Somedays my schedule is really jampacked and I know I'm not going to have time to work out. When I have these days I stick to my diet strictly, 5-6 small meals, 1300 calories, never anything over. I know that in order to tone up I'm going to have to increase my calories, but on days that I can't workout, can I drop back down to 1300 calories because I won't be working out to burn off the extras I've consumed, or should I still be eating the increased amount?

It's kind of a stupid question...but I was just wondering.

Nope. It seems to work just right for me when I was losing weight. I never get hungry because of my 5-6 small meals, and I don't have time to get hungry in between cause I'm normally busy. And I stopped drinking away all my calories...I only drink water, and the occasional iced tea, so all my calorie intake is from food.

If Person A and Person B are both 200lbs, and Person A loses 50lbs, 25lbs of fat, and 25lbs of muscle (just using convenient numbers to illustrate the point) by using a very low calorie diet, and Person B loses 25 lbs, 25lbs of fat, and 0 lbs of muscle, by eating more (nutritious) calories and doing strength training to protect the muscle. Who's better off? Person A at 150lbs who now has to train back the lost lean muscle, or Person B at 175lbs?

it's personal preference imo.
personally, i would rather be person B.. i like having more muscle mass and don't rely on the scale one bit. i judge by the mirror and the way my clothes fit.

well, it could be.. u know, those ppl that want to look anorexic. i didnt say it was healthy.

Person B because they still have the muscle.

Before I gained all that weight I'm pretty sure I didn't have any muscle. I was stick thin at 110 lbs and I didn't do any sort of exercising. Then I got fat, during college, still lazy, and I'm sure I wasn't gaining muscle anywhere in that process.

Not directly - but I'm guessing there's people who stand on the scale and are just happy to see the number being lower than it was, without regard to what happened to make it lower.

All of which was to say that more weight loss is not necessarily a good thing. I'd think that not having enough of the proper nutrients will lead to erosion of your body's infrastructure and defenses. Since your goal is to add tone to your body, I'd think you'd want to strengthen/build the muscles (to have something to see) as well as cut the fat away (to be able to see the muscles). Sounds like you've done the latter, now you're ready to do the former. I'd suggest considering creating a new food plan with plenty of protein to help you toward your goal.

derwydon,
thank you thank you thank you thank...... 1300 cals is 1/2 a day,, maybe that's why my mid section is maintaining its girth -doh!

To this poster-- again,, i will say you are thin and look thin, careful as you got there.

FF

I realize you did use 1,300 as a guideline in the past, but do you recall how you came up with this 1,300 a day in the first place ? Is it a ' calc ' of some sort ?

btw - 122 lbs ...how tall are you ?

Also, what is your weeky workout regimen like ?

It wasn't really a calculation of any sort. My roommate is about an inch or two taller than me and lost a significant amount of weight on a 1600-1800 calorie diet, although she was a lot heavier...we just went with I'm shorter, minus a couple hundred calories and see how it works. So we went with 1300-1500 as a guess.

I'm almost 5'3"...

I've been doing cardio lately...a lot of elliptical and treadmill workouts, some ab workouts. I read about HIIT and thought about incorporating that in as well as lifting (I've done a small amount of lifting before at the beginning of my weight loss, not enough to get results though). I have Pilates and Taebo, but I'm not a big fan of each so I rarely do those.

Good info.

How many days a week do you do cardio and how many minutes does a typical cardio session last ?

1300 calories is like the amount of food a parylized bed-ridden person would have to eat because that is close to their resting metabolic rate(RMR). my RMR is 1600 cals/day.
i put in information for you and your RMR is ~1350. thats your resting metabolic rate. you definetly need more than that.

5 or 6 times a week since cardio is the only thing i've been doing...if i'm on the treadmill or elliptical then it's usually 45 minutes worth and every now i then i join my mom for her "power walk" which last like an hour or a little more.

i think upping the colories will help you a lot if you eat clean because then your body will realize that it isnt on a food shortage and it will stop storing fat because it was in 'survival mode', storing fat in case of an emergency so that it can feed off of the lipids when there is no food.

so if your goal is to lose more body fat, i say up the calories a bit. use this calculator to find your maintenance.
Calorie Calculator - Daily Caloric Needs
it is an estimate. then you can subtract 100-300 calories from your maintenance for fat loss. you do not want to create such a large deficit though since you are doing a lot of cardio. the deficit should be at most 500 because of you size.