Slowed weight loss

silvergoddess101

Am I right in thinking that your weight loss can slow down if you don't eat enough? Although my goal is 1200, when I do exercise, I often don't feel like I need/want to eat any more and end up with a net of 600-800 calories a day... On the days where I have eaten enough to make my net 1200 (after exercise) I'm worried that the amount of calories eaten in total (2200 ish) will stop me losing weight, but have read that if I don't eat to make the net 1200 I will also not lose weight!! I'm so confused! Any advice would be great, thank you!

grimendale

Assuming that you are using the standard MFP method, you should be eating the extra exercise calories such that your net is close to zero at the end of the day (Calories Remaining on your home page). When you enter your information into MFP, it determines your TDEE and subtracts a deficit based on how much weight you specified. The number provided assumes that you won't be doing any exercise beyond what you specified as your activity level (many people use sedentary, so all exercise is pretty much neglected). The number of calories that you are supposed to eat each day therefore is already below what you need to maintain. When you burn calories that MFP didn't account for, you increase your deficit, often substantially. If you are burning 1000 calories in exercise, that gives you a very large deficit. Your body always burns calories both from muscle cells and fat cells, as well as from stored glycogen. Once you start eating at a deficit, the glycogen tends to drop first (the water weight drop you experience the first week or so). If your deficit is small, as set by MFP, your body will tend to pull most of your calories from fat cells, particularly if you are exercising and convincing your body that those muscles are needed. When the deficit you eat at grows too large for too long, your body will usually try to maintain a long-term energy source by cannibalizing more muscle tissue and preserving the fat cells. Thus, you might still lose weight, but a large portion of it will be muscle rather than fat, which is not what you want. If the deficit grows too large, you can start doing metabolic damage to yourself (although this does not happen quickly; it takes weeks or months for significant damage to accumulate).

This is why so many propose eating back at least a portion of exercise calories if using the MFP method. Since calorie burns can be inaccurate, many people only eat back 50% to 80% of what they burn. Resistance training is also good because it does a lot to preserve existing muscle tissue, promoting fat loss. If you aren't hungry enough to eat 1200 without exercising, my guess is that you are either psyching yourself out because you are afraid of the food, you are eating "diet" foods so that you get a lot of volume but not many calories, or a combination of the two. Healthy calorie dense foods like nuts, nut butters, cheese and avocados are your friends. Don't be afraid of dietary fat, either. You need it to live. Your diary is private, so I can't look at what you're eating to offer specific suggestions. Hope that helps.

beachlover317

"Assuming that you are using the standard MFP method, you should be eating the extra exercise calories such that your net is close to zero at the end of the day (Calories Remaining on your home page). "



This statement is a little confusing. Yes, you should be eating back at least a majority of your exercise calories, your net calories at the end of the day should reflect a number (1200, 1800, etc.) NOT ZERO.

Your home page is set up as Goal, Food, - Exercise, = Net

So if your goal is to eat 1500 calories, you eat 1800 calories, you subtract your 300 calories burned in exercise, that should equal 1500. Your net # should be as close to the Goal number as possible.

meeper123

Weight loss will slow as you lose as well its not 2 pounds or 1 or whatever every week most people forget that eatting too few calories is not a healthy way to do it for sure it will also make you depressed posdibly binge and well that never ends well