Confused about how many calories I should be consuming?

benefiting

I recently upped my calories to 2086 calories as I am suppose to consume 2336 to maintain my weight. I took 250 off instead of 500 because I have been exercising heaps to make the other 250 for a deficit of 500. I try and eat a net of around 1800 calories day. Have I done this right?

I am 20, 5"5', around 170 pounds and I exercise at least 5 days a week.

Edit: Should I eat back my calories I burn off? I can burn up to 600+ calories a day sometimes and I usually apply the same goal of a net of 1800 but I am really eating 2400+.

_EndGame_

Sounds about right to me.

Give it a week and then weigh yourself, if the weight is coming off, then clearly you're doing it right.

Chief_Rocka

Yes, assuming your exercise calorie burn estimates are accurate.

MoreBean13

I would suggest setting your base calories to 1836 and then logging and eating back most/all of your exercise calories.

fityoginirunner

Calorie counting isn't an exact science, regardless of how it feels sometimes. And whether you've done something "right" depends on what you are trying to do.

Assuming that your goal is fat loss only (as opposed to losing fat and building muscle), and that keeping it off long-term is a key goal, I would work the following numbers for you:

* At 170 lbs, your personal do-not-go-below number is 1700 calories a day, because it takes 1700 calories for your body to "power on" with minimum movement (think lie in bed and read a book) every day, and giving it less than that just isn't smart because it's going to have to use not just fat, but muscle to keep going

* Adding a sedentary job to that 1700 number, accounting for living life "before" exercise, would bring you up to about 2040 calories needed a day just to get through your day. (Activity factor calculation using "sedentary".) So, the most aggressive range you should be in is between 1700 - 2040 calories. Your 2086 is pretty close to the upper end there so it sounds like a safe number to eat - you're exercising, so you should have a deficit, but you're staying away from the edge of starving both your body and your workouts.

I would advise against weighing yourself every week. Most scales have an uncertainty of a pound (try it yourself: weight yourself five times in a row, stepping off the scale each time), so you can't really measure losing or gaining weight that's less than a pound. What's more, how hydrated you are and where you are in your menstrual cycle can also create weight (but of course not fat) fluctuations. I weighed myself every morning and night for a month, and I saw literally overnight weight changes of 3 lbs sometimes. Unfortunately, you just can't get rapid feedback on your calorie math. Go with what you've got for at least a month, preferably more like three, and see how much of a calorie deficit your exercise is giving you and if you've got enough energy to get through them long-term. You don't say how long you exercise for or how many calories you burn when you exercise, but that's most of what's going to drive your deficit as-is, so if after a few months you're not happy with the fat loss rate you can eat 100-200 calories less and/or up the duration or intensity of your workouts.

Good luck!

Teresa

sokkache

I don't think you should be eating back all of the exercise calories. 1/2 of the calories you could eat back, but it depends on whether you're hungry or not. If not, then don't eat and if you are hungry, eat it all back.

MoreBean13

I don't think you should be eating back all of the exercise calories. 1/2 of the calories you could eat back, but it depends on whether you're hungry or not. If not, then don't eat and if you are hungry, eat it all back.

Care to elaborate on why you think that? I'm going to do a 1,000 calorie-ish long run today as part of a marathon training program. Would you suggest only eating half of that? Because a deficit like that would hurt my recovery time and if done on every run would be a hindrance to my program and leave me more susceptible to injuries.