Hi, I wonder if anyone can help me...I'm a 24 year old female weighing 10 stone 6 and standing at 5"3 - I am of a muscular build - hence I probably seem heavy for my height.

I am going to France in 8 weeks time to work in a ski resort for 6 months and would like to shed a few pounds before I go. I am fairly active, Badminton, Cycling, swimming, exercise classes etc..I probably do 5-6 hours of exercise a week.

Here is my dialemma. I don't know how much I should be eating to lose fat! I used Anita Bean's Exercise Nutrition book to work out my resting metabolic Rate as 1466 calories a day. I am fairly sedentary during the day (office job) so again, using AB's book I have multiplied my RMR by 1.4 to give my total daily energy expenditure as 2052 Calories. If I reduce that by 15% for weight loss, I will only be eating approx 1750 cals a day which equals a 300 calorie deficit. If I then add my exercise onto that, say 400 cals a day then my total deficit will be 300+400=700cals. Is this too much? Will this cause my body to go into starvation mode?

I'm not sure whether I should be factoring my exercise in earlier. i.e 2052 + 400 (exercise) = 2452 all multiplied by 0.85 for 15% weight loss = approx 2100 cals. This seems like eating waaaay too much to lose weight? Should i be eating 1750 or 2100? There's quite a difference there.

HELP CONFUSED.COM!

Thanks,

Hayley

I would be shooting for 1750 calories if I were you.

The rule of thumb that a person loses weight if they eat between 8 times weight in pounds and 12 times weight in pounds.

If a person is reasonably active they stand a decent chance of weight loss at 12 multiplied by weight which for you is 12 * 146 = 1752.

I am fairly sure that you will not acquire any problems with that and it should be sufficient for you to eat a good balanced diet including plenty of protein, fibre, calcium, healthy fat etc.

Log your food on FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal to ensure that you are hitting your nutritional targets in each of these categories.

Good luck.

I think you're overthinking this a bit. You have to remember that all the numbers are only estimates. The number of calories you need each day is going to vary by up to 10% - just depending on the time of month, the weather, your energy level, etc. etc. You can make yourself crazy trying to calculate it down to the number, but even then that number most likely won't be 100% accurate.

The idea behind calories is to give yourself a general goal - not a number carved in stone.

I agree with Omega. Stick with a figure of say 10-12 calories per pound of body weight to lose. Eat your calories and work out. If you're not losing at a nice steady rate (about 1% of your body weight per week), then drop the calories by 100 and keep going. And give it time to take effect - you need to wait at least 3-4 weeks to start seeing results before you make changes.

Ok thanks guys. Maybe I am overthinking a bit

1750ish sounds like a good way to go. I'm just wary of under eating thats all. You dont think a deficit of potentially 700 is too much no?

Thanks, H

1750 should be fine. Lots of us do a fair bit of exercise. That is why we are going for the 12 multiple first off. The important thing is to make those calories count - use them wisely.