thoughts on dailyplate.com?

Underestimating the number of calories is one of the biggest crutches people can give themselves for losing weight.  If you are doing hard cardio for an hour a day then this is by no means too high.  Too much restriction in calories will cause your body to retain the fat it has because you are starving yourself.

Eat a clean 3100 calories for 2 weeks and see what happens.

Thanks for that. I have to admit that the more I learn on the subject, the more I realize how much I don't know. Seems like all of the numbers you can find easily (i.e. based on a 2000 calorie diet) are geared toward the "average guy". I've been looking to find something that's more personalized to me.

Before I started using it, I was starting to feel hungry and tired, and suspected I must be doing something wrong. Imagine my surprise when I realized that my net calories for the day was only 1000, and still had 2000 left to eat. That really puts things in perspective.

Hopefully this will REALLY help me to watch what I eat. I'm pretty pumped about it....

You're right about the "average guy".  According to most, the "average guy" at your hieght, and mine, should be between 130 and 170 pounds!

The magic 2000 calories does not take count for the cardio you do.  That's just the average joe doing the average daily things.

Just remember that everything you calculate are just numbers.  That don't take in account for the combination of foods you eat, your metabolism, etc...  Those numbers you find will probably need to be tweaked.  They are generally a good starting point.  That's why I say try the 3100 calories for two weeks to see how you do.

agreed. It's just so nice to finally have some 'perspective'. I think that truly understanding your diet (not dieting) is very complicated. I'm sure most people can guess relatively well what's good food and what's bad foor, but I'll be 99% of the public really has no clue what to do with target calories, types of carbohydrates, fat, food pyramid, sugars, etc. Like I said.. the more research I do, the more I find that I don't understand.

i just asked about the "net" calories this week so be careful about the exercise you put into your profile, it has a tendency to be to high of calories burned vs. actual calories burned.  jldicarlo on here recommended that if you work out vigorously, that you report to DP as moderate to help even out the net calories.  I just started using it myself and really like it!  Good luck!

edit to add: make sure you aren't adding in workout times as well as having the software estimate your workout times for you in your daily calories.  I just realized that this week.  It had me at 2,400/day with estimated workouts AND i was adding in my workouts on top of that (400-800 cal).  when i adjusted it to not include my workout points automatically my calories went to 1,620/day but i add in between 400-800 calories for working out.  this way if i take a day off, i stay close to my 1,620. 

Edited by bulldog520 2009-08-29 11:17 AM

Yeah, I noticed that too. I'm not even fast enough to be considered "running". I thought to look for "jogging", and its much closer to what I'd consider normal.