What should my calorie goal/ eating schedule be?

With a goal weight of around 145. I heard that you just mulitply the weight
you want to be by ten and that's the amount of calories you would aim to
consume. So, then I could eat about 1450 a day and lose weight. Is that about
right? I know it's a bit different from one person to another. I now go to
curves every day but Sunday. I heard that their workout only burns about 185.
But, then again, it's also only a half hour.
Also, as far as eating schedules goes, I work overnights, so it gets a bit
complicated. During my work week it's fairly simple.. I wake up and eat at
5pm, then again at 7,9,12am,3am,5am and 8am. I have a bunch of different food
items that are about 200 calories a serving and rotate between them. Here's
where it gets complicated. Saturday-Sunday is my last work day of the week.
So, I normally stay up all day Sunday and go to bed about 9-10 pm. so,
instead of sleeping between my days, I would end up eating 2800 calories
without sleeping as my days run back to back without a 'night' in between.
Should I change that somehow? Similar problem on Tuesday, I sleep at night on
Monday, eat breakfast in the morning, then go in to work at 11pm and eat all
night too. I can't really think of how to fix it. Some suggestions would be
appreciated..

--
Highest Weight: 220
Current Weight: 170
Goal Weight: 140

Message posted via http://www.weightadviser.com

"JenInNY" u22178@uwe wrote in message news:60fc27c7f537d@uwe...
With a goal weight of around 145. I heard that you just mulitply the
weight
you want to be by ten and that's the amount of calories you would aim to
consume. So, then I could eat about 1450 a day and lose weight. Is that
about
right?

Hi Jen In New York (?),

There are a lot of factors, and if you use the various "how much should I
eat" calculators around the Internet, you'll get a lot of different results.
If you go with 1450 calories per day, you may not be able to stick with it
for the long term. That's an important factor.

What I did was start a food log to see exactly what I was eating each day in
terms of calories. Then I gradually reduced the amount of food I ate until I
was losing about two pounds a week. If you can figure out how much you're
eating now to maintain your same weight, and reduce that by 1000 calories a
day, you'll lose about two pounds a week.

Be careful to not eat too little, and don't get into a program you can't
maintain. Losing weight takes a long time. If you can cut 500 calories out
of your daily intake you'll lose a pound a week.

As far as your days off are concerned, you can account for days where you
eat more by eating less on other days. If you want to cut 3500 calories out
of your intake each week, you can eat 500 calories less every day, or reduce
your intake by 600/day Mon to Sat and eat an "extra" 600 calories on Sunday.
OR, you can just deal with Sundays and have one "difficult" day to get
through each week.

Sit down, take a deep breath. Accept that this is going to take a long time
to accomplish and that there will be ups and downs. IMO, starting off a
perfect plan is not important. The important thing is to get started, see if
what you're doing works, see if you can stick with it, and make adjustments
as you go.

Setting a goal of "going on a diet and losing x pounds" is a losing
proposition, and that is where I see you headed with your post. What you're
really ought to be doing is setting goals that make you a better person. You
have the problem of being overweight. You've admitted to yourself that you
eat too much and exercise too little, congratulations, that is soooo
important. Your objectives, I think, should be to change your relationship
with food, to improve your eating habits, to increase the amount of exercise
you get to a reasonable level and in general change yourself. If you do
this, then your weight will gradually drop off until you're at an ideal
weight.

My .02 (and a bit of a rant, I know).

Mike

JenInNY wrote:
With a goal weight of around 145. I heard that you just mulitply the weight
you want to be by ten and that's the amount of calories you would aim to
consume. So, then I could eat about 1450 a day and lose weight. Is that about
right? I know it's a bit different from one person to another. I now go to
curves every day but Sunday. I heard that their workout only burns about 185.
But, then again, it's also only a half hour.
Also, as far as eating schedules goes, I work overnights, so it gets a bit
complicated. During my work week it's fairly simple.. I wake up and eat at
5pm, then again at 7,9,12am,3am,5am and 8am. I have a bunch of different food
items that are about 200 calories a serving and rotate between them. Here's
where it gets complicated. Saturday-Sunday is my last work day of the week.
So, I normally stay up all day Sunday and go to bed about 9-10 pm. so,
instead of sleeping between my days, I would end up eating 2800 calories
without sleeping as my days run back to back without a 'night' in between.
Should I change that somehow? Similar problem on Tuesday, I sleep at night on
Monday, eat breakfast in the morning, then go in to work at 11pm and eat all
night too. I can't really think of how to fix it. Some suggestions would be
appreciated..


1450 calories will let you lose and maintain your goal weight. In other
words, you're going to decrease your caloric intake to 1450 for the rest
of your life. At some point you may add exercise and allow another
200-300 calories but that's the most you'll ever eat if you intend on
maintaining your goal weight from this day forward.

Sorry, sometimes the truth hurts.
--

Cheese

http://cheesensweets.com/contact/cheese

Ah well, that's not too bad, that's kinda what I figured. Though, I found
personally it varies quite a bit between my workdays and my off days. I have
a very physical job, pretty much, I spend the whole day stacking 25-50 lb dog
food and kitty litter bags. I have to process at least 60 pieces an hour,
oftern up to 120 an hour. I also normally walk between 12 and 18 miles at
work. I used to be able to eat a denny's meal every night and still weighed
around 145. Pretty much, what happened is I lost a lot of muscle mass when I
broke my arm, and you can certainly tell the difference. I just wanted to
make sure I wasn't eating to few calories at that amount. Didn't want to
throw myself into starvation mode. It's pretty easy to stay around 1400 on my
two days off, but, I have to say I go to sleep absolutely ravenous when I
stick around 1400 on a workday..

--
Highest Weight: 220
Current Weight: 170
Goal Weight: 140

Message posted via WeightAdviser.com
http://www.weightadviser.com/Uwe/For.../diet/200605/1

Hi Jen In New York (?),

There are a lot of factors, and if you use the various "how much should I
eat" calculators around the Internet, you'll get a lot of different results.
If you go with 1450 calories per day, you may not be able to stick with it
for the long term. That's an important factor.


I get what you're saying Mike.. I managed to change my eating enough to go
from 220 to 170.. That took me about 3 years, from when I was 14-17. Then it
was pretty easy for me to reach 145 for some reason. Though, the broken arm
and lost muscle mass has me kinda starting over, and it's been so long since
I worried about me weight that I've kinda forgotten how to do it again.. I
was just focused on maintaining for several years. I'd pretty much been right
around 143-150 for the last 4 years. I just regained starting 12/04 when I
broke my arm.. Ended up getting up to 159 again.. Then I got married April 05.
.. and gained another 12 lbs since. I guess I just want to know about calorie
counts and things like that so that I reestablish better eating habits. Plus,
I moved to Ny from Florida when I got married and I didn't get into the same
activities I had back in Fl. I used to rollerblade 5 miles after work
everyday and rockclimb at the gym on the weekends.. Just trying to get back
into a routine mostly. But yeah, I know dieting just to reach a certain
weight doesn't work. You just bounce right back up to where you were before.

--
Highest Weight: 220
Current Weight: 170
Goal Weight: 140

Message posted via WeightAdviser.com
http://www.weightadviser.com/Uwe/For.../diet/200605/1

Mike90732 wrote:

What I did was start a food log to see exactly what I was eating each day in
terms of calories. Then I gradually reduced the amount of food I ate until I
was losing about two pounds a week. If you can figure out how much you're
eating now to maintain your same weight, and reduce that by 1000 calories a
day, you'll lose about two pounds a week.


You know, that food log thing is a really good idea. That's what they
tell you when you are trying to, say, get control of your spending
habits, is to take a notebook around with you for like...a week, I
think it was? And then you write down everything you buy (being honest,
spending normally) and that very act of seeing where it all goes is
supposed to have a curtailing effect, because you don't know the exact
small ways that you spend money (coffee, snacks, cigarettes, whatever)
..

I think that same philosphy could/would work with food - maybe you
don't notice taht snack you eat at the office every other day in the
late afternoon because you're stressed, or you've had crappy take out
for three days this week but didnt notice - or anyhthing like that. I
think i'm going to try this actually, see if it helps me get a handle
on at least knowing WHAT I'm eating, and seeing what, I guess the lay
of the land is.

I think that same philosphy could/would work with food - maybe you
don't notice taht snack you eat at the office every other day in the
late afternoon because you're stressed, or you've had crappy take out
for three days this week but didnt notice - or anyhthing like that. I
think i'm going to try this actually, see if it helps me get a handle
on at least knowing WHAT I'm eating, and seeing what, I guess the lay
of the land is.

I've been using Fitday to log the last 5 days. I've kept it right around 1400-
1500 calories a day and am already down 2.4 lbs.
And, that's with only making it to the gym once. I had so much extra stuff to
do I just didn't get there. I had time to sleep only 5 hours, but, I'll have
time tomorrow.. If I lose more then 3 lbs, should I eat more calories? Or do
the first lbs just fall off quicker?

--
220/169/143

My Fitday:
http://www.fitday.com/WebFit/PublicJ...r=jenniferinny

Message posted via WeightAdviser.com
http://www.weightadviser.com/Uwe/For.../diet/200606/1