Health & Fitness
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
I'm so frustrated - help w/calorie intake please
I just signed up for my fitness pal. I entered my information, 5'5 183lbs and that I want to lose 2lbs a week. It told me with my 6 days a week of working out (running, kickboxing and weight lifting) that I need to eat 1200 calories a day. That seems so low! Am I right or am I just used to eating so much more? All I know is I get so frustated seeing that number because I know there's no way I can eat that few calories and I want to give up before I even start 
Re: I'm so frustrated - help w/calorie intake please
Don't get discouraged. The calories it tells you don't include the calories that you burn each day. So, if you burn 600 calories during your workout, you can actually eat 1,800 calories that day. I always joke that the only reason I workout is so I can eat more! It seems hard at first, but it's not so bad. Just eat lots of veggies. They can fill you up, but they are low in calories. It will take time to get used to, but it's worth it! Good luck!
I found the same. It was much more realistic.
Rather than setting your activity level at what you think it might be based on your activity, I find it seems more accurate to set it to sedentary. Then you just track all of the food you eat and all of the calories you burn.
Like PP said, that's how much you should be netting. So, if you burn 500 or so calories in your work out that's 1700 calories you can eat in the day and still hit your 1200 calorie goal.
That's the reason. Just scale back to 1 lb/week and your calorie intake will be manageable + some weeks you might actually lose more. 2 lbs/week is a very lofty goal. There's nothing wrong with losing 1 lb/week; it is actually more sustainable.
I felt the same way when I started using "my plate" last week. I had also calculated a 2lb a week loss, which ended up with me only consuming 1070 calories. That seemed like a recipe for failure to me, even with my exercise added in.
I switched to 1.5lb loss per week, whiched increased my calories to right around 1300. That is much more do-able for me.
I have found that pre-planning my meals and snacks has really helped me stay within my calories as well. I've just stalked the "planned eating and exercise" thread on here to get some realistic ideas of types of meals and snacks that I should be eating. Good luck and hang in there : )
I really feel that MFP underestimates calories. Livestrong is a bit more accurate to the BMR equations.
That being said, I'm on a doctor supervised diet of about 1200 calories/day right now and it is not a lot of food at all. It is really really hard!
5 whole feet of unsuccessful decision making
Blog: Loki's Kitchen*Loki Life*All About BMR
Wisely and Slow (My Husband's Running Blog)
MFP recs about 1200 to almost everyone, it's junk. But other than that, the app is great.
Calculate your BMR (if you haven't done that already) then figure out your daily caloric needs from there. Pick sedentary if you have a HRM and want to track and eat back your exercise calories. Pick an activity level if you don't have an accurate way of counting calories burned while working out.
Two pounds a week is very aggressive, you're going to need to cut 1,000 calories a day to average 2 lbs a week. A one lb weight loss is going to be much more manageable.
j+k+m+e | running with needles
My trainer told me I need to eat AT LEAST the 1200 something that SparkPeople gave me. And I've been having PROBLEMS getting that many calories in!!!!
I have to throw in a protein shake just to get over that 1200 mark. It's all about portion size and eating a HIGH PROTEIN diet to keep you full. I am working very hard to hit 1200-1400/day in calories. I'm not starving myself either. I just am eating so high protein that I don't feel hungry. And I eat a ton of veggies and mostly stay away from carbs like bread and pasta.