I have a stupid question . Hopefully someone can answer Topic

Febrown 01/13/11
When you were in the weight loss mode. Did all or any of you stay at the calories list in mnd for weight loss or did all of you go lower? Just curious if you did. Did you loss the amt they listed? I never could use that function as my calories were always determined by the weight loss people. Now I am curious,just in case I need it in the future. Thank you-Fran

Sune 01/14/11 replied to Febrown
That's not stupid at all. Until January I was targeting around 1800 calories daily, which at first was a crazy deficit. I would then eat up to MND recommendation on the weekends where my girlfriend comes over (about every 3 weeks, it's my version of the cheat day).

From January first I've been targeting around 1500. Since I feel great, have lots of energy for 7x exercise weekly, I assume I just have a lower daily caloric need than the average person. I have discussed all this with my diabetes doctor and he's said that it was fine.

Sune 01/14/11 replied to Sune
As you can tell from my graph, the loss is under what MND has estimated, but I guess that's to be expected.

Exercise calories are just a bonus and I never eat them. :)

Dietitian 01/14/11 replied to Febrown
I have been having a long conversation with other dietitians about which prediction equation to use for the most accurate estimation of total energy expenditure. The American Dietetic Association prefers that we use the "Mifflin St.Jeor" to estimate resting metabolic rate with patients since it seems to have the lowest error compared to measured resting metabolic rate. However, I am very concerned about the use of activity factors with Mifflin-St.jeor - I do not see published activity factors validated for use with this equation. So, for now, we still use IOM/DRI which has good data for the general population. Institute of Medicine/DRIs use data from Doubly Labeled Water. However, there is likely some overestimation when used with obese individuals or older individuals as the body composition is relatively higher in fat for the total body weight. A recent study showed that the equation might overestimate about 100 -200 calories for women and men, respectively, in middle age (40-60 yrs) compared to measured energy expenditure.

So, to answer your question, if MND calories seem a little high, or you are not meeting your maintenance goals, then adjusting that intake is wise. Also, measuring resting metabolic rate can help you better customize your calories intake goal for yourself (if you have access to that).

The IOM/DRI calculation is right on the money for me.

If you are maintaining on your instructed caloric intake level, then stick with that! If you are continuing to lose, then bump it up by 100 calorie increments or so. I think you have already done that, right?

Best,

Kathy Isacks, MPS, RD

Febrown 01/14/11
I finally found a weight calcutor that comes close to my set calories which are 1510 caloires/day. The one I used gave me 1570 to maintain. Now I don't feel like the numbers were random

Sune 01/14/11 replied to Febrown
Link please? :)

Febrown 01/15/11 replied to Sune
it is a clinician site looking for it somewhere else but thoought you might be interested in the thought it gave quite a bit

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/obesity/aim_hwt.pdf

Febrown 01/15/11
Found this one on a site refer sometimes it gave very similiar results as the other one just in rounding the first one list 1570 cal this one 1500 for me on maintainence it is a reference but so very close to the 1510 set by weight program http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/calorie-calculator/NU00598 no like the 1700 plus on MND but again that number might work for some.

I have a stupid question . Hopefully someone can answer