Unsure how many calories I should be eating for my new activity level to maintain weight loss & still fuel my body adequately

I'm feeling a bit lost/discouraged lately, especially as I've started a new workout routine recently, and i'm looking for some advice.

Stats: 26f, 5'3", SW: 150lb CW: 130lb, GW: 110-115lb~ Pear shape (I carry weight in my hips, thighs, lower belly, and unfortunately my face -_- )

According to tdeecalculator.net, my BMR is 1,299 and TDEE is 1,559 (sedentary). I work a sedentary desk job so I've been going by the "sedentary" estimation. With a goal of losing 1lb/week (500 cal daily deficit) this puts me at eating 1059 cals/day, which I did for months and lost 20lbs - I found the calculation to be fairly accurate for me based on the pace I was losing weight (I use myfitnesspal and log everything meticulously using a food scale). During this time I exercised 6 days a week at home, but very lightly/half-assed if i'm honest.

3x/week weights (all exercises using 2 5lb dumbbells, all I had at home) workout examples:

leg day:

• 4x10 squats

• 4x10 lunges

• 2 x 1 min wall sits

arm day:

• 4x10 bicep curls

• 4x10 front arm raises

• 4x10 overhead press (with dumb bells)

• 4x10 side arm raises

I also did 3x/week 30 mins treadmill, mix of walking speed 3.5 and jogging speed 5.5. Honestly, these were pitiful workouts, I was focusing more on getting in the habit of working out every day (except rest day), working on my form, and improving my breathing & heart rate rather than worrying about burning calories or building muscle.

I finally joined the gym a few weeks ago, and recently completed the 8 week c25k program on my treadmill @ home, so my workouts now look like this:

Work out 6 days/week, 1 rest day.

4 days weights which look something like:

• 3x10 squats using 2 15lbs dumbbells (working up to 45lbs total so I can start the stronglifts 5x5 program)

• 3x12 35lb deadlift (again, trying to work up to stronglifts 5x5)

• 3x12 140lb leg press

• 3x12 55lb leg extension

• 3x12 55lb leg curl

• 3x12 55lb of another leg machine I simply cannot remember the name of

• 12-15 mins stair climber @ level 8.

On arm days I switch out squats and dead lifts for bicep curls and arm raises & some of the machines for lat pull downs, peck deck, etc. This takes me roughly 1 hour including rests. I will be the first to say I have no idea what i'm doing. Right now I am very inexperienced in the gym and still feel a bit awkward, so I realize my workouts are kind of all over the place. I'm just trying to get a hold on how to use different machines but I have no program i'm following, this is just my current general routine. I hope to start stronglifts 5x5 soon but i'm very intimated by the squat rack and bench press.

Then I do 2 days/week run ~5km which looks roughly like 5 mins warm up @ 3.5 speed, 30 mins @ 5.5 speed, 5 mins cool down @ 3.5 speed. And then 1 rest day.

tdeecalculator.net's suggested information for me (which I've found to be quite accurate so far in my journey):

Basal Metabolic Rate 1,299 calories per day

Sedentary 1,559 calories per day

Light Exercise 1,786 calories per day

Moderate Exercise 2,013 calories per day

Heavy Exercise 2,240 calories per day

Athlete 2,468 calories per day

With the current workouts i'm doing, i'm not sure what category that would put me in considering my job is sedentary. I read somewhere on this sub that if you have a sedentary job then 1 hour/day of exercise is not enough to even classify myself in the "light exercise" category because it doesn't offset the rest of my life being sedentary, and therefore should stick to my -500cals of my sedentary TDEE to continue weight loss. But then I've also read that you need to eat more to fuel your workouts.

My goal right now is primarily fat loss. I don't really care about building muscle at the moment, but from what I've read newbies may be able to lose fat/build muscle simultaneously for a time? Either way, i'm just focusing on losing these last 20lbs right now and i'm not sure how many calories I should be eating to lose the fat but not malnourish myself basically. I have no idea how many calories these new workouts burn so i'm not sure how much more I should be eating to compensate, or if I should just continue on eating around @ 500cal/day deficit (~1000cals/day). I know people always say don't eat less than 1200cals, but I've also read that it doesn't really apply the same to short women?

I'm just feeling a bit lost. Based on the stats I've listed, what would you guys suggest?

• Thank you for reading, I realize this was long but I wanted to include as much information as possible to help paint a picture of my activity level.

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Losing 125 lbs by CC and cutting sugar

My weight loss journey *technically* began in late 2017, when I was idly looking at a nutrition facts at a Dunkin Donuts and realized that the coffee I ordered 2x every day was loaded with sugar and 400 calories a pop. Just like that, no satiation. Being a guy who sometimes spontaneously does math problems when I see something in real life, I quickly multiplied that by 7 and realized that I was consuming an extra 5600 calories every week just in coffee sugar. That's almost 3 extra *days* worth of caloric intake, every single week, for something that did absolutely *nothing* to fill me up. At that point, it became a no-brainer... I would force myself to like unsweetened coffee, and I would start right then and there.

Now, that was just a first step, but it ended up being the start to a tremendous journey. Actually doing the math in my head for once made me examine just how many calories I was intaking. If you had asked me before, I would have guessed something along the lines of 2500~2700. Yeah, a bit excessive, but not extraordinarily so. Turns out when I just wrote down a list of everything I ate in a day, I was at that point by lunchtime, and that my actual caloric intake was closer to 4500. No wonder I was in danger of breaching 400 lbs in the very near future. In fact, I'd probably weigh over 400 by now if I had continued on the course I was on.

Yet writing down a 2000 calorie plan seemed frustrating and impossible to me. I would feel hungry just *thinking* about trying to live on that. I had been doing some reading on various diets like Keto, but felt that would be impossible for me to maintain. What kept on sticking with me, however, was that switch off of sweetened coffee. It was hard for the first two weeks, but eventually I grew to like unsweetened, and the few times where I was handed a sweetened coffee by mistake, I actually had to return and complain after a single sip because the coffee I would have previously downed tasted foul and almost undrinkable to me.

That gave me an inspiration... if I could eliminate sugar from drinks, maybe I could eliminate it altogether from my life. I ended up quitting processed sugar entirely on July 16 of 2018, weighing in at 375 lbs at the time. No sugary drinks or juices (literally the only things I drink now are water, unsweetened coffee, and unsweetened tea), no cookies, no cake, no pastries of any kind, no snack foods unless they had 0g sugar on their nutrition label. The only sugary items I allowed myself were whole fruits and vegetables that happened to contain natural sugar, and marinara sauce because I love Italian food a little too much. I didn't cut all carb entirely (starches were still very much in play, and still are for that matter), but for the moment I was making the one change I felt relatively confident I *could* make.

Needless to say, I definitely felt like crap. I was highly irritable for two weeks, and largely just hid away in my office all day, and got maybe 12 hours of sleep the first week. Sugar is, quite literally, a white, powdery, addictive substance that causes immense long-term health problems. I've never smoked cigarettes or done any hard drugs, not to mention I've only had about 3 alcoholic drinks in my entire life, but it's the closest I can imagine what withdrawal feels like. I was doing cold turkey, and I would have to suffer the consequences, but knowing there was light at the end of the tunnel let me forge on ahead.

And boy was there some light at the end of that tunnel. When I came through it in early August, aside from actually losing 10 lbs just from the cuts I had made, I noticed that I was feeling full on a lot less food. That let me put into effect phase 2 of my plan: Calorie counting. See, by cutting sugar entirely, it allows me to min-max my calorie-to-satiety ratio and make each calorie I consume count for more. A couple scoops of ice cream was 400cal. That 400cal could have been a whole bunch of different things ranging from the healthy (a decent-size salad) to the not-so-healthy-but-still-fills-me-up-more-than-ice-cream items (a slice of pizza). I also found that, because whole fruits were my only source of sugar now, I was forgoing snacking on chips in favor of fruits automatically. I also didn't have to do what I was dreading most: counting carbs. Again, I love my pasta a little too much. But counting calories basically took care of the carb rationing for me.

So that 10 lbs quickly followed up with another 10. After the first month it slowed down to about 10 lbs a month, and then a year later it slowed down to 5 lbs a month. But I'm still plugging along. I've lost 125 lbs since then, edging closer to 130 now. My blood pressure has fallen from 192/105 to 134/87. My waist size has shrunk from a 54 to a 36. I can run for half a mile or so without getting winded now (and my natural walking speed has nearly doubled as well). My own fianceé walked past me 4 times while we were at Target a few months back, looking for me, and had to text me because she couldn't find me when I was facing away looking at a clothes rack. I still have a ways to go yet, but the progress has been slow and steady, and I have full confidence I will reach my goal: the day I can go to the doctor and *not* get "You need to lose weight".

Most importantly, I've done it as the "lifestyle change" approach. In the words of Captain America, I could do this all day. I don't feel like I'm even dieting anymore. I still have to avoid all sugary items, which causes some awkward moments in social situations, but I just have to bust out the picture of fat me on my phone and that usually ends the conversation. The changes I made in the past 2 years may have added nearly 30 years to my life. I wish I could go back and impart this wisdom on my teenage self, but I'll settle for changing what I *can* change: my own future. Because now I *have* a future.

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Unsure how long it takes to start seeing results

I started my weight loss journey in July of last year weighing 332 pounds, my highest weight. By October I had gotten down to 315 and joined the r/loseit Camp Crystal Lake Challenge. By the end of the challenge I had hit my goal weight of 300 and I have maintained that since that day with slight fluctuations of course. 2 weeks ago I made a decision that I no longer wanted to just maintain and that I wanted to lose some more weight so I joined a gym. I've been eating healthier and tracking my nutrients and calories for 120 days now, and after joining the gym I've worked out 4 times with my 5th session slated to be later tonight. According to my nutrients and working out I have been anywhere from 2,200 to 3,000 calories less than suggested per week and I am still maintaining 300 pounds but not seeing any more results. I have cut out soda and am mostly drinking water, unsweet tea, and black coffee with the occasional glass of milk. Am I doing something wrong? How long should it take to notice results after starting a new plan? Any thoughts and advice are appreciated!

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Why am I gaining wait when im doing everything right?

I’ve gained a lot of weight. I’ve had a dietician and a personal trainer in the past. I’ve since lost my insurance and can no longer afford a trainer, so unfortunately I don’t have access to the support that made my weight loss journey successful.

This being said, I’ve been doing all the things my dietician and trainer told me to do and these regiments were always successful in maintaining my weight. STRANGELY and frustratingly enough these things are SOME HOW not working anymore????? I’m not losing weight and I’m doing EXACTLY what I did not so long ago that made me lose weight SEAMLESSLY!?? I’m also doing way better than when I would see them. I’m not binge eating. For whatever reason I haven’t had ANY urge to binge or eat unhealthy. I’ve had binge eating disorder pretty much all my life, so IDK what switch was turned off in my head, but I have full on STOPPED. Thankful, but it is truly bizarre.

Additionally, I used to drink quite a lot of alcohol. Multiple times a week. This slows your metabolism down for days. Alcohol generally makes you gain weight. Like my abrupt halt of binging, I haven’t had alcohol in months! ZERO urge.

Even weirder, I got super depressed last week and pretty much had a breakdown about these confining circumstances and unrelated stuff. I physically couldn’t bring myself to the gym and I binged for the first time in a while. Even binged on a big order of nachos.

I weighed myself after this unhealthy eating stint and zero gym visits and I LOST WEIGHT?? 4 lbs???? I was relieved to see this so I was motivated to follow my regiment and I went to the gym yesterday and did my morning routine.

I weighed myself this morning and GAINED weight??? Nearly 2 lbs!!

I understand this is online and it’s hard to assess what’s going on via reddit post, but doesn’t anyone have any theories? WHY do I GAIN weight when I’m seemingly doing everything right?? Or have experienced the same thing?

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Day 1? Starting your weight loss journey on Thursday, 30 January 2020? Start here!

Today is your Day 1?

Welcome to r/Loseit!

So you aren’t sure of how to start? Don’t worry! “How do I get started?” is our most asked question. r/Loseit has helped our users lose over 1,000,000 recorded pounds and these are the steps that we’ve found most useful for getting started.

Why you’re overweight

Our bodies are amazing (yes, yours too!). In order to survive before supermarkets, we had to be able to store energy to get us through lean times, we store this energy as adipose fat tissue. If you put more energy into your body than it needs, it stores it, for (potential) later use. When you put in less than it needs, it uses the stored energy. The more energy you have stored, the more overweight you are. The trick is to get your body to use the stored energy, which can only be done if you give it less energy than it needs, consistently.

Before You Start

The very first step is calculating your calorie needs. You can do that HERE. This will give you an approximation of your calorie needs for the day. The next step is to figure how quickly you want to lose the fat. One pound of fat is equal to 3500 calories. So to lose 1 pound of fat per week you will need to consume 500 calories less than your TDEE (daily calorie needs from the link above). 750 calories less will result in 1.5 pounds and 1000 calories is an aggressive 2 pounds per week.

Tracking

Here is where it begins to resemble work. The most efficient way to lose the weight you desire is to track your calorie intake. This has gotten much simpler over the years and today it can be done right from your smartphone or computer. r/loseit recommends an app like MyFitnessPal, Loseit! (unaffiliated), or Cronometer. Create an account and be honest with it about your current stats, activities, and goals. This is your tracker and no one else needs to see it so don’t cheat the numbers. You’ll find large user created databases that make logging and tracking your food and drinks easy with just the tap of the screen or the push of a button. We also highly recommend the use of a digital kitchen scale for accuracy. Knowing how much of what you're eating is more important than what you're eating. Why? This may explain it.

Creating Your Deficit

How do you create a deficit? This is up to you. r/loseit has a few recommendations but ultimately that decision is yours. There is no perfect diet for everyone. There is a perfect diet for you and you can create it. You can eat less of exactly what you eat now. If you like pizza you can have pizza. Have 2 slices instead of 4. You can try lower calorie replacements for calorie dense foods. Some of the communities favorites are cauliflower rice, zucchini noodles, spaghetti squash in place of their more calorie rich cousins. If it appeals to you an entire dietary change like Keto, Paleo, Vegetarian.

The most important thing to remember is that this selection of foods works for you. Sustainability is the key to long term weight management success. If you hate what you’re eating you won’t stick to it.

Exercise

Is NOT mandatory. You can lose fat and create a deficit through diet alone. There is no requirement of exercise to lose weight.

It has it’s own benefits though. You will burn extra calories. Exercise is shown to be beneficial to mental health and creates an endorphin rush as well. It makes people feel awesome and has been linked to higher rates of long term success when physical activity is included in lifestyle changes.

Crawl, Walk, Run

It can seem like one needs to make a 180 degree course correction to find success. That isn’t necessarily true. Many of our users find that creating small initial changes that build a foundation allows them to progress forward in even, sustained, increments.

Acceptance

You will struggle. We have all struggled. This is natural. There is no tip or trick to get through this though. We encourage you to recognize why you are struggling and forgive yourself for whatever reason that may be. If you overindulged at your last meal that is ok. You can resolve to make the next meal better.

Do not let the pursuit of perfect get in the way of progress. We don’t need perfect. We just want better.

Additional resources

Now you’re ready to do this. Here are more details, that may help you refine your plan.

• Quick Start Guide - Build your foundation!
• Loseit Compendium - Frame it out!
• FAQ - Answers to our most Frequently Asked Questions!

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My experience losing the weight + maintaining so far

Hey all! This is my first post on Reddit - I normally just lurk but r/loseit has been such a good resource during my weight loss & I wanted to share.

Last year, I dropped about 30 lbs in 5 months, which may not sound like a ton but definitely made a difference in my life. I tried to lose weight using a lot of small habits so it wouldn't feel like an overhaul of my life:

• I tracked my calories with myfitnesspal - I tried to hold myself to 90% accuracy, and overestimate instead of underestimate. I gave myself days off if needed.
• I didn't eat breakfast, just had coffee. Doesn't work for everyone but kept my hunger down and gave me more calories for later.
• I also let myself eat back exercise calories (tracked with FitBit). It was so much easier for me to play a sport for a couple hours and eat 1700 calories than not exercise and eat 1200.
• I browsed r/loseit and r/progresspics at least every couple of days for motivation.
• I weighed myself every day.
• I tried to be nice to myself. Every time I felt myself getting frustrated with my body, I wanted to binge 10x more. Even if I felt bad about my weight, I made sure I did other things that were good for my body - hydrating, building muscles, eating lots of green things.

I've been keeping up those habits (besides adding a spinach smoothie at breakfast) during maintenance the last few months, and it's been working pretty well. I have so much more body confidence and I've found that consistent exercise is a great outlet for my anxiety. But maintenance still has been tricky for sure.

Losing weight, despite being tough, was rewarding. It was like the anticipation of opening a gift on Christmas morning, where I was so excited for what life will be like at my goal weight. When I hit my goal it was like opening that present - amazing and exciting!!!! but also bittersweet because I don't have that to look forward to anymore.

Also, it's hard not to see overweight me when I look in the mirror. I know I'm smaller because people comment on it and also my clothes are all too big, but it doesn't feel like this ~new me revelation~. Both of these things makes me miss losing weight, even though I'm already lower than my goal.

Does anyone else feel this way? I'm proud of my accomplishment, but it's hard to feel satisfied.

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No motivation the second time around

Hello again /r/loseit! I was fairly active on here a few years ago when I started my weight loss journey but unfortunately I’m back again looking for motivation and support as this sub was amazing back then.

A bit of background: I lost about 40 lbs (170-130) in 2017, and maintained that from about mid 2017-mid 2018 while toning up. Then an injury and a breakup led me to a downward spiral and I went back up to 140 lbs by the beginning of 2019. Over the course of 2019 between a cross country move, ANOTHER injury, and a new job I’m back up to 153 and back to all my old habits like binge eating and not being active.

Honestly I’m so frustrated with myself. The worst part isn’t even the weight gain, it’s that I can’t find the motivation this time around to change. Back in 2017 I really wanted to get healthy and learned all the science of CICO and started meal prepping and exercising a lot. Now three years later I feel like I’m back where I started but I just care less. I look in the mirror and hate what I see but I can’t find the motivation to actually stick to CICO. I’m conscious of what I eat now even though I wasn’t before but it’s like I don’t care. Oh that pasta is 200 calories vs spaghetti squash that’s 50? Oh well, whatever. Oh I’m injured and haven’t been able to work out for four months? Eh, it’s fine. I admit part of this discouragement may be due to my injuries but if I’m being honest even in between when I was doing better I still couldn’t find the same motivation to be strict with my diet. It just got to the point it was exhausting to think about and easier to just eat.

Sorry for the long rant, I’m feeling very frustrated and like none of the motivating techniques I had the first time around are working. The long point of this being, I remember this sub being incredibly helpful my first time around. Any advice for getting that motivation back from those who have back spiraled and gained weight back? Relatedly any advice (beyond just CICO) for weight loss when you can’t workout?

TLDR; gained half my hard earned weight loss back, feeling very discouraged and unmotivated this time around and looking for advice

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