A dietician at work told me that I needed to take in no more than 1200 cal/day to lose weight. I'm 5'3 and weigh 125. My fitness pal also states that...so that's what I've been doing for months, of course I have my days of eating bad..try to keep it to just weekend splurges tho....my question is, I looked at beach body website and when u plug in certain exercise plans that u may be doing, the calories jump to ranges of 1800-2300 a day...I'm just really confused on my calorie needs...I'm not losing weight, and do strength training 3x week, cardio 2... Any tips/recommendations are needed!
Calories needed per day?
- Thread starter msperkey
- Start date
bpurcell
Cathlete
I can only speak for myself, but I'm 5'3" also and about 110 pounds. I got the recommendation of 1200 calories a day too, but it is way too low. I workout about 5 days a week, and I find that 1800 calories is good for maintaining my weight and 1500 is good for weight loss. I hope that helps.
Shantabulous
Cathlete
If you're eating 1200 calories a day and not losing weight, then I would have to say there's something wrong in the way you're counting. Do you count everything thing that goes into your mouth? A handful of cereal? A couple of chips or pretzels? Little bites off the kids plates? These things really add up. I'm 5'4" and I can eat around 1800-2000 to maintain and 1500 to lose. As far as advice, I would maybe swap out one of your strength days for an additional cardio day and write down everything you eat and measure it that way you know exactly how much you're getting.
I write down everything and even overestimate things...I try to burn 500 calories per workout and at the end of the day, I'm scrambling around to eat enough calories...I follow a pretty strict diet during the week, I had a beach body coach at one time tell me to up my calories or I wouldn't see weight loss..but thats hard for me to understand. I figured it's cuz I lift weights, but I think that's not it...my carbs are ok...don't eat much except when I splurge on weekends I carb overload...just at a loss...
mfv3
Cathlete
I agree with the beach body coach and say you need to up your calories, especially if you're burning off 500 of those with your workout. Your body seems to be hanging onto all those calories and not burning any off. Your body thinks its starving and holds on to everything you put in it. Also I'm not sure what you eat but make sure to switch it up....type and timing of meals. Shock your body...surprise it and it will respond by firing your metabolism. Hope this helps and good luck!
SNM Videos
Administrator
I think you might of misunderstood the dietitian at work, or at least I hope so. 1200 calories per day is the absolute lowest amount of calories a sedentary female should ever consume in a day. Consuming less than 1200 calories per day without medical supervision can be very harmful and dangerous.
The reason consuming too few calories works against you is because of something called "set point theory". Cathe has several articles in her Blog on this that can help you understand this concept better:
1. How Set-Point Theory Affects Your Ability to Lose Weight
2. Weight Loss: Why a Pound Doesn’t Always Equal 3,500 Calories
3. Weight Maintenance: New Study Shows How Your Body Works Against You
I would also suggest you read the following articles:
1. Why Your BMR is Important for Weight Loss
2. Why Your TDEE is Important for Weight Loss
RapidBreath
Cathlete
Switch from 2 days of cardio to 3 days and do weight circuits just 2 days/week, kettle bells are great. Do you have coconut oil? If you don't eat coconut oil you might want to try adding a little bit to your morning meal (good in oat meal or on toast.) It will boost your metabolism. Also, keep a food journal and track what foods cause you to gain weight the next day.
Lack of caloric intake will cause Vertigo. I was on a 1500 caloric intake or less doing high intensity workouts, mainly Cathe, and it caught up with me. Not too long ago, I had a fever and Vertigo which both were difficult to recover from b/c of my lack of calories. To resolve the issues, I overate and put on weight. Now, I'm using an app that accounts for fitness but not necessarily for Cathe. Listen to your body and do what is best.
that's exactly what the dietian told me and i had another one look at my journal to see what i was doing wrong..i eat every 3 hours and she told me to stop snacking..i was puzzled with her suggestion. i will go up to 1500 calories and maybe do some calorie cycling to see if that helps..im not as concerned about losing weight as i am about building lean muscle. i drink shakeology, whey protein and take cla,bcaa, fish oils, vit c and a multi...thanks for all of your input, this has been very informative