Wait.. What?
 

I read something a long time ago and it just now came to my mind. YOU HAVE TO BURN MORE CALORIES THAN YOU EAT?!!?!?! What? I don't have time to work out for 4 frickin hours each day just to burn more than I eat. Actually, I don't think I have time to work out everyday anymore. I'm so busy with school trying to save my *** from not going to summer school. Just the thought: "you have to burn more calories than you eat".. That thought just makes me wanna eat 200 calories each day that way I can burn it off easily and be skinny. :(


I truly, truly, hate weight loss.

No no no... you're reading it wrong.

Breathing - burns calories. Sitting - burns calories. Your heart beating - burns calories.

Sure, running burns them faster... but the very act of being alive burns calories!

your body burns calories as you sit and breathe or as you are sleeping. you don't have to exercise off 1500-2000 calories per day unless you're eating over 3000 calories and are very small. 75% of what your body needs is simply for function of organs and things like hair growth, nail growth and skin regeneration.

don't panic, it's not like that! we all need a certain amount to just live. Even if you laid motionless in bed all day, your body needs x amount to function; that's your basic metabolic rate. There are online calculators to figure out how much your particular amount is. http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/

I just did mine - my basic metabolic rate is 1351. That's what I need to just survive a day, healthily. So for me to lose weight, I need to eat less that that, and/or exercise to burn calories.

*and I know that it's our own decision, but truly, you don't have much extra weight to lose, do you?

I used to starve myself. I lost about 36 pounds from starving myself. I'm trying to not starve myself but now I'm just eating a whole bunch of crap and I'm gonna screw up everything and gain everything back. I know it. Life sucks. My weight, and losing weight is the only thing I even care about. I'm obsessed with it. I literally beat myself up over how much I weigh. It drives me crazy.

Sorry for sounding pathetic.

I just did that BMR thing.

I got 1521.45.

That's not entirely right. Don't forget after you get your "in a coma" BMR, to go to this page to find your activity multiplier. http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-ca...dict-equation/

Assuming you're "lightly active," your maintenance rate is actually 1857, and that's the number you should eat below to lose weight. It's generally not a good idea to eat below your BMR for long periods of time, so you should find your happy place somewhere in the 1351-1857 range.

Ditto what I said above. Make sure to factor in your activity level and find a happy place between 1521.45 and whatever your maintenance is.

*sigh* :(

well thanks for the help you guys..still doesn't really make sense to me but okay we'll go with that

Ok, you multiply that BMR you got by different numbers depending on your activity. Even if you're sedentary you multiply it by 1.2 I believe. :) Subtract 500 from that number, eat that much and you should lose about a pound a week. Multiply your BMR by more if you're active.

I know it seems confusing, but you don't even have to exercise to lose weight! You should but it's not necessarily.

ok, here's a post I made in the calorie counting forum. Maybe this will help you :)

thanks..

You wouldn't be skinny for very long if you lost it all very quickly without learning all the good habits that are required for a fit, healthy body.

Ummm. Sontaikle, I got 1858.2475.
I think I did that wrong. If not, I'm NOT eating that many each day. I don't even eat 1,300 calories.

Yikes!! I completely forgot about adding in an activity level. Good thing we all take care of each other :)

chibir3dpanda, wishing you not to obsess and get so upset about this :hug:

I got 1749.9 and I'm with you on this. I honestly believe if I ate that much I would start gaining weight again. I've been eating between 1,200 and 1,400 and still only slowly losing. I'm interested to see what others have to say about that...

this is all so hard and confusing. giving up sounds easier lol.

Well, it wouldn't be a bad idea to start thinking about nourishing your body and feeding it kindly rather than hating it and punishing it. I seem to remember that you posted recently that you are 12 or 13? Your body is growing at the moment, and if you starve it and treat it badly now, you're going to pay for it later. It would be MUCH better for you to try eating 1800 healthy, nutritious calories a day and to start exercising. Your weight is normal-but if you want to carry less fat, exercise will help. Starving yourself will only screw up your metabolism in the long run: not worth it.

wait, what's wrong with those numbers? i calculated and if i stay lightly active it would be 1,941 to maintain my current weight.

Your body needs calories every day to survive- walk, breath, have your heart beat etc. not to mention getting dressed, making breakfast, brushing your teeth.

if it takes 1,941 to maintain my weight, if i subtract 500 i would be eating 1,441 to lose a lb a week.

Whoaaa, 1800 calories just sounds like suicide to me

This is not a confusing topic but reading this thread is confusing.

Everyone has a BMR. This is the amount of energy required to keep your body functioning if you laid in bed all day.

Everyone has a different activity level.

Plugging your information into a calculator will give you an ESTIMATE of how many calories you need to ingest to maintain your weight.

Eat more and you'll gain fat. Eat less and you'll lose fat.

The end.

Next lesson.

You think you have 10 lbs to lose. This is an arbitrary number that you came up with based on something - probably how you used to look at a former weight?

I would suggest instead of focusing on the scale you focus on what it is you really want which I am guessing is to look better naked.

The best thing to do is lift weights. You don't need to spend a lot of time doing this. 45 minutes 3 times a week including warm up is all you need. If you had more time you could do cardio too but your time is limited so lift weights. Not 5 lb dumbells either. I'd suggest a full body routine based around compound exercises.

You won't lose any weight but done correctly your body will retain muscle, firm up, and you'll look better naked.

Goodluck

She's 13. She's going through puberty, and her body is still growing, and she's eating at an unhealthy deficit. She definitely should not be aspiring to look as she did when she was 10!

Context people. :)

Trust me guys, unless you're metabolism is really slow you probably wouldn't GAIN on those numbers. You'd maintain your weight. You need to eat less than that to lose.

I can attest to the fact that these numbers actually DON'T WORK FOR ME. It gave me an estimate, but when I followed them I actually LOST more weight!! It's likely the fact that I weight train and probably have a bit more muscle mass than someone else at 115lbs.

I eat more than what it tells me to maintain and I maintain. It's all very individual and you'll need to experiment to find out what works for you.

Cutting down to 1200 or 1400 is a surefire way to lose, but you don't necessarily have to dip that low.

Yikes!!!

You are a child! Your body is growing. Your BRAIN is growing. PLEASE do not deprive it of essential nutrients. THAT will have longer, and more far reaching, health effects than the 10 lbs you *think* you need to lose. It's not worth it! Take it from someone who starved herself to morbid obesity, as a teenager. LET YOUR BODY DEVELOP!

the biggest thing is that i'm not losing a pound a week eating 1,400. i hardly lose a pound a week if i eat 1,200.

But all the people on TV are perfect and skinny. I feel as if I don't lose weight and become skinny I will NEVER be accepted by society. No one will love me. (people hate me anyway so y d i bother) I'm not the skinniest girl in my grade. NEVER will be.

(NOT trying to be mean or anything) At 136 I'm truly unhappy. To be honest, my weight is 60% of the reason I'm so depressed. I'm so unhappy with my body that I would rather die. I'm pretty sure I would be happier if I was skinny and weak and sick than I am now.

Just so no one says anything bout it, I DO see a therapist for my depression. (doesnt help) And I do take medication which doesn't really help either.

Understandably, I sound totally pathetic. I apologize. Feel free to be rude. no worries

ppl don't hate you - ppl get frustrated and fed up with anybody who has a negative, defeatist attitude.

it's got nothing to do with your size, either: even angelina jolie would get the treatment if she had that kind of attitude.

if you're starving yourself, that's a huge source of your negative energy right there. you are not your body and you don't control it. you're a driver in a car.

you can direct the car to go here or there - but you've got to put good-quality fuel in the tank for it to run. you've got to drive it regularly - not leave it sitting in the garage for the pistons to seize up and the gas tank to end up full of water from condensation and the tires all cracked and flat.

if you don't put enough fuel in the tank - you don't go as far as you need nor do you go as fast as you need.

if you don't drive it regularly - you get sick and not just physically.



and hon? take it from me: NOBODY likes a sickly twig. we put down sickly animals and we chop sickly plants out of the garden. we want things that are flourishing and thriving.

if you don't like your size, eat healthfully in proper portions and get active - it WILL self-correct.
if you're not eating enough calories, your body starts to restrict nutrients going to less-vital systems in order to keep your core life functions going until the famine is over.

and yes - being in a constant state of caloric deprivation IS bloody well depressing.

You probably are not going to believe me... but if you eat more, you'd probably lose more. At your current weight and at your height, your body needs more than someone who is 5'3 and weighs 110 pounds. In most cases, doctors say 1200 is the LOWEST women should go, and usually only really small and thin people should even eat that.

There are tons of threads on here where people have been told to eat more to lose more. Once they do, they come back and tell us that it worked and that they actually lost more weight by eating 1500 calories instead of 1200 calories. This is because if your body thinks its not getting enough food on a consistent bases, its not going to feel like its safe to lose (plus a whole lot of other biological stuff that just confuses the frack out of me).

In my case, if I eat below 1300, I stall. I won't lose a single freaking pound. However when I up my calories to be between 1400-1550, I lose about a pound a week which I can not complain about at all given being within my healthy range.

And yet I am a lightly active 20-something and can eat over 2000 calories a day and maintain or lose a quarter pound a week.

Believe it or not, people often underestimate how much they eat, even when calorie/food logging, and also forget to factor in the normal 'low' days with the higher weekends, binges, etc etc. Very few metabolically healthy (or normative, at the very least) individuals above 200 pounds are going to gain weight on 1700 calories per day, averaged out. It doesn't jive with the science. Now, if you have done tons of crash diets, have a condition like PCOS or Cushing's, Hashimotos, etc, or severe nutritional deficiencies then your body might need less or nutritionally different fuel that what you're giving it, but 1700 calories a day at your weight, weighed and measured and rigorously adhered to, is HIGHLY unlikely to cause a gain. To the contrary, it should cause 2-4 pounds a month to come off, if adhered to long term.

And my trollometer is going off with ever increasing frequency over the original poster, so I'm bowing out.

I did try increasing my calories to 1,500 and it did get me unstuck from a plateau but after that I just stayed the same weight. I had to lower my calories to start losing again. I tried the 1,500 for a month and saw no results and then just felt like I wasted a month. I mean I gained a pound in 4 days eating 1,700 one weekend. And it was real weight because I have yet to be able to get it back off. i really think my metabolism is just crap or something

Honestly, we could talk and lecture at you until we are blue in the face and you are sick to death of us and likely not change your mindset. PLEASE talk to your doctor about your weight concerns, THEN talk to your therapist about how your weight makes you feel.

Changing your weight WILL NOT change your feelings, I wish I could say that as soon as you reach your goal weight everything will be solved. Unfortunately the people on tv and in the magazines will always look perfect, this is the magic of PHOTO-EDITING. You would look perfect too with stylists, and makeup people, and proper camera angling. Also, there will always be people tinier then you, people are built differently from each other.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE get help accepting yourself for who you are and finding belief that you ARE worthy not matter what you look like. Unless you do it sounds like you are seriously at risk for a full fledged eating disorder. And none of us want to see you go through that.

Maybe ask your therapist for a referral to a therapist that specializes more in eating disorders the general therapy. They will be alot more able to help you through your food and weight related issues.

most of all ***HUGS***

I've experimented a lot with calories. When I eat 1,700 i instantly weigh more the next day..which I know is expected, but then it never comes back off unless I eat less. I really really wish I could eat 1,700 and still lose a few pounds a month because that tends to be all I'm losing anyway but it just doesn't seem to happen for me. And i really do measure extremely carefully. If I have so much as a single strawberry I count it. If anything I'm guilty of over estimating because I know how common it is for ppl to under estimate.

ditto this, all of this. have i mentioned i seriously like you? :D

Hi ..

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agree. I also need to eat between 1,200 and 1,400 to lose weight and it is less than a pound a week. I am OK with this but still, sometimes want to eat more.

Your weight and height are very different than hers so eating that amount isn't as drastic of a deficit for you though.

I think we really need to take a step back and forget about the numbers for weight loss for a second...there's a much bigger issue here than the numbers.

Look, when I was younger I hit the 4th grade and my body exploded. I became a human blimp...and when you go to a tiny catholic school in the middle of a teeny tiny city where everyone knows each other, this is not good.. not good at all. I got bullied, made fun of, not just by the kids at school (all 12 of which I had grown up with) but by my family too... None of my relatives knew how to comfort anyone without fixing them a big meal with your favorite cake as a top-off to the night. As a result my self esteem plummeted and the weight continued to pile on. Mom was obsessed with weight loss products, and felt that I would be the PERFECT test subject. But, because portion control was something that just didn't happen in our house, I CONTINUED to gain weight. 6th grade hit, and puberty wasn't kind to me either...

Long story short, I can't remember a time where I was at my goal weight (120-130)... I don't ever remember seeing those numbers. And even if I had, I'm sure my mother would have told me that they were MUCH too high and that I needed to lose a 'couple of pounds' just to be 'normal'. You know what? Screw normal. Screw convention, and screw society. Normal is a setting on an appliance, and you don't look or sound like an appliance to me.

(Link could be seen as offensive... google search 'plus size model with regular model and you'll find the article that I'm talking about)

Those models that you're talking about? They have a BMI that classifies them as being anorexic (at least in most cases). The average woman doesn't look like that.... they aren't meant to!

My overall point is that you need to learn to love yourself. Both now, and when you're at the weight that you think is right for you! I still struggle with self esteem issues, but I know that harming my body now will be DEVASTATING in the long run. Sure, I could starve myself and hit goal faster, but at what cost? I want to lose the weight but I also want to be around for a long long time to enjoy living at that weight! If you're as young as other posters are saying that you are, then you really need to take a step back and just enjoy being a kid! If people 'hate you' for what you are now, then you don't need them... and they don't know what they're missing out on! Get rid of them and be better for it!

Please, please take some of our advice. Don't worry about the numbers. Eat good, wholesome things when you're hungry and stop when you're full. Drink lots of water, and don't forget to treat yourself every now and again with your favorite dessert. Run around and enjoy life.... as they say, 'haters gonna hate' and there's really nothing you can do to stop them. Take it from a 23 year old that's been there, done that, and moved on already. You'll be much better for it.

I'm wishing you all the best. :hug:

I don't have time to exercise or have the desire to do it but in 2 months of only watching what I eat

Not even counting calories

I have lost 15lbs with NO "workouts", yeah I walk a lot at my work but most of us walk that much around the house or on a trip to the mall so please don't stress :) if I could lose that much with no excersise then you sure can too!

We all have to knock off the advice that would be good for an adult in a logical frame of mind. This poor child needs more than we are qualified to give. So here it is - and I'm pretty sure we are all of the same mind on this.

Please talk to your parents, doctor, and school advisor about this. All the formulas we use to tell you how much you have to eat to lose weight are based on mature adults, not young teens. You need good advice from an expert in child health care and in child psychology. You said you were not taking certain meds because of possible weight gain. Do you lie to your parents about that? If you tell your doctor you aren't taking it what does he/she have to say?

You need help in seeing things realistically and appropriately for your age. We can talk all day and not convince you that your size is normal. You need help that we can't give you because you don't want to hear it. If you can't learn that your worth is NOT based on how you look, you will never be happy or at peace.

I beg you to confide in an adult you trust and get the help you need. You are too valuable not to.

Lin