Should I increase my calorie goal?

marissalea93

Hello everyone! Here's a little about myself:

I'm 21 years old, currently weighing 206, but started at 217. I've been aiming for about 1200 calories a day since I work a desk job and didn't get a lot of physical activity. But now with my increased workouts (I've been doing T25, doing some small challenges like 30 day ab/squat, and getting a lot of walking in) I've found myself absolutely ravenous. Would it be a good idea to increase my calories since I'm working out, or should I just be changing what I'm eating to more filling foods?

Thanks for your advice!

mom2kpr

You should be eating back a portion of your exercise calories. If you are using MFP's estimates, you could eat 50% - 75%. If you are using a HRM, you could eat back more - I still wouldn't recommend 100%. You need calories to fuel you body. 1200 should be your net calories. Good luck.

infinikitty

I was about your weight when I started T25 and it had me in the 1600 calorie. During Alpha/Beta, I lost 31 pounds. I think you're definitely eating too little at your weight for that program! Think about it...if you're eating 1200 calories then burning between 250 and 400 for the T25 (average for that program), then you aren't even eating 1000 calories a day, which is not good. If you're netting 1200 (after entering workouts, so eating probably around 1400-1600), then you're good.

segacs

Short version: Yes!

What did you set as your weekly weight loss goal with MFP? If you chose 2lbs/week, lower it to 1lb/week and use the new goal it gives you as your base calories.

Then, log your exercise and eat back those exercise calories on top of your base calories!

On average, given your stats, I should think that eating anything less than 1600 calories before exercise or 1800-2000 after exercise would probably be too low for you. Eating so few calories could impact your health, will likely make you feel hungry and tired all the time, won't fuel your workouts properly, AND since you're only 21 it could have long-term negative effects on your health if you're not eating enough nutrients, too.

tl;dr Don't eat less than 1600 net calories, or more with exercise.

marissalea93

Great thank you for all the advice! I'm going to shoot for about 1500 calories a day and see if that lowers my hunger! If not, I'll add a little more

segacs

Yay! I think you'll feel much better with more calories. Don't be afraid to eat -- weight loss is one of those things where some deficit is good, but more deficit isn't necessarily better. It's all about balance. And you have a real advantage in that you're so young and you will have a much easier time losing the pounds now than you would in 10 or 20 years.

Good luck with your weight loss. Healthy habits for life!

alan_huynh2000

Food is Fuel. Without the building blocks of life, your body will die.

If your tracking your workouts, add that deficit back in to your daily kcal.