Calorie questions. So let me do yesterdays eating chart, I had Kashi Oatmeal 190 Calories, Salad with turkey for lunch 400 calories and Kashi Celerial for dinner 190 calories + 1 up of milk say 100 calories. An apple and bananna for snack 200 calories total. Therefore, I consumed 1080 calories the entire day. I also went to the gym in the morning and in the afternoon, counting aerobic exercises only of using the treadmill in the morning and afternoon for half an hour each session. According to the computer I burnt 750 calories. So does that mean for the day I only had 330 calories left over. Does that mean I am losing weight and getting more toned? It seems really low. Also the US government recommends 2000calories is that before or after exercise?

Thanks

Your going about the calories the wrong way. Are you male or female? 1080c is too low in my opinion and I dont even know if your male or female yet (the calories for gender are different).

Im going to copy and paste a post I made a while back to a person wanting to lose weight. Though there are other ways to calcuate your caloric intake, this will get you thinking in the right direction instead of FDA basic generalization.




Some Basic information that can lead you to fat tissue loss

Calorie calculation is an approximation science, remember this. Through your journey WATCH, LOOK, and LISTEN, to your body..........it will TELL YOU if your doing the correct things or combination of things!


○ Change your eating habits (below are some suggestion examples)

○ Substitute an artificial sweetener of your choice in the replace of refined white sugar (Refrain from Refined Sugar like you would a disease)

○ Try eating 5 to 6 smaller meals during the day

○ Balance your meals out during the day so in one day you have a mix of protein, carbohydrate and good fats

○ Drink lots of water during the day and before, during and after exercise

○ Simple Carb Examples: Grapefruit, Watermelon, Cantaloupe, Strawberries, Oranges, Apples, Pineapple, etc

○ Complex Carb Examples: Whole Wheat Pita Bread, Oatmeal, Long Grain Brown Rice, Brown Pasta, Malto-Meal (Plain, whole wheat),etc

○ Good Protein Examples: White or Dark Tuna, Chicken Breast, Lean Turkey, Lean Ham, Very lean Beef, Quality Whey Protein Powder, etc

○ Good Fats Examples: Natural Peanut Butter, Various Nuts, Flax Seed, Fish Oils.

This is what you need to do:

This an approximation science, but you can narrow it down very close, if your meticulous in your vision when looking at the data.

Tweak your desire and passion by educating yourself on the basic requirements of losing fat tissue. With your age, sex, height, and weight, in mind, find your approximated base calorie needs (this is organ function, breathing, or bodily function needs). One can use the Benedict Formula.

Calculate your BMR:

The Harris Benedict equation determines calorie needs for men or woman as follows:

• It calculates your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) calorie requirements, based on your height, weight, age and gender.
• It increases your BMR calorie needs by taking into account the number of calories you burn through activities such as exercise. This gives you your total calorie requirement or approximated Maintenance Line (I call it the MT Line).

Step One : Calculate your BMR with the following formula:

•Women: BMR = 655 + (4.35 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) - (4.7 x age in years)
•Men: BMR = 66 + (6.23 x weight in pounds) + (12.7 x height in inches) - (6.8 x age in years)

Step Two : In order to incorporate activity into your daily caloric needs, do the following calculation:

•If you are sedentary : BMR x 1.2
•If you are lightly active: BMR x 1.375
•If you are moderately active (You exercise most days a week.): BMR x 1.55
•If you are very active (You exercise daily.): BMR x 1.725
•If you are extra active (You do hard labor or are in athletic training.): BMR x 1.9

Create a Calorie Deficit:

In order to lose weight, you must create a calorie deficit. It is easier and healthier to cut back your calorie intake a little bit at a time.

Every 3,500 calories is equivalent to approximated 1 pound.
If you cut back 500 calories a day, you will lose 1 pound per week. (not necessrily all fat)
If you exercise to burn off 500 calories a day you will also lose approximated 1 pound per week.

Apply this knowledge by backing off the approximated MT Line (approximated Maintenance line), say for example, a -500c per day, for about 1 week. Before the week begins, weigh yourself in the AM when you FIRST get up (do not eat yet) (remember your clothing, preferably with just underwear and t-shirt or like clothes). Note the time, and the approximated wgt.

Each day spread your caloric content out throughout the day (keep the body fed, with calories in the 300 to 500c approximated calories each meal), or a like division which mirrors your end caloric deficit limit (meaning MT-500c).

This way you have your entire day and body encircled with nutrition (I assume you already know to eat clean), which if your eating right, will give an approximated good energy (not optimal because your in deficit) to fuel your training and exercising schedule.

At the end of the week, on the same day, the same time, with the same like clothes, weigh yourself again. Note whether you lost or gained tissue (or weight I mean). To further assist you, I want to tell you that for every approximated caloric deficit of (-3500c), one could lose 1lb of fat tissue. (though some may not all be fat tissue, this information is for another question, and isn't presently suited here).

Now, in this example you were calculating a -500c per day deficit. There needs to be -3500c to lose approximated 1lbs of fat. Now lets do some basic math. -500cX7=-3500c. With all things considered equal, and you were meticulous and faithful on the diet, you should have been CLOSE to losing at least one pound of tissue in the week.

If this didn't happen, this means you need to make finer adjustments, and the MT line is not accurate, and you need to adjust this on your own.

Based upon the FEEDBACK your body is giving you, ask yourself how faithful you were on the diet, AND how faithful in training (whether you kept the training schedule (if you didn't, this would effect the caloric equation, no?!), AND how accurate you figured in your activities caloric wise.........but, you have the base information to begin making adjustments.

One can not spot reduce. Losing fat is like draining a pool. The shallow end seems to drain before the larger deeper end. One can't choose where to lose fat; it will be lost all over the body.

The Nutrients are an essential factor in the diet; however, the law of energy balance within the DIET, is the ultimate KING while the Nutrients can play in some decisions made within the body.

Do yourself a favor, figure out your MT line, adjust off of this, eat well balanced spaced out meals (DONT EVER starve YOURSELF), AND listen to your body for the results.

While you are trying to figure out your body, IT WILL PAY YOU BACK, I promise. You have to learn to MASTER yourself to become the master of weight loss for YOURSELF.


The general approximation is that it takes at least a -3500c to lose one pound of fat tissue (or the creation of -3500c deficit in the diet over a period of time); however, it is possible to lose muscle within this approximation. And, this is one of many reasons why, it is good to have a weight training program to assist in minimizing any muscle loss when deficit dieting.




Best Regards as always,

Chillen

You're eating way too little, and not to mention bad food.

Apple and banana? Come on!!! They're good stuff, but not when it's the only thing you eaten during the day.

First off, find your BMR. That's how much calories you need to maintain yourself.

Second, subtract roughly 500 from it, that's how much you eat per day to lose 1 pound a week.

Third, exercise is last. Your first priority should be diet, then exercise is used to maintain any weight loss you happen to have during your diet.

Fourth, for the love of god, eat more smarter. Eat things that are natural and not processed. Cereal? Come on!!!!!

To best follow a diet, read the faqs around here. If you're confused about what to buy at the market, think of this advice from "New Rules of Lifting," if you can't see it growing, or sitting there in the wild, it's probably not good for you. For example, salmon, you can see it is from a fish that's jumping in the stream... so it's good for you. However, a bowl of cereal... can you see it growing in the wild? Probably not. So look at the ingredients... do you have to break down each ingredients such that in order to find it growing in the wild, you have to break down each ingredient further? If so, then that cereal is probably not good for you.

Also, note that eating less than 1200 cals per day can have very negative effects to your body.

Upon eating less, your body thinks there is no food. It will then try to hold on to any energy you feed your body. Therefore, at the end of the day, you're losing nothing. Then when you start eating regularly, which you will eventually do since it's very hard to maintain a 1000 cals diet without wanting to shoot yourself in the face, your body will think food supply has returned to normal, and will start to store fat again.

Also, you lose muscles, which is the most important thing to losing fat and keeping it off. You don't lose fat when you're on a starvation diet.

So in order to stop this, eat 5-6 meals per day. So take your BMR - 500 / 5-6 meals, that's how many calories you consume per meal. You eat 3-4 hours apart, and your metabolism is boosting to the max. You're burning energy since your body is breaking down the food, and you don't feel as hungry all the time.