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I Feel like I am allowed too many calories / day

Old 10-15-2010, 11:48 PM
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Question I Feel like I am allowed too many calories / day

I feel like I am allowed too many calories per day. On the days I feel good about how I have eaten I eat around half of my calorie limit; this is where I am usually at by the end of the day. On days where I feel I have over eaten I manage to get it entered in and I am still under my limit by a few hundred, which does not happen often. Would I really lose more weight by over eating? I am getting married next summer so I am very determined to lose weight and need all the help I can get!
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Old 10-16-2010, 12:39 AM
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Hi Sweetcheeks (love your user name)

Have you tried entering your height and weight into this handy calculator?

Calorie Calculator - Daily Caloric Needs

Check it out. If you are still getting a daily calorie count that you feel is high, perhaps you have been undereating for a very long time? It's hard to answer your question without any stats like your height and current weight. But to answer the question, would you lose weight by overeating then no of course not but if you consider 1500-1700 calories per day overeating then it's a question of perception. Eating enough is important to keep your metabolism going and to make sure your body doesn't resort to consuming its own muscle to survive. If you eat too little, you go into starvation mode and your metabolism adjusts to keep as much fat in its reserves as possible. I'm simplifying the scientific process here but the bottom line is your metabolism needs energy to burn fat and energy comes from calories.

It's also important to get enough protein in your diet. What is your carbs/fat/protein ratio? I try to aim for 30-40% protein because I run 3 times a week and do other workouts too.

Good luck with everything and congrats on being engaged!
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Old 10-16-2010, 01:24 AM
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That site is awful: if I select exercising everyday, it tells me I need 2626kcals. And if I select exercising twice daily, it tells me I need 2766kcals... So they think that burning ~100kcals classes as a session of 'exercise'? The sort of calories everyone should burn just from everyday walking from place to place? Oh dear. Aside from that, the basal metabolic rate seems fairly accurate, if we assume the person is of the sedentary sort, and has little muscle.
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Old 10-16-2010, 01:39 AM
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Originally Posted by charlottes-p
That site is awful: if I select exercising everyday, it tells me I need 2626kcals. And if I select exercising twice daily, it tells me I need 2766kcals... So they think that burning ~100kcals classes as a session of 'exercise'? The sort of calories everyone should burn just from everyday walking from place to place? Oh dear. Aside from that, the basal metabolic rate seems fairly accurate, if we assume the person is of the sedentary sort, and has little muscle.

I took "exercise" to mean a dedicated hour or so of something that gets the heart rate up into a target range, not walking from place to place; exercise in addition to what you do every day. I found that this calculator was dead on for me...I used it instead of the one on FitDay and it was much more helpful for me in getting to my goal. Although I can see if you have a lot to lose, it would overinflate the calories.

But I agree (as usual!) with Rose...it's hard to comment on your calories without knowing more specifics.
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Old 10-16-2010, 02:10 AM
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Originally Posted by cjohnson728
I took "exercise" to mean a dedicated hour or so of something that gets the heart rate up into a target range, not walking from place to place; exercise in addition to what you do every day. I found that this calculator was dead on for me...I used it instead of the one on FitDay and it was much more helpful for me in getting to my goal. Although I can see if you have a lot to lose, it would overinflate the calories.

But I agree (as usual!) with Rose...it's hard to comment on your calories without knowing more specifics.
But that's the point; it's saying that one session of 'exercise' is 140kcals for my height and weight. Exercise should be 1+ hours (or at least 30mins) in which time I burn 900+kcals. It isn't overestimating- it's underestimating, and quite substantially. On the other side, I find FitDay to grossly overestimate what I should be my basal metabolic rate.

I also agree, that you won't really ever know how many calories you need precisely from day to day, even with specifics (or as specific as we can actually get), it has to be done by trial and improvement. Obviously, it's not really possible to do this whilst losing weight, only once you plateau. I think any form of internet how-many-calories-do-I-need? calculators are far too inaccurate to ever put much weight on them; don't aim for some guesstimate figure and stick to it rigidly...it could be massively wrong. If you want to lose weight, just reduce your current intake and exercise a bit...then, if you're not losing it quickly enough, reduce the food intake a bit more. Simple.
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Old 10-16-2010, 02:45 AM
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Bottom line is to do what works for you. This worked for me. At 5'2", from 129 to 107, from 26% body fat to 18...this was the best approximation for me. There were probably all sorts of extraneous factors that contributed in other ways but balanced each other out...but this, and the zig zag part of it, were my best benchmarks.

Anything's worth a try. If it doesn't work, don't do it. If it does, keep it up!
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Old 10-16-2010, 03:47 AM
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I have found that the website linked above is reasonable for me, and so is Fit Day's IF I log in the hours I spend asleep. I don't burn anywhre near 900kcals in an exercise session, I'm lucky to hit 300 (according to the monitor on the gym equipment anyway) but I have joint issues and for an athlete working at high intensity, yeah 900 may be possible. But I'd need to know a lot more about Sweetcheek's lifestyle and diet, height and weight to answer the original question.

One other thing I do personally and what I tell my clients (bearing in mind it's cats and dogs I put on diets) is if you aren't seeing a loss on the current calorie intake, decrease it by 10%. Then give it 2 weeks and reevaluate. If you still aren't losing, decrease again by 10%. Add in whatever exercise you can manage. If you STILL aren't losing weight, it's time to look into some medical testing to see if you have a metabolic problem (thyroid disease is a very common example but certainly not the only one).
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Old 10-16-2010, 02:00 PM
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So a bit about my background. I do have a medical disorder which prevents me from losing weight, it is called polycystic ovarian syndrome. My doctors tell me to not even bother trying to lose weight but I really want to for my wedding. I am 5 foot 5 and weigh 290 lbs (down 5lbs since I started 2 weeks ago). For exercise I try to either take the dog for a hour walk or do a hour of wii sports a few times a week, going to work myself up to every day. I live in a community where it is rare to get fresh food. No fresh veggies, no cottage cheese, no fruit, and very plain bread (white or whole wheat). The nearest grocery store is a aweful 6 hour drive on a logging road. We have to manage with frozen, boxed, or canned food out here. The good part is no fast food and no restaurants. On average I eat around 1,100 calories per day even though according to fit day I am allowed something like 2300. I think on average I have about 55% carbs, 20% protien and 25% fat. Most of my protien is from ham, chicken, fish, eggs and cheese since I do not care for red meat other than the occasional ground beef which I boil and strain.
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Old 10-17-2010, 11:03 PM
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sweetcheeks i too was like WTF.
i can eat so much and even used the numbers from the other sit in place of fitday numbers and even under cut that slightly.
i say you are doing fine with what your doing 5lbs in two weeks may seem small to you but the suggested amount to safely loss is around 2lbs max a week at least what i read so you have 2.5 a week which over time will add up.
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Old 10-18-2010, 04:22 AM
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The bottom line is if you are losing weight you are already at a deficit for calories. An alternate method since you have a baseline (5lbs. in 2 weeks) is to figure your daily maintenance level using your weight loss and your intake calories.

Given a pound of body weight correlates to apprx. 3500 calories:
3500 x 5lbs = 17,500 calories, 17,500/2weeks = 8,750 calorie deficit per week.
8,750/7 days = 1250 calorie deficit per day.

If you have been averaging 1100 calories of intake then 1100 + 1250 = 2350 calories burned per day. So your Base Metabolic Rate plus your activity is currently 2350/day.
This would seem reasonable (without putting your stats into one of the calculations) for a person of your stature. This would indicate you could increase your calorie intake to around 1350 per day and still lose about 2lbs per week. (Maybe add a protein shake to increase your protein. You can even buy the protein online if it isn't available locally.)
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