Would someone mind looking at my food diary?

dancer1178

Would someone mind looking at my food diary? I'm trying to make sure that I am understanding my NET Calories and the deficit. I want to ensure that I'm not eating back too much. (Yes I understand not all my choices are all that great...)

Hildy_J

Hey there,

Your logging is really good.. it might be an idea to perhaps stay a little closer to your calorie goal, ie 200 under 200 over not 500 under 500 over. If you eat back as many of your exercise calories as you can manage, you're less likely to go over the calorie goal in the following days.

The only other thing I noticed is you are using cups to measure large amounts - it is so much more accurate to use a food scale.

Good luck and stick with!

dancer1178

Thank you for the reply and advice! I appreciate it I do have a food scale but I will be honest I don't use it much! I will have to look into changing that. I have food it hard to eat more than what I have been. I feel a lil "piggish", for lack of a better term, when I do.

Thank you again!!

4legsRbetterthan2

The way MFP is designes is to give you your calorie goal for the day which is what you are supposed to eat to lose the weight you want. Your Net calories comes into play when you are adding exercise to that, so it wants your daily goal + exercise calories = what you eat for the day. I saw you goal was 1200 cals a day so I assume you are doing a pretty aggressive weight loss, which means you should probably try to eat back as much of your exercise as you can, it looks like you have seen some results and there is no need to starve yourself beyond that.

FitFunTina

I use my food scale in lieu of a measuring cup. Fewer dishes to wash at the end of the day lol.

And what CDFlinn said. If your calorie goal is 1200, then yes you should try to eat that food back if you're exercising.

marvybells

I do have a food scale but I will be honest I don't use it much!

I love my food scale! yes, it is a bit time consuming to weigh everything, but a very good habit to get into. Before i got my scale i had no idea how much i was over & under estimating my food portions. I try to use it all the time, this doesn't always happen but i do make sure that i always use it for certain foods like peanut butter, cereal, and ice cream.

and after several months of using it i have learned how to estimate certain foods very well now. (like how much a few ounces of cooked chicken or other meats will be, or about how much rice or pasta is actually in a serving. This comes in handy if i am eating somewhere that i do not have access to my scale.)

simsburyjet

Your food diary is really good.. What I have found though is that you have to tweak the exercise diary.. I work out
with women from my club and they tell me a hard zumba class for 60 minutes is about 450 calories.

Even my heart rate monitor that I use.. Whatever it says I back off 100-200 calories.

dancer1178

Your food diary is really good.. What I have found though is that you have to tweak the exercise diary.. I work out
with women from my club and they tell me a hard zumba class for 60 minutes is about 450 calories.

Even my heart rate monitor that I use.. Whatever it says I back off 100-200 calories.

..


Thank you! (To everyone of course, lots of help I appreciate!) I absolutely need to get myself a heart rate monitor. I have always been told Zumba burned 800-1000 cals based on someone weighing 150lbs. I am an instructor so I am always going full force and sweating like crazy so I assume (which we all know what happens when we assume lol) that I burn a lot. I figured I was paring down with what I have been logging, esp since I weight 50 lbs more. That's definitely one of the reasons I try not to eat everything back because I know they aren't completely accurate. Time to invest!


edit for bad grammar! ack! lol