Are you sure you have the correct calculations? If you are exercising 5 times a week then you need to up the amount you eat. When you do your calculations on CC for your calorie target ensure you put a higher activity level then sedentary or lightly active.

Just to give you an idea I plugged in your details in this BMR calculator and it says that you should eat around 1600 calories a day. Eating too low will put your body into 'starvation mode' (as some call it) and besides it leaves very little room for you to lower the amount as you lose further weight.

I realised I was eating too little when I first started to log my calories on CC. So I upped it to the level it stated without any major effect in my weight loss. This means should I choose I have room to lower the amount. When you exercise you should actually increase your intake a little, your body needs it.

Also is 1600 calories what I need if I did nothing all day or is that with my exercise added in? What sort of defict will I have?

Sorry would check the website but im at work and its blocked so I cant access it.

So as I lose weight I need to reduce my calories, I heard you reduce your calories ever 10lbs? Also how much do u reduce them by every 10lbs you  lose?

Hi, I checked out the link for you, it says if you eat 1579 (burning 2274 a day) you will lose 1.39 per week.  Hope that helps :)

The link I provided earlier has a lot of info - so when get a chance take a look. For now though I'm cutting and pasting one of the sections that has an explanation based on your stats. Hope that helps.

Reasoning:

Deficits: Your deficit is the difference between how many calories you eat and how many calories you burn. Your recommended deficit is 695 calories. This is the least of your Activity Deficit (695 calories), your Safety Deficit (865 calories), and your Maximum Fat Calorie Expenditure (which cannot be calculated without knowing your body fat percentage).

Activity Deficit (695 calories): This is the number of calories you burn in your daily activities (such as being awake, driving to work, exercising, doing homework, etc.). This is an estimate based on the amount of exercise you indicated you do each week in the form above, averaged out for daily deficit numbers. For sedentary individuals this is 20% of your BMR.

Safety Deficit (865 calories): Nutritionists say that you can safely lose no more than 1% of your body weight per week. For the weight you gave (173 lb), you can safely lose about 1.73 lb per week. Because each pound of body fat contains 3500 calories of energy, your safe deficit is 1.73 lb * 3500 calories per pound per week = 6055 calories per week, which comes to 6055 / 7 = 865 calories per day.

Maximum Fat Calorie Expenditure (unknown without body fat percentage): One study found that body fat in humans can be converted to energy at a maximum rate of 31 calories per pound of actual body fat per day. Any energy you expend beyond this rate comes from your intake of nutrients and the breakdown (catabolysis) of your muscles. Weight loss in most people consists of about 75% FAT and 25% MUSCLE. Since we can calculate the actual amount of body fat in your body using your Body Fat Percentage (if given), we can determine the optimal calorie deficit to focus on FAT BURN instead of MUSCLE LOSS. To optimize your FAT BURN instead of MUSCLE LOSS, you should choose a deficit that does not exceed this value. (Persons wishing to lose muscle as well as fat can ignore this deficit limit.)

thanks you ever so much, uve really helped me  shall take the advice cheers

Original Post by fruitcake88:

thanks you ever so much, uve really helped me shall take the advice cheers

You're welcome. Good luck with the weight-loss.

That is awesome that you have lost 10 pounds- great job!! I would recommend that you eat more calories though. You don't want your body to go into"starvation mode", because than your body starts to eat your muscle, and you will slow way down in your weight lose. A good amount to lose is 1 to 2 pounds a week, if your are losing anymore than that then you aren't eating enough food. Its exciting to see that scale drop, but you don't want to end up with all of it back plus more. You should find out how much you should be consuming and stick with that. It will be a little frustrating at first because you aren't losing as quickly, but you will keep that weight off and that is the goal- good luck!! ; )