How many Calories should I be eatting a day?

EHinata

New member
I remember when I started diets in the past I would only eat 1,000 calories a day and yesterday I only had 1,000 calories yesterday. I looked though today and said I should be eatting about 1,768 calories a day if I want to lose weight. This seems really too good to be true. I never thought I could eat this much on a diet. Maybe this is why I had quit all the time because I couldn't stand not eating.
 
Welcome! This is a really fun little community with a lot of awesome people and resources! :)

I checked out your calorie calculator (gotta love those calorie calculators!), and it appears to work really well so you are on a good start. :)

Here's a food calulator. It tells calories of lots of stuff (even food from restaurants): http://www.calorieking.com/foods/?partner=healthtrek

I was really surprised when I first found out my daily calorie intake, too. It turns out most programs advise against going below 1200 a day (even for short ppl like me :) ), because eating too little will kick the body into starvation mode which decreases metabolism and makes it more likely to gain the weight back. So a lot of those things on magazines at the grocery stores that say you can lose "10 pounds a week" by drinking nothing but grapefruit juice are nonsense.

Even with the larger amounts of calories, though, sometimes it takes a little while to adjust at first, and it's okay to go a little above the recommended amount and work your way down. The trick is not to get hungry. I found lots of little meals (every 4 hours) help. And nearly everyone here worships water. Drinking lots of water is supposed to be fantastic for your health and as an appetite suppressant. :)
 
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Ya, I find myself not even hungry for my little snacks though..I take a Vitiman B pill everyday for energy reasons since I don't drink coffee. I work at Starbucks I'm really hyper when I have just a little coffee it's a little wierd. I'm not a pop person either. I'm rather short myself 5' 2".
 
welcome to the forum
you will find alot of support and great ideas here
and yes you would be surprise with the calorie intake your like how can i loose eating this much but you can
you are on a great start keep up the good work
 
Hey, we're the same height. Kewl! Short ppl rule! :)

You work at Starbucks? Oh, my, that's gotta be rough! One of the daily foods I literally forced myself to give up was Frapaccinos (I still sneak one once in a while as a reward :) ). Gotta watch that caffiene. It's a diuretic so it will dehydrate you, and make you feel a little more hungry than normal. It's one of my biggest vices (I'm a terrible Diet Coke fiend).

I don't get as hyper on caffiene (4 cans of diet coke a day does that), but I can totally get wasted on half a glass of wine. It's fun being short. :)
 
I'm not yet 21, but I can't wait for my birthday on September 27th it's only 20 days away. I'm sure I'll get tottally wasted since I never have drank beer or anything before. My co-workers say they are taking me out.
 
To answer you original question Hinata I'll repost what I said in another forum to someone with the roughly the same question. Oh, and by the way, 1,000 calories is WAY to little. Your body is storing every thing you eat as fat, because it thinks it is starving:

Well, I'll relate a little experience I had with extremely low cal. diets. It is widely known that you need to cut calories in order to lose weight but BE CAREFUL in your cutting.

When I first began losing the vile cancer-weight, I cut my calories from a normal 2600 or so, to 1300, and a few weeks later I was up 10 lbs but excersizing like a mad man. I felt sick, weak, and terrible all around. I couldn't figure it out. So I went to the doctor (who was also a nutritionist) and she shouted saying, "Whoa! You can't dramatically cut calories like that! Not to mention males should not dip under 1800, especially if they are active. Females not below 2000 to 2100 if they are active."

When the body is all of the sudden depraved of calories it "prepares for the winter" as it were, and stores damn near all you eat as fat. Which is why the constant hunger and lack of energy never seems to subside. See what people don't realize is that thier "normal diet" -or what they think is normal to all people- is probably 3,000+ calories. Then when they start counting they drop it radically not realizing what they were eating before. Not to mention the "crash diets" where you shatter your intake completely rather than stepping down, or just going to the normal 2,000 or so level with excersize, has a VERY high percentage rate of falling off the wagon.

Also take into account WHAT you eat. Eating a big salad with strips of grilled chicken, will REALLY fill you up, but be next to nothing on calories, meaning you can eat more through out the day.

Long story short: When I watched better WHAT I ate, and ate more calories, the weight melted off. Now if only I could brake that damn plateau I am at now.
 
I'm 5'2" as well!

I think I eat about 1200-1300 calories a day (sometimes a little more:D ), and I don't go hungry at all. It's all about balance, and listening to your body.
 
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