Can't keep up with calories

D4v4G

So I have a regular 3 meals a day I make sure they are an average of 500 cals but I also walk about 10 miles a day so what I'm putting in is being burned off even more so days. Should I be eating even more to keep up with my exercise?

jenncornelsen

Yes. 10 miles burns lots of calories. I would suggest adding a couple snacks through out the day. By snacks i mean cottage cheese, fruit, boiled egg, maybe a peotein bar. Will help keep your energy up and feeling top of your game. If thats not your thing increase your meal sizes. All the best!

Strudders67

Yes. MFP is designed for you to eat your exercise calories.

Assuming you've entered your stats in MFP, selected a weight loss rate that's not too aggressive and have been given 1500 cals a day (although that seems rather low), you should then eat your exercise calories on top of that. Enter your walk info into the Exercise tracker and it'll add the required number of calories to your daily goal.

The caveat to that is that some people find that MFP over-estimates exercise calories, although my experience is that it's pretty accurate for walking, as long as you know what speed you walk at and for how long.

What Activity Level did you select when you entered your stats? If you walk 10 miles every day, you've potentially selected Very Active, in which case at least some of your walking is already factored in. I don't have a regular exercise programme / every day is different, so I set myself to Sedentary (my job involves sitting at a desk all day) and I manually enter all my actual/deliberate exercise - and then eat those calories.

Somebody can probably advise how many steps a day 'Very Active' equates to, but then you'd need to know how many miles that is.

lgfrie

Yes. You are eating ~ 1500 calories per day and exercising ~ 700 cals with those 10 mile walks. Ergo, your net calories is about 800, way, way, way too low, even for a petite woman, which you are not. You're currently below the "safe" net calories for anyone. You need to eat more.

Suggestion: go use the MFP goals tool, find out how many calories you should be eating per day, then add half or so of the walking calories to that (around 350) and eat that much.

PAV8888

Are you WANTING / needing to walk 16km? If yes, you need to fuel that independent of your weight loss goals.

And if yes, you do need to eat more. Larger meals, or extra snacks, or higher-calorie choices would be easy options

How much weight are you trying to lose? Is there a particular need for you to be aiming for the minimum intake for a man which is 1500 Cal?

Not sure about your stats, but as a 49 to 50 yo I lost a good 75lbs on mfp eating more than 2500 Cal a day and walking a good 30-40% less than you.

If you're walking to speed up your weight loss... don't. Faster does not equal better... long term sustainable does!