A little help required :)

Hello,

Kinda counting calories at the mo... as well as carbs. I'm doing a somewhat "amended" Exante programme, with a few more carbs (so not keto) and a few more calories to keep up with my gym regime.

Basically I wanted to know how you base your calorie count for the day? Just by BMR or is there more to it?

Basically I'm sticking to around 1000/1200 and adding on calories for exercises I do (hr monitor) and i'm wondering if this is enough? I'm a fairly large person at about 19 stone, and tall

And do you have any good reference books for calories and other nutritional info for food?

Help much appreciated!

Hannata xx

I have only just started to learn about Calorie counting but been busy for the last week reading alot on the subject.

The Harris-Benedict formula is a widely used formula for working out your BMR, I used your stats and took a guess at your age and put that your not very active, (from checking out your facebook page, guessed you were around 25 ish ???)

It seems to maintain your current weight you need to have eat 2476kcal

So if your goal is a 2lb loss a week you should be on around 1400ish. Thats if you were living a sedentary ( little exercise lifestyle )
So if you exercise more, you should eat them back if you want to just lose 2lb a week.
Please note thats just an example due to me not knowing all the facts, its best you google The Harris-Benedict formula and you will find tons of websites that can help you work it out.

It also seems from the many different sites that its not recommended to go below 1200 net kcals a day for a women, unless you have been given advice by a doctor to do so, I dont really know why, but lots of people say the same thing.

I am using myfitnesspal to log my kcals and try and keep me on track and I have learnt loads about my food, seems quite a good site even though I havent used it long and I am just starting.

But the most important thing I have learnt from my research is we are all different, what works for one person may not work for another, one person might have to stick above 1200 kcals to be healthy and lose weight, where as another person could go much lower and still be healthy and lose weight, so find an amount that suits and see if it works if not play around with it.

I am just learning myself, and I really hope you find your "sweet" spot and it really works for you.

Hi Hannata, It certainly seems that 1200 is about the right amount for females altho' I am on 1000 being as I am unable to exercise and mostly sedentary.
If you want a little book for helping you with calorie intake I can recommend the Collins Carb Counter. It gives the breakdown of foods for carbs, fibre, calories, protein and fat and is a pocket size book and only costs a few pence literally. I bought mine online and it has been invaluable as I have to watch my carbs being diabetic as well as the calories.

Hope you get that sorted and wish you all the very best in your endeavours....

p.s. Do start your own diary a.s.a.p. as it will help people to contact you and give you support and encouragement from time to time.

It's also recommended not to go more than around 700 calories under your BMR to prevent *shocking* your body. 1000-1200 does seem very low for your weight. If I were you I'd start at around 1700- if you have difficulties with eating 1700 calories healthily there are plenty of things you can do to increase intake healthily- eating things like nuts, having fattier milk if you have skimmed, adding avocado and olives to salads etc. Best of luck !

Fattack said:

It's also recommended not to go more than around 700 calories under your BMR to prevent *shocking* your body. 1000-1200 does seem very low for your weight. If I were you I'd start at around 1700- if you have difficulties with eating 1700 calories healthily there are plenty of things you can do to increase intake healthily- eating things like nuts, having fattier milk if you have skimmed, adding avocado and olives to salads etc. Best of luck !

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I agree, 1000-1200 is far too low for your weight. As you lose weight you will need to decrease your calorie intake, so if you start on 1700 like fattack suggested, then at least you can do this safely and it also means if you plateau you can cut back a few calories to kick start it again.
If you stick to 1200 you cannot do this. HTH x

Thank you for your replies everyone!

chrismisterx said:

The Harris-Benedict formula is a widely used formula for working out your BMR, I used your stats and took a guess at your age and put that your not very active, (from checking out your facebook page, guessed you were around 25 ish ???)

**

I am just learning myself, and I really hope you find your "sweet" spot and it really works for you.

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I will check out that formula, thanks for the info. As you say it takes fine tuning and trial and error to settle at the right number

Emmaline said:

If you want a little book for helping you with calorie intake I can recommend the Collins Carb Counter. It gives the breakdown of foods for carbs, fibre, calories, protein and fat and is a pocket size book and only costs a few pence literally. I bought mine online and it has been invaluable as I have to watch my carbs being diabetic as well as the calories.

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ohh brilliant will definitely get a copy of that!! And i'll start a diary too x

Fattack said:

It's also recommended not to go more than around 700 calories under your BMR to prevent *shocking* your body. 1000-1200 does seem very low for your weight. If I were you I'd start at around 1700- if you have difficulties with eating 1700 calories healthily there are plenty of things you can do to increase intake healthily- eating things like nuts, having fattier milk if you have skimmed, adding avocado and olives to salads etc. Best of luck !

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I was on Exante, a VLCD/keto diet, and I really struggled thanks to my activity.. so I'm suffering now, trying to bring up my calorie intake without piling the weight on!!! Gotta just suffer through this week and hope I don't do too much damage.

pumpkin2008 said:

I agree, 1000-1200 is far too low for your weight. As you lose weight you will need to decrease your calorie intake, so if you start on 1700 like fattack suggested, then at least you can do this safely and it also means if you plateau you can cut back a few calories to kick start it again.
If you stick to 1200 you cannot do this. HTH x

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Yeah I completely agree. Just gotta get over the next few weeks of not great losses and keep at it.

**

I am very active but I have a HR monitor which tells me how much my activity earns (in calories), so theorectically I can add the earned cals onto my daily total?

Ideally I don't want to have a huge baseline amount of calories.. ~1500 would be nice and managable, and no more than 120carbs every day regardless of exercise.

The reason for the lower number is because I can burn in excess of 700 calories at the gym and I really can't eat much more than that in a healthy way without creeping into bad habits!!!! xxx