Are we supposed to meet the calorie goal or stay below it?

abhinavsood89

Hi,

I am 28, M, currently weigh 78kg and targeting 72kg.
My activity level is low - I have just started going to gym about 2 to 3 times a week, and currently focus on cardiovascular exercises (20 to 25 minutes walking, 10 minutes running). Other than that, I walk around 1km casually after lunch on weekdays.

My daily calorie goal is ~1650. I want to know if we have to meet this goal or can we eat less? If we can eat lesser, what should be a healthy minimum that we should still meet?

aeloine

Recommended minimum for men is 1,500. You can eat less than the 1,650, just not more.
Make sure you're tracking correctly and WEIGHING your food on the scale. You may be eating more than you think without realizing. That might explain why you're not hungry enough to eat more.

As @fitoverfortymom said below, you should REALLY pay attention to your body and make sure that you don't need to eat more, especially if you're working out.

fitoverfortymom

I would say with your stats, eating below 1650 is ill-advised, and if you are exercising, you should eat at least a portion of your earned exercise calories back (typical advice is half). Eating so little, especially with your stats, will be hard to sustain. With so little to lose you might adjust your rate of loss to .5 per week or 1lb per week if it's not already. That number sounds like something a 2lb per week loss goal would spit out for your stats.

If I did the conversion right, you weigh around 171lbs. How tall are you?

Tacklewasher

Price is right. Those who come closest without going over, win.

When you go to the gym, you need to eat some of those calories back as well (start with half).

How tall are you?

vingogly

It appears 1650 is right for someone your age/gender/weight/activity level to lose 1.5lbs per week (assuming you're 5'10"):

http://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html?ctype=standard&cage=28&csex=m&cheightfeet=5&cheightinch=10&cpound=172&cheightmeter=180&ckg=60&cactivity=1.375&printit=0&x=71&y=23

In general, it's not recommended you lose more than 2lbs/week which would be about 1400 calories/day. For one thing,

...evidence shows that people who lose weight gradually and steadily (about 1 to 2 pounds per week) are more successful at keeping weight off. ...

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/losing_weight/index.html

People who are very obese often lose more quickly at first, but the rate will slow down as they get slimmer.

AnnPT77

Tacklewasher wrote: »

Price is right. Those who come closest without going over, win.

When you go to the gym, you need to eat some of those calories back as well (start with half).

How tall are you?

^^^ When he's right, he's right!

Losing too fast is unhealthy, and makes you look not-cute. Don't do it.

apullum

Love the Price is Right advice. It’s spot on. You should try to meet your calorie goal, and you don’t need to be under it in order to lose weight. It’s okay to eat under your calorie goal sometimes, as long as you are getting at least the 1500 calories required for men, but you don’t have to be under the goal MFP gives you in order to lose weight.

Also, your calorie goal is net calories. If you burn calories through exercise, you get to eat them back.

bethannien

Also a good rule of thumb is to look at weekly trends. So if I go over by 50 calories one day but I'm under by 100 another day, it's all probably going to shake out at the end of the week. You can actually look at your weekly intake through the app and it will tell you how far over or under you are for the the past 7 days.

abhinavsood89

Tacklewasher wrote: »

Price is right. Those who come closest without going over, win.

When you go to the gym, you need to eat some of those calories back as well (start with half).

How tall are you?

I'm 170cm.