Calorie intake

momof5babies85

If my tracker says I need to eat 1200 calories but I workout it says my calorie intake is 1700 do I need to eat those calories or can I eat less than what it requires

AnnPT77

It depends.

Fast weight loss isn't necessarily the best idea, if it's too fast. IMO, anything above 0.5-1% of current weight per week is too fast for most people, with a bias toward the lower end of that range unless severely obese and under close medical supervision for deficiencies or health complications.

As a bonus, moderate loss can be easier to stick with consistently, and can help us find and practice the relatively easy (at least tolerable/practical) new habits we'll need to stay at a healthy weight long term, ideally forever.

I have always estimated my exercise calories carefully, then ate them all back during just under a year of weight loss (class 1 obese to healthy weight) and nearly 8 years of maintenance since.

If your calorie goal is 1200, there's a chance you're already shooting for fairly fast loss, unless you're quite petite, aging, and quite inactive other than intentional exercise. If it's true that you don't fall into that category, and are trying to lose 2 pounds/1kg per week, I'd encourage you to consider eating back at least a fair fraction of those exercise calories.

Undereating can increase health risks, make it hard to stay the course, and even be counter-productive if it triggers fatigue (resting more, doing less).

Best wishes!

yirara

So it looks like you've chosen a weightloss per week goal that is too high for your current stats. If that happens MFP always gives you 1200 calories as going under is not healthy. Do you exercise? If so, and if only eating so little you should totally eat back those exercise calories, or at least a good portion of it.

Why? Say you eat 1200 calories, and you go on a run for 300 calories. That's the same for your body than only eating 1200-300 = 900 calories. Even small children need more food than that.

Thus if you want us to help you find a reasonable calorie goal without exercise for you you can share your stats. You can also set mfp to no weightloss to see what your current approximate maintenance calories are, and then work out what a reasonable loss is.