2350 Calories, you must be joking

So from Maureen's post I thought it would be a good idea to check my calorie goals to maintain my weight. I to four different sites and they all seemed to agree i need 2350 calories a day at my current age, sex, height, and weight. Not only could i not hit that without eating garbage all day but since I'm eating less then 1500 now and maintaining more or less i am sure i would blowup. I assume these calculators just don't work for those that have had wls? Is there a better recommendation of where to check for this? I about fell out of my chair...

It depends on the person. I'm a 5'2", 45 year old woman.  I'm pretty active, and I do strength train 2x a week.  I'm not, however, a gym rat by any stretch of the imagination.  My surgeon's program includes metabolic testing, and it suggests my RMR (resting metabolic rate) is about 1800 calories a day down from about 1900 pre-op.

With exercise, activity, etc., that's more like 2000-2100 calories a day if I work out.  I've been maintaining at 1500-2000 calories a day while building muscle.

I eat 2500ish daily for the most part, from 2000 up to 3000 depending on my activity, and I still eat less than a cup of actual food per meal.  How?  I add fats, I eat higher fat meats, I put oil in things.

Its not hard to add calories without adding bulk to meals or eating pure-D **** 

Edit to add, I know to eat that much to maintain because I use a tracking program called Diet power. I put my foods/activities/weight in it every day and every day it does calculations telling me that to achieve X weight by X date (I tell it I want to weigh 145 in 2 years.  I do not actually CARE to weigh 145 in 2 years, but that is how I have figured to tell it what to do so in 'maintenance' I eat a little less every day than I need to maintain, and then when I have a monthly anything goes meal, it does not blow everything totally outta whack, number wise, because "extra" has been budgeted in).

I also eat very few starchy carbs, so my body is more adapted to fat burning than sugar burning, and mostly just churns through the calories I give it to consume. 

I do not know anything that would really tell you unless you got your body composition done and they can tell you how much lean you have, and do the calculations from that.  Even though, even with those, depending on the method, accuracy can be flawed, but definitely better than with a googled up calculator.

Hi Brandilynn!  Your caloric needs are very high, compared to the rest of us.  Have you ever figured how many grams of fat you take in every day?  Just curious.  Also, I believe you are the one that has to drink alot of protein shakes every day to keep your protein up?  Boy, we are all so different.  I am losing very very slowly on about 850-1050 calories per day and can just tell that my maintenance plan will be about 1,000-1,100 calories per day.  And that is with 6 hours of exercise per week.  But then, I am 64 too.  I am not sure if needing 2500 calories a day is a blessing or a curse.  Some days I love to eat, other days I feel like I am having to eat to fatten myself up for slaughter.  Thank you for all your insights this last year.  You are one of the reasons I have made it through to the other side.  Sincerely, Bunnymom

Up, drink 3 shakes a day for my protein labs to stay normal, but am doing an experiment, since I have removed all inflammatory stuff from my diet, to see if that changes my absorption of protein and iron and have stopped until I go to the hematologist next.

Typically my fat and my protein grams are pretty equal gram wise, with fat being a little more.  I do not eat a lot of volume was my point.  I eat calorically dense foods, how many meals I have has actually gone from 6 to 4, but I can increase nutrient density, so its not a big deal.  And if I need to scale back, I do not have to "take away" anything really, so I have not set myself up eat things that I am going to fight myself about giving back if I need to, you know?  I get "used" to things and my brain starts demanding things - so adding oils, fats, hemp, those things are not things my brain is going to scream at me it wants, if I need to give them up for any reason. 

As far as metabolism - I also never got as lean as I could have, and I also started with building muscle at 6 months out before I was even as lean as I might have wanted to be (I think I was a size 10 or 12 when I shifted from weight loss to body composition at 160?165ish pounds), so as much muscle as I lost, I did not lose as much as I might have.  I also wonder if only having to restrict calories for 6 months instead of closer to a year or more did not funk up my metabolism as much as it could have? 

There are definitely a lot of factors and heading into menopause, I am thankful to have a tracking device to help me to see where my calories need upping or decreasing depending on intake/output. 

You are the reason you made it through honeypie.  Its all you!  :}  You are doing well by yourself!  I am proud on you and I know you are proud on you too.

 

yep, get a resting metabolic rate test (google bod pod for locations).  i did mine and it was 936 calories!!!!  surgeon didn't believe it but i maintain on less than 1200 and the rmr is determined as if you stayed in bed all day.

but mostly its trial and error to find your own caloric needs in maintenance. thats why its so important to keep journaling in maintenance phase.

watched that HBO series on the Weight of the Nation. One interesting thing is that they talked about a study of two people of the same size and weight; one of which had always been that weight and the other of which had been heavier but lost down to that weight. You guessed it - the one who had lost weight had lower caloric needs than the other person who had never dieted.

diane

It is interesting to actually hear that from research but we all knew it inside I'm sure. I was curious what a bod pod was that you guys referred to. I had hoped I could shoot from the hip more with my food in maint. But i suppose that is for down the road a little further when i am more comfortable with this phase. Thank you for the post, will look into it.

bod pod is a device that measures body fat percentage and i think also metabolic rate. i had these things tested by a dunk tank and machine that does the rate at a place that does this stuff and caters to body builders and such. but our local university has the bod pod in their kineseology dept and i am gonna try it one of these days. diane

I caution folks to add slowly. After two years of eating 800-1200c your metabolism is not going to follow any program you throw at it. If I maintain 1200c, pedaling and working out, I maintain, up and down. If I eat more, I would pack on the pounds!

 Do you belong to a gym my gym at work has this fancy 20,000$ scale that weighs and measures your body fat , muscle , how much each thing arm leg etc weighs and gives you a read out of how many calories to maintain and how much fat you need to lose and how much muscle you need to gain they put in your age etc it is really cool said I need to lose 5 lbs of fat and gain eight lbs of muscle I would say that if you could find somewhere that has something like this it would be closer to accurate then just plugging in numbers best wishes