Only 18 yrs old.....eat MORE!  Lots more

~H~

Original Post by calisbabe10:

No your not. Minimum for women is 1200 calories. If you burn off 600 calories a day you are leaving your body with 200-400 calories to use for normal daily functioning and its not enough. I dont know the exact numbers but people have posted calorie amounts that you heart or lungs need and its more than 200-400 believe me. What sort of working out do you do? And are you trying to lose weight?

 i go to the gym and i do like 40 to 50 minutes  on the ellipse machine everyday  im trying to lose weight like 20 pounds  , what i eat is :

in the morning i drink a boost nutrional energy drink and for lunch i ate a salad  and during the day i ate like 2 or 3 quaker bars and then for dinner i ate a chicken bowl  and i drink like 2 or 3 lts or water a day and a gatorade

I eat about 1600 calories every day and according to your stats you should be eating more than I do.  And I've been losing well.  Eat more. I'm losing faster now than I was before when I was eating 1400.

BMR/RMR Calculator

If you click on the BMR/RMR it'll take you to a calculator that gives you how much to eat and burn for max safe fat loss with reasoning.

At the top will be eat and burn numbers and near the bottom it'll say specifically how many calories to burn in exercise.

I selected the activity level that was closest to your current calorie burn of 600 which is 520.

It says eat 1546 and if you burn the 520 calories in exercise you'll lose 1.52 lb a week.

This is the amount you can lose without losing so much muscle.  Also I'm not sure how much you know so in case you haven't heard it incorporating a bit of weight training as part of your exercise is a good idea to keep muscle.

Play around with it a bit if you want to lose a bit faster you can select.

You could probably eat the 1546 and do your 600 and be fine, but I definately recommend increasing to somewhere close to 1546 it doesn't have to be 1 or 2 points off or anything just something in that area.  Like 1300 on some days and 1600 on others as long as it averages out to a calorie deficit you'll lose weight.

Also keep in mind if you've been eating a good deal less than the 1546 for awhile it may feel like too much to eat that amount just up it bit by bit overtime.

Good luck

Also your at the upper end of a healthy weight already so I think you'd be great if you lose maybe 15-20 lb and than do some strenght training to put on a bit of muscle.  If you get to your goal weight and feel like doing this I'm sure someone on here can tell ya what ya need to do for that as well :)

Or if ya feel fine with the muscle you have now and dont' really want to get more muscle thats fine of course too.  The page I linked lists your ideal weight at 136.4 lb with the ideal range of 114.4 lb - 154 lb

I could be wrong but I think the range is based on frame size so if your frame is small 114.4 is ideal while if your frame is large closer to 154 is good.

Keep in mind though how you feel when you get to certain points just because you have a small frame if you do and 114.4 may be the ideal doesn't necessarily make it your ideal just think about how you feel and if you feel good than stop where you are :)

Good luck and sorry for the really long post....I hope it gets read and you can get some use out of it

I'm so bad about having big posts that seem to get looked over cause no one wants to read them lol or at least thats my perception......

raiken, yes, you almost lost me there, but i stuck with it, and actually also got some useful info from it - thanks

800 to 1000 calories is too low.

In fact, it is dangerously low and for your own health you should increase your calories immediately. Eating so little could damage your health with long-term ramifications.

1200 calories if the bare minimum for a woman (1500 for a man, 1500-1800 for a teen) to eat per day and to remain healthy.

In fact, it may even be too low for you as you are working out. But at least with a minimum of 1200-1500 calories your internal organs will continue to function properly.

Upping your calories will also prevent your metabolism from slowing.

In addition, by eating only 800-1000 calories you are setting yourself up for an endless cycle of weight gain-weight loss (yo-yo dieting) as once you go back to your normal calories you might gain weight back and become frustrated.

Have you used the tools here on Calorie Count Plus to figure out the best target calories for your goals? Have you checked out the Weight Loss Forum Reources thread at the top of this forum? Also have you seen that we have a New Members forum which has a great thread The Unofficial Guide to Calorie Count - this will guide you through the process.

We encourage a maximum of a 1-2 lb loss per week. To achieve this healthfully you can maintain a 500-1000 calorie deficit per day. You are definitely burning more than 600 calories a day, perhaps you burn 600 cals with your workout but you must figure out (using the Tools of this site) how many TOTAL cals you are burning.

The Tools can help you do this.

From Mary Hartley, Calorie Count's Director of Nutrition:

"By eating 800 calories, you will not get enough energy, protein, fiber, vitamins, minerals and other components of food. In time, you could become malnourished, which can cause severe health risks such as respiratory infections, kidney failure, blindness, heart attack and even death."

Here is a brief reason why never less than 1200 calories from the Advice section of Calorie Count Plus, under the Q&A tab:

Why must I eat at least 1,200 calories a day when I want to eat less?

In order to get the daily food servings you need for a balanced diet, it takes about 1200 calories a day (for a man it is 1500 calories a day). With careful planning, you could have a balanced diet on 1000 calories, but the restrictiveness of a very low calorie level can lead to binging and weight cycling, which will take you further from your weight loss goal. What's more, very low calorie diets can cause excessive muscle breakdown and metabolic adaptations, which can drive down your calorie requirements. In the end, you'll need fewer calories to maintain a higher weight.

Here is a very rough scientific break down provided by a dietician for a 5' 2", 19 year old female weighing approximately 100 pounds, sitting around all day and doing nothing:

-The heart needs 12% of the calories (144 cals)
-The kidney needs 12% of the calories (144 cals)
-The Liver needs 23% of the calories (276 cals)
-The brain needs 23% of the calories (276 cals)
-The skeletal muscle needs 30% of the calories (360 cals)

Anyway, we are here to help so let us know if you have more questions. But do realize that Calorie count cannot support you if you continue to eat a diet of only 800-1000 cals a day.

Hello! I am a 20 year old female who is 5'2 and is at a steady weight of 95. I have been on a low calorie diet for about 2 months now. I am loving the results, I feel extremely energized and I look more lean than ever. I would say my calories average from 1,600 to 2,000 a day. I actually was underweight before I started this diet. But as soon as I started lifting and exercising reguarly and was this healthy eating low calorie diet, my life changed for the better and I gained weight (good weight). The only issue is, I crave sweets! I have never "craved" sweets before, I have always been the type to crave steaks and protein! But I also have hypoglycemia...so can someone please tell me if this is all psychological or am I really missing some nutrients? If you think you may know the answer, please help me out here!

Nope, it's definitely not enough. If you keep it up, your metabolism will slow down tremendously, and it will be difficult to speed it up again (I myself am paying the consequences right now, months later). Eat more, and work out every other day instead of every day; otherwise, you'll find that you'll get exhausted very soon.