Hello - how many calories SHOULD I be eating?

mum2five

Member
Hi,

Can anyone tell me how many calories I 'should' be eating?

I'm currently on SW but finding it not really working for me, only lost 3.5lbs in 5 weeks.

Before that I was calorie counting but had got to a point where I was only eating 300 - 500 kcalories a day and not really losing any more weight.
 
ooh 300-500 calories is way too little ... your body goes into starvation mode and holds onto its fat.

At my class they advise 1200 for the first 2 weeks then increase that depending on age and weight. Mine was 1500 calories.

HTH
 
ooh 300-500 calories is way too little ... your body goes into starvation mode and holds onto its fat.

At my class they advise 1200 for the first 2 weeks then increase that depending on age and weight. Mine was 1500 calories.

HTH

1200 sounds a fair bit, but realistic :) Why do you increase it just out of wonder? I'm 29, 5ft 2 and currently weigh 10st 13, want to get back down to 8st 4
 
1200 sounds a fair bit, but realistic :) Why do you increase it just out of wonder? I'm 29, 5ft 2 and currently weigh 10st 13, want to get back down to 8st 4

ok i'll try to explain what I know. When you eat too few calories your body is ok with it for a couple of weeks; then something says 'hang on a minute, starvation is on its way; hold onto the the fat stores'. Hence after a couple of weeks people tend to stop losing weight.

If you did nothing all day but lie in bed, the average woman would burn around 1300 calories per day. All of us do more than that anyway, we walk, shop exercise, take the kids to school, housework etc.

The calorie intake is increased slightly to stop the 'starvation' hold and continue to gradually lose weight. Also, if you stayed on too few calories you just wouldn't be able to sustain it, you'd then binge, treat yourself and probably give up cos you feel you've cheated. If you allow yourself an additional small treat (included in the 1500 calories) of 100 calories each day (or even save them up for a week), you then know you can bring even a small chocolate bar, glass of wine or whatever into your diet as long as its included in your calories.

My calorie increase was 1500 as I had a lot to lose, you could probably do 1400 calorie increase.

I'm sure i will have missed something out and come back later but if you have any further questions just ask.

HTH
 
That's a really useful site, says for extreme fat loss i should be eating about 1200, which is what I'm doing now, hoping it'll start having an effect!
 
For losing weight, probably 1200 Calories :D!
Good Luck!
 
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