Having trouble meeting daily calorie intake

hearthwood

You don't need to eat back your exercise calories. Sometimes if you do, you end up overeating your work outs, and actually gain weight. A good rule of thumb is to never eat back more than 1/2 of calories burned, because exercise equipment, and including MFP do have a history of overestimating calories burned.

oh_happy_day

If you're not weight calorie dense foods like chicken, chances are you're eating more than you think. Which isn't a bad thing because you've said that you're not hungry and you're concerned about meeting your calorie intake. Don't forget that the weight listed on packaging is often incorrect too - weigh everything!

kellyjellybellyjelly

arditarose wrote: »

madkcole wrote: »

I weighed the polenta, celery/carrots, milk, tuna salad. For the rest of the items, I used MFP's food calculator to calculate the calories. On most of these items, I compared MFP's calculations to the package of the item (butter, coconut oil, green beans, etc) and they matched.

I've been using MFP for two days. Time I guess will tell if I'm successful. Thank you for responding. Do advocate weighing everything as opposed to using MFP to calculate the calories?

PS - As it turned out, I didn't eat dinner because I had such a late lunch. Wasn't hungry at dinnertime and still am not hungry (almost 10 p.m. now).

How does MFP know how much your eggs weighed, how much your fruit weighed...how much even that slice of turkey weighed? It's a great tool but it's not magic.

This.

Annie_01

arditarose wrote: »

madkcole wrote: »

I weighed the polenta, celery/carrots, milk, tuna salad. For the rest of the items, I used MFP's food calculator to calculate the calories. On most of these items, I compared MFP's calculations to the package of the item (butter, coconut oil, green beans, etc) and they matched.

I've been using MFP for two days. Time I guess will tell if I'm successful. Thank you for responding. Do advocate weighing everything as opposed to using MFP to calculate the calories?

PS - As it turned out, I didn't eat dinner because I had such a late lunch. Wasn't hungry at dinnertime and still am not hungry (almost 10 p.m. now).

How does MFP know how much your eggs weighed, how much your fruit weighed...how much even that slice of turkey weighed? It's a great tool but it's not magic.

You weigh your eggs before you cook them?

Faithful_Chosen

Annie_01 wrote: »

arditarose wrote: »

madkcole wrote: »

I weighed the polenta, celery/carrots, milk, tuna salad. For the rest of the items, I used MFP's food calculator to calculate the calories. On most of these items, I compared MFP's calculations to the package of the item (butter, coconut oil, green beans, etc) and they matched.

I've been using MFP for two days. Time I guess will tell if I'm successful. Thank you for responding. Do advocate weighing everything as opposed to using MFP to calculate the calories?

PS - As it turned out, I didn't eat dinner because I had such a late lunch. Wasn't hungry at dinnertime and still am not hungry (almost 10 p.m. now).

How does MFP know how much your eggs weighed, how much your fruit weighed...how much even that slice of turkey weighed? It's a great tool but it's not magic.

You weigh your eggs before you cook them?

I do. Weigh in shell, use, weigh shell, subtract. Five seconds of work and while it usually only means ~20 calories difference with the standard, I sometimes eat four or five eggs a day so that's 100 cals right there *shrugs* You don't have to do it, but I like to be very strict with my food intake.

arditarose

Annie_01 wrote: »

arditarose wrote: »

madkcole wrote: »

I weighed the polenta, celery/carrots, milk, tuna salad. For the rest of the items, I used MFP's food calculator to calculate the calories. On most of these items, I compared MFP's calculations to the package of the item (butter, coconut oil, green beans, etc) and they matched.

I've been using MFP for two days. Time I guess will tell if I'm successful. Thank you for responding. Do advocate weighing everything as opposed to using MFP to calculate the calories?

PS - As it turned out, I didn't eat dinner because I had such a late lunch. Wasn't hungry at dinnertime and still am not hungry (almost 10 p.m. now).

How does MFP know how much your eggs weighed, how much your fruit weighed...how much even that slice of turkey weighed? It's a great tool but it's not magic.

You weigh your eggs before you cook them?

Yeah. I don't weigh them in shell first. Just crack them open in a bowl on the scale and record the raw weight.

Steve_ApexNC

madkcole wrote: »

Based on what I've already entered, it seems like too many calories already. Has anyone had this problem before?

Hi MadkCole - to address the actual question you asked, yes, I too have trouble making my minimum calories. I moved to a low carb diet because I understood that a great deal of my calories were coming in the form of carbs. So, I am essentially eating a lot of lean protein, fruits and vegetables. A lot of this is very low in calorie density. That is to say "contain a lot of water and few calories". Veggies are also high in no-soluble fiber. These two things really can make you feel full faster. Protein dense food like tuna and chicken can make you feel full longer. The result is I often find myself well short of my minimum calorie goal.

Now, I pay very close attention to my macro's. There are folks here that will tell you that CICO is the only thing. It is the primary thing to lose weight, but tracking macro's can help you find a nice balance in various fuel types the body needs. When I come to the end of the day and find myself short, I can look at my macro's and see what I can eat that is higher in calorie density in an area of need. In my case, I nail my protein requirements daily, but found that I am short on carbs and healthy fats. I can adapt on the fly with this info but more importantly it has led to better meal planning. I make my menu a week in advance and make one trip to the grocery store.

Looking back at my diary, I found the place that I lack the most in calories is breakfast. I use egg beaters a lot and eat some fruit but find myself well under 200 calories. There is nothing wrong with this per say, but coming up short at the end of the day means I need to get more calories earlier in the day. So, I added a cup of 100cal greek yogurt to the mix. I've also started doing a better job with lunch planning.

So, the long winded point I am making is that log your food for 2 weeks and then go back and take a look at your diary. I am sure you will learn much about your own diet much like my own anecdotal experience. I wish you great fortune on your journey.

madkcole

Thanks for all your advice! Based on your replies, weighing everything is crucial - got it. I'll do a better job of that. I weighed everything today! Watching the macros are important too. I'll pay close attention to that as I learn more about all this stuff, thanks Steve_ApexNC!

Today, I also calculated the exercise calories I've been eating back and for the past three days it's ranged from 17% to 27%. From the information I've gathered here so far, as long at it doesn't exceed 50%, I should be okay. (My calorie exercises are based from my heart monitor - not MFP or the cycle machine I use at the gym).

deceived1

Well, the thing is, if you can be 100% sure on how many calories you've burned, you can eat them all back.

However, the main problem here comes to overestimating how many you've actually burned. So if you SAY you burned 500 calories, but only actually burned 250, that's when you get in trouble (if you eat it all back).

The 50% rule is just to account for errors in estimating how many calories you've burned and to be safe and make sure you don't accidentally ruin your deficit.

deceived1

Great job on weighing, today, though! What weighing does is fully eliminates error. You're especially in trouble if you don't weigh and you overestimate how much you burned, and underestimate how much you eat.

Keep up the good work. Weigh everything like today. And you should be well on your way!