Is this healthy?

ABabilonia

Hello everyone, I just have a quick question. According to my goals I have to eat 1,500 calories, which I've been eating them all. I'm also hitting my macros and my only concern is my sodium intake, which sometimes is a little high. I let FitBit count my calorie exercises and since calories maybe a little overstated I don't add the calories from my weight lifting (that I'm slowly incorporating). In the past two weeks I've finished with an average of 800 extra calories per day. I don't feel hungry or overly anxious about this, and I also reduced my weight from around 216 lbs to around 200 lbs, but the question I have is: is this behavior healthy in the long run? I don't want to do anything to jeopardize my progress. Thanks for your help.

samuelgina91

Hi well unless you have high blood pressure/kidney diesease/doctor's orders it is ok for right now to indulge in the salt. If you are eating a baseline of 1500 calories and you aren't eating back the calories you are expending on the exercise then you will lose weight, and so long as you don't feel tired/miserable/anxious then you are good to keep going. You may hit a plateau phase but you just keep counting and exercising and it will eventually break through and you will lose weight. At some point in the future you are going to want to begin using a little less salt in items, especially snacks, a juices (which apart from apple juice are fiends at hiding it). I really recommend taking your baseline measurements with a tape measure and comparing them month to month. Just make sure you can reproduce the way you measure yourself so it is at a fixed point and consistent. Good luck.

ABabilonia

Thank you. That list will be really helpful. I'm a guy, so should be around 1,500.

WinoGelato

You are male, currently at 200? How tall? How much more are you wanting to lose? Are you eating 1500 cals or netting 1500 cals? Do you have your profile set up with MFP to lose a certain amount each week? What amount?

ABabilonia

I'm 5'11", and my MFP goal is to lose around 2 lbs per week. My ultimate goal is to be around 170 lbs. According to MFP I have to eat 1,500 calories per day, and this is how my day looked like today (just as an example):

1,500 (Goal)-1,530 (Food)+931 (Exercise)=901 (Remaining)

My remaining average has been around 700 the last two weeks.

culpablecorgi

Your sodium is probably fine as long as you're not going over it drastically on a daily basis. I go over it almost daily, in a modern, busy world, it's hard to avoid going over and won't hurt you unless you have hypertension or something.

Personally, I would eat back a portion of those exercise calories, but if you're not feeling particularly hungry, it could just not be totally accurate data. Sometimes I feel satisfied with a couple hundred calories left but I just let myself have a scoop of ice cream or something when that happens because it's not against the law to eat something purely for flavor, especially if you have the calories to spare Calorie-dense foods like Kriss said are also a good idea if you don't feel like stuffing your face more.

ABabilonia

culpablecorgi wrote: »

Your sodium is probably fine as long as you're not going over it drastically on a daily basis. I go over it almost daily, in a modern, busy world, it's hard to avoid going over and won't hurt you unless you have hypertension or something.

Personally, I would eat back a portion of those exercise calories, but if you're not feeling particularly hungry, it could just not be totally accurate data. Sometimes I feel satisfied with a couple hundred calories left but I just let myself have a scoop of ice cream or something when that happens because it's not against the law to eat something purely for flavor, especially if you have the calories to spare Calorie-dense foods like Kriss said are also a good idea if you don't feel like stuffing your face more.

Thanks for the advice, cute dog

WinoGelato

ABabilonia wrote: »

I'm 5'11", and my MFP goal is to lose around 2 lbs per week. My ultimate goal is to be around 170 lbs. According to MFP I have to eat 1,500 calories per day, and this is how my day looked like today (just as an example):

1,500 (Goal)-1,530 (Food)+931 (Exercise)=901 (Remaining)

My remaining average has been around 700 the last two weeks.

With 30 lbs to lose you should be aiming to lose only 1 lb for week, and that's for another 5 lbs and then switch to 0.5 lbs/week. You are also supposed to be netting the amount MFP provides you, so that you would eat AT LEAST 900 more calories in today's example, and likely 1400 more would be better. Losing weight too quickly results in loss of lean body mass, organ damage, other adverse effects.

Also I'm a petite female and I lost my weight eating between 1600-1800 cals. I maintain at 2200. What you are doing is not healthy, to answer your original question.

ABabilonia

Thanks all for the advice. I will reconsider my goals