see is I still have too much sodium in my diet. Im not sure how to change that. When I cook my meats and veggies I like to add some salt for flavor. So that isn't even included on my fitness pal. I don't add a lot, just enough to increase the flavors. Also, I find that Im having trouble getting up to my calorie goal for the day(1330) and then my dinner meal seems severely over-portioned (but still within calorie goal). I guess I need to make myself eat more during the day so my dinner meal isn't so big?
Oh and I wanted to add that I am exercising. I walk on the treadmill. When I first started I would walk 20 minutes and I felt like I was going to die. Im now up to 40 minutes at a time. Sometimes I walk twice a day at 40 minutes each but most days just once. Im just trying to work my way up slowly.
Can someone please help me figure out calorie intake?
