not eating back all calories burned=bad?

JasmineDiver22

I feel like I eat a lot! I have so many calories left over for the day like this sometimes. I'm just not sure if it's bad if I don't eat all my calories back?? ( that's a lot of calories!) granted I didn't eat much for breakfast or lunch, but what I do eat fills me up because of all the protein. I've heard if you don't, you'll most likely binge or give up. But defiantly don't feel the need to bing because I'm always eating it seems! I drinks lots of water too so I feel like I'm full all the time. Advice?

JeromeBarry1

If I had 785 remaining I'd get a bowl of ice cream and pour some caramel syrup on it, whacking that number in half. If you feel good, such a day is no harm. If, however, you already are on a "lose 2 lb per week" budget and make a habit of digging a further deficit that big, you need to pay attention to yourself and those opportunities to binge. Such opportunities seem to be more frequent when you are running a big calorie deficit.

JasmineDiver22

Ahhh

JasmineDiver22

I hate eating late! I had a late dinner! I was so busy during the day, that I barely had a lunch or any snacks! So if this happens, should I eat most of the calories remaining? Or??

JeromeBarry1

JasmineDiver22 wrote: »

I hate eating late! I had a late dinner! I was so busy during the day, that I barely had a lunch or any snacks! So if this happens, should I eat most of the calories remaining? Or??

I suppose you are 'early' in the weight loss journey. Suit yourself in this matter. I, personally, will eat up to midnight if I've got the calories remaining from a late evening cardio session, and my cardio sessions are always late in the evening in recent months.

KiwiGirl38

Personally that food wouldn't satisfy me and wouldn't be enough. I eat a lot of eggs, tuna, salads, cheeses sticks, grilled chicken breasts, veges, protein shakes, raw nuts etc. I guess if your not hungry, you're not hungry. What about a handful of nuts?

Unknown

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JasmineDiver22

Well, I just had a huge *kitten* class of milk and some ovaltine. My belly is full. I was hungry earlier this evening but was so busy I didn't get a chance to eat. I usually don't have THIS many cals left FYI. But sometimes it's like 500-200 left. So I guess eat if I'm not even hungry..? And @KiwiGirl38 I eat all those too! That's my main food lol. And yes! I'll eat the habanero almonds I got. But guys I'm full! Lol

brittvas1

On workout days my deficits run 450-750, but I eat 4-6 meals a day so at the end of the night I am genuinely full. I have however done the eating once or twice a day big meals with big calorie burns and for me it didn't last long. I burned out fast and would quit all together for months. So I wouldn't be so concerned with the deficit and more about if you can sustain what you're doing.

amusedmonkey

A lot of exercises are over-estimated, so it's not necessarily bad to not eat it all. If you have your exercise correctly pinpointed through your own experience, it can be bad if you are consistently netting low, but you don't exactly need to eat it back in the same day. Weight and health work over time. They don't reset at midnight. Personally, when I burn 1000 net calories in one day (that's a 5-6 hour hike for me) I'm usually hungrier the next day than the same day.

Momepro

Don't worry about eating it all back, just try to avoid being more than 3 or 4 hundred calories off on a regular basis. And don't let yourself get too hungry. It's also easy to overdo the exercise and deficit eating, and make yourself good and sick. Then its REALLY depressing to watch your weight come back up for a while to balance damage, befire you can lose safely again.

yarwell

JasmineDiver22 wrote: »

I hate eating late! I had a late dinner! I was so busy during the day, that I barely had a lunch or any snacks! So if this happens, should I eat most of the calories remaining? Or??

you ate 1655 cals of food so nothing bad's going to happen

With all the potential errors in food estimating, metabolic calcs and exercise calorie estimates I wouldn't rush round eating to hit a number if I was feeling OK and things were progressing.

yirara

How are you measuring your workout calories? My last night run came back at around 1500kcal on MFP But realistically it was more like 900 (yes, it was a long run). MFP and most apps will grossly overstate calorie burns. I would still eat a part of it back. You burned a lot of energy, and your body needs energy to function. Thus if above numbers are correct then you've only eaten about 700kcal yesterday.

amyepdx

yarwell wrote: »

JasmineDiver22 wrote: »

I hate eating late! I had a late dinner! I was so busy during the day, that I barely had a lunch or any snacks! So if this happens, should I eat most of the calories remaining? Or??

you ate 1655 cals of food so nothing bad's going to happen

With all the potential errors in food estimating, metabolic calcs and exercise calorie estimates I wouldn't rush round eating to hit a number if I was feeling OK and things were progressing.

Looks like a combo of overestimated excercise cals and underestimated restaurant food cals there.

CharGillott

I was wondering the same thing.
Thanks for the post

JasmineDiver22

@amyepdx everything I ate that day was scanned with barcode. Went to website to check cals from my dinner. Pretty sure 2 helpings of sweet potatoe fries are defiantly 800 cals. The chicken I had was smaller than what I make at home and I usually eat 6oz. I did a lot of exercise yesterday. Running, stair climbing, walked 4 miles. Soooo I doubt that's it.. seems legit. Just didn't know if I should eat literally all cals back.

JasmineDiver22

If anyone is wondering, I use Fitbit app and this. My Fitbit app says something completely different than my MyFitnessPal. If I ate as many cals on burned from my Fitbit app, then I feel like I'd be miserable and I wouldn't even know if I could lose weight. My body has its own cals burn just from doing nothing, siting, house cleaning, natural things I do, such as sleeping. So when I wear my Fitbit it tells me how much my body has burned before I even do any exercise. Pretty sure it has something to do with bmi and heart rate?? So I just use MyFitnessPal to go with food+exercise=x. Should I not?

amusedmonkey

Yeah, I had an HR band and ended up turning off the function and eventually replacing it with a non-HR model. It blew up my calories by the factor of 2.

JasmineDiver22

@amusedmonkey. I'm not really sure which is right. So I just go with the lowest cals! That's what I been doing.

amusedmonkey

Don't worry too much about it for now. In a couple of months compare your results with your predicted results and you will have a more personalized idea about the calories you burn. I say if you're losing fine, not too fast not too slow, you should be in the neighborhood of what is practically right logging and exercise-wise. No need to stress too much for now. If you stop losing for an extended time or find yourself losing more than you'd like then you can troubleshoot and tweak knowing what you know.