Quote:

---

Hi Sinead

Glad to hear your liking fitday! I love it too

For percentage of calories from fat/carbs/protein - for the IBS diet aim for around 15-20% fat - this is low. Most of the population is recommended 30%, though most of the population eats more than that.
Great, so far I'm averaging 19%

Generally protein should be around 10-20% (around the higher number if you're doing any strength training, or if you're cutting calories lots of protein can help you feel fuller).
My average is 15%

The rest should be carbs. yip, Dr Atkins would be horrified!

Do you drink soy milk? Not much, have the chocolate one in the fridge If so, did you input it as a custom food? The soy milk that's in the fitday system is NOT enriched, but most brands you can buy are, with calcium, B12, and D especially, and other vitamins too - to resemble the nutritional value of milk. If you're not drinking soymilk, well soymilk is a good source of vitamin D. Btw, the SUN is actually the best source (it's absorbed through your skin) so if you spend a lot of time outside in the sun each day (?) Nope, I have a desk job you shouldn't have to worry TOO MUCH about not getting enough D. However most of us probably don't spend enough time outside. And as HansSolo said it's crucial to get vitamin D when you take a calcium supplmenet (necessary for absorption) so if you're taking one of those make sure it has vitamin D in it... calcium supplement is on the to do list too!

As for a minimum number of calories you should eat daily... generally it's considered safe to drop about 20% of your calories. Sooo, some math:

BMR = 2320
Lifestyle (I'm guessing) = probably around 600 (fitday will tell you this on your activities page, based on your activity level you input on the home page)
Nope-I have mislead you! Its actually Total: 2320 Basal: 1406 Lifestyle: 914


So you burn 2920 2320 calories on an average day just living your life (without exercise). If you were looking to maintain your weight, this is how much you would eat to do it. But since you're trying to lose...

2920 - 20% = 1864 (cutting 464 calories a day = almost 1 lb per week, as 500 calories/day = 1 lb per week) Safely you should NOT be eating less than this for your body.
2320-20%= 1856
So you only need to lose 5 lbs - when is the wedding? April 30th

Adding exercise will of course only help you out here. You could safely try to drop 2 lbs a week by burning up to 500 calories a day with exercise (or 2800 over a week, i.e. 4 workouts of 700 calories each) but that would be a lot of exercise. Please keep in mind that it's not safe to try to drop more than 2 lbs a week. Hard, short (20-30mins) cardio sessions are best for burning fat.
Exercise wise I intend to go to the gym for a 45 minute toning class twice a week and go for a 40 minute brisk walk with BF at least three nights a week after work, I may also walk home from work the days I don't go to the gym- thats 40 mins walking FAST

Also to speed up your metabolism and help you burn fat faster make sure you're eating 5-6 small meals throughout the day and drinking lots of water. that water I am doing- averaging about 85 oz a day, I'm bnot good at balancing small meals vs calories but since it appears I have a couple of hundred calories to play with I can work this back in. When I am at work I have snacks between each meal, usually a fruit cup or some pretzels or a luna bar so I will probably go back to that next week

Hope some of this helps
Thanks soo much, I am nutrition dumb!

---