Calorie Question

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jace10627
jace10627 Posts: 8 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi. So I've been on this site for about three-four years now. I had a lot of success and hit my first goal of 101lbs lost last October. Since then I've tried really hard to build muscle and lose more weight but I have actually gained back about 10-15lbs (thankfully I do believe it's muscle) but I haven't been able to drop anymore weight and I think it may have to do with my calorie intake.

I've always been a little confused about the number of calories I should be eating. So today for example I've eaten 1,414 of my 1,540 goal. I burned 807 calories in my workout which if I'm correct takes me down to 607 calories, right? So should I be eating back some calories and if so how many? I usually just eat when I'm hungry but will eat little snacks throughout the day to make sure I don't get headaches because my job has me on my feet all day. I'm just wondering if I'm not eating enough and causing my body to go into starvation? Just curious if anyone had any ideas or more insight. Thanks in advance!

Replies

  • MegaMooseEsq
    MegaMooseEsq Posts: 3,118 Member
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    Yeah, you really should be eating back enough calories to be above 1200 for women and 1500 for men. Not getting enough calories to fuel your exercise can do real damage. That said, there is no such thing as starvation if you mean not losing weight by eating too few calories, as opposed to wasting away and dying from eating too few calories, which is a real thing. If you aren't hungry, it's possible that you've been undercounting your calories and/or overcounting your exercise. If you've lost 100 lbs (congratulations!) you probably had a lot of wiggle room when you started off, but now your deficit is going to be a lot tighter, so accurate logging really matters.
  • hale03071
    hale03071 Posts: 63 Member
    edited August 2017
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    How are you figuring how many calories you are burning while exercising? I'd be leery about eating back anything more than half of what you estimate your calorie burn because MFP and other devices tend to over estimate the burn. Starvation mode is a myth...yes you can mess with your metabolism if you suddenly have a huge deficit either from exercise or not eating enough, but its not going to cause you not lose ANY weight. If you are exercising that much and still not losing, I'd closely look at your food intake, weigh everything (not measure, weigh) and go from there. Also, make sure you are updating your "goals' in MFP to accurately give you your calorie limit...it doesn't automatically do that for some reason. I had to go in an redo my goals since I am 10 lbs lighter than when I last did it and it reduced my calorie intake by 50 per day.
  • jace10627
    jace10627 Posts: 8 Member
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    To figure exercise calories I use my FitBit. I know they aren't always acurate though. I do weigh my food with a scale and I log everything I eat each day no matter what it is. I just figured maybe the reason I wasn't losing was because I wasn't eating enough. I usually workout 1-3 hours at least 5 days a week doing weight training and cardio. I know I've put on some muscle because I can lift much heavier now than when I started lifting back in January but I just figured with the cardio that I would have lost more fat and weight now. I'm not necessarily unhappy with my weight I just was confused why I've been plateaued for so long now.

    Thanks for the responses!

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