Foodies on the 1200ish calorie restriction...

CountessKitteh

Kruggeri wrote: »

CountessKitteh wrote: »

I try to stay at 1200 even when my Fitbit earns me extras. It's no small accomplishment!

Everyone does realize that MFP is designed to calculate your calorie goal excluding exercise, and that any exercise that you do should be tracked and at least a percentage of calories eaten back in order to preserve lean muscle mass as well as other negative changes that can result from too large of a calorie deficit (hair loss, fatigue, etc). Not to mention that the additional calories help fuel the exercise, contribute to sustainability of the program, etc?

When I first started I too was set at net 1200 calories and was losing, but was not satisfied. I read more about TDEE and reasonable calorie deficits, increased my goal to first net 1400 then net 1500 and continued to lose about 1 lb/week. Once I had only about 10 lbs to lose I changed my goal to close to net 1700 and continued to lose about 0.5 lb/ week. I got a FitBit about midway through my first year on MFP and ate back those adjustments and continued to lose - have now been successfully maintaining for the last 8 months or so using FitBit, eating back those calories, etc.

In by defense, I did say TRY. If I'm feeling hungry/weak/like I want to indulge, then I absolutely eat back my exercise calories. But I eat plenty of lean meat and veggies, so while I'm hitting all my macronutrient requirements and feel full, I'm not necessarily eating a crapton of calories. I use exercise to create my calorie deficit, since I'm under 5'2", making losing weight at more than a snail's pace very hard when I don't want to drop under the 1200 intake mark. I shoot for 1150-1250 each day, so I'm not overdoing, but I'm also not undoing my hard work.