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I'm trying to lose weight. This is very challenging for me since I have a low muscle mass and a slow metabolism. I decided to cut out the bad stuff and exercise more. My intake goal is 1200 calories a day. I am sixteen, five feet and one inch, 108 pounds and female. Right now I'm on Christmas break, so I exercise at least 90 minutes a day, but on regular school days I make it a point to walk at least 8000 steps daily and exercise 45 minutes a day. At first, everything was OK. But now, I'm starting to feel hungry a lot more often. I don't know what to do. If I eat more, I would gain weight. If I continue my diet, I'd be starving all the time. I tried those online calculators, but they only confuse me. Using them, I assume I have light activity (since my exercise is the low intensity type). Some say I should be eating 1500 calories a day to maintain my weight (in which case I'm supposed to be eating only 1000 cals a day, and I can't even imagine that when I'm starving at 1200), others say 1800. I'm tempted to put in moderate activity, but the sites say most people tend to overestimate their activity level. I can't look at this objectively. What's my real activity level anyway? How many calories should I be consuming? Please help!
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Hi Anon,
I did some calculations for you... Your BMR based on age, height, and weight is: 1336.3 This means that even if you stayed in bed all day and did absolutely no exercise you would still burn off 1336 calories.
Based on this, your daily calorie intake in order to mainain this weight is 2071, this means that you can up your calories to 1500 and still lose weight-- a 500 calorie deficit in your case is more than enough and you should NEVER go under 1200 calories per day).
Hope this helps!
Rosa
P.S. You are considered a moderate exerciser since you exercise for 1 hour and a half more than 3 days a week.
December 21, 2011 - 7:17amThis Comment
Thank you very much for the information! I really appreciate it.
December 22, 2011 - 4:06amThis Comment