Could i be eating too few calories?

amberx1127

Hey everyone! I am kind of concerned because even though mfp says i should be consuming 1780 calories a day I feel like this could be low for me. I workout 6 days a week an hour each day and i am usually pretty active overall. I am a student and i have to walk to and from class a lot and i am also work part time as a pharmacy technician so again i am on my feet all day. I notice that when trying to only consume 1780 calories that i still feel hungry a lot and like i have to limit myself. I feel like all i so is think about the next time i am allowed to eat something! I am scared that if i am not eating enough my body will go into starvation mode and i will end up gaining weight. However i dont want to eat too many calories and then end up gaining weight from that lol. The reason i am using mfp is to just maintain my weight and get fit and build muscle. Just need advice on how to go about doing this! I am a 21 year old female and weigh around 110 lbs and am 5'3". Another question! Does mfp automatically subtract the calories i would normally burn off in a day? Or do i have to subtract what I burn myself and eat 1780 calories after accounting for the ones i would burn. If so, how do i even know how many i burn in a day? (Mfp doesnt account for calories in strength training and stuff like that and i dont know how many cals i burn in a cardio workout) Basically im really confused about how much I should be eating to be healthy and build muscle and get fit. Btw I eat all healthy foods and use protien after my workouts. Anyone have any advice for me? I feel like i really need some help here

DancingMoosie

We have similar stats: I am 111-112lbs, 5'3" and I work at a school, so walk around a lot. I've lost 40lbs, but to maintain, I had to increase above 1950NET. It depends on your body composition. I am very muscular, so I burn more calories than the average person my size. Track your calories and exercise in your logs, and see what happens with your weight. If it consistently drops, add calories. If it goes up, decrease slightly. If it stays the same, you have found maintenance.

geekyjock76

How MFP works:

First, understand TDEE.

Total Daily Energy Expenditure - total amount of calories needed to maintain body weight and burned throughout the day. Your body burns calories from four sources:
1)Resting Metabolic Rate
2)Thermic Effect of Food
3)Non-exercise activity
4)Exercise activity

MFP only accounts for the calories you burn from the first three sources and excludes exercise activity. If you chose the "guided" option when creating your account, you need to manually input exercise calories to let MFP know you are indeed exercising so it can adjust your net caloric intake associated with your weight goal.

To clarify: since MFP excludes exercise calories into its equation, it essentially treats everyone as a non-exerciser. So exercisers start out with a default deficit, being their exercise calories, before even choosing a weekly weight loss goal.

Thus, that 1780 calorie estimate to maintain weight does not include your exercise activity calories. Let's say you burn a legitimate 500 calories from planned exercise. When you manually enter 500 exercise calories of activity, your NET intake will be changed to 1280 and you will be told to "eat back" those 500 calories so that you end up with a net 1780 calories to maintain weight.

Alternative of choosing the guided route:

Estimate TDEE with this calculator:

http://www.weightrainer.net/losscalc.html

1. Enter weight.
2. Enter 20% as body fat percentage
3. Enter 0 as weight loss goal.
4. Chose the proper activity level that best matches your day, including exercise.

*If you exercise between 3-5 days a week, you'd be considered moderately active; 5-6 days is very active.

By entering those values, I get 2300 calories to maintain present weight at very active and 2068 calories if moderately active. If you go by the conservative 2068 estimate and you end up maintaining weight, then that's correct for you. If you end up losing at 2068, then you need to up calories closer to the 2300 estimate until weight stabilizes.

What to do now:

1. Go to your Goals section and select custom instead of guided. In the net calorie tab, enter 2068 or 2300 calories.
2. At this point, you do not need to manually enter exercise at all since the TDEE estimate includes it by default.

*If you want to manually enter it just for kicks, give it a caloric burn of 1 calorie so it does not change net intake.

Gaining muscle:

If your goal is to increase lean mass, you first need to establish what your actual TDEE is to maintain weight. Thus weigh all food and use MFP to log intake and see what happens to your weight when eating the above estimates and make adjustments accordingly. Once you have successfully maintained weight for a few consecutive weeks, then you are ready to move to the next step.

To gain an appreciable amount of lean mass, you need:
1) A calorie surplus above maintenance.
2) Strength training of sufficient resistance
3) Adequate protein intake (usually 1 gram x lean body mass in lbs)

*It is recommended for women to assume a 250 calorie surplus to increase lean mass by an optimal 1 lb per month. Note that to eat a surplus, you will likely gain an equal amount of fat mass with lean mass. Thus, you will actually gain 2 lbs total, ideally, per month with a 1:1 ratio.

You will cease this surplus of calories once your weight and/or body fat % reaches a pre-determined goal. Let's say you wish to gain 5 lbs of lean mass as an end goal. Thus, you are looking at gaining a total of 10 lbs by the end of a 5 month surplus. According to this, you would be done when your weight reaches 133 lbs.

What to do next:

You will want to reduce fat mass while maintaining as much of the gained lean mass as possible. First, you will need to reduce calories little by little until your weight stabilizes. Since you now weigh more, with more lean mass, your adjusted TDEE will likely be a bit higher than before. Thus, reduce calories until your weight finally stabilizes - that will be your adjusted TDEE.

Once you've maintained your surplus weight for a few weeks, you are ready to reduce fat mass.

1)Eat approximately 250 calories under adjusted maintenance.
2)Keep lifting heavy.
3)Keep protein intake at a minimum of adjusted lean mass.

lynn_glenmont

How long have you been trying to maintain at 1780? If you it's been at least a month and you're not gaining or losing, I think you have your answer. There's no substitute for empirical evidence.

If you just started at 1780 recently, are you eating back your exercise calories? MFP is set up so that you eat back your exercise calories, but that depends on your giving it an activity level estimate that reflects just your daily work/school/around the house activity, not your workouts or other "intentional" exercise. At your age, height, and weight, it doesn't seem like 1780 calories would include workout calories if you're pretty active in your daily life. If you ate back some of your exercise calories, you might not be so hungry.

It also may just take some experimenting to find the exact maintenance number for you. Online calculators have to include a lot of estimates and numbers drawn from averages across groups, plus they generally only offer four or five activty levels, and odds are you probably fall between two of those levels, rather than exactly on one of them. And they rely on your making the right choice among their description of those activity levels, and some people are going to over or underestimate by at least one level.

But if you aren't eating back your exercise calories, you might want to start with that, if you haven't been doing 1780 long enough to know whether you gain, lose, or maintain at that level.

Springfield1970

How MFP works:

First, understand TDEE.

Total Daily Energy Expenditure - total amount of calories needed to maintain body weight and burned throughout the day. Your body burns calories from four sources:
1)Resting Metabolic Rate
2)Thermic Effect of Food
3)Non-exercise activity
4)Exercise activity

MFP only accounts for the calories you burn from the first three sources and excludes exercise activity. If you chose the "guided" option when creating your account, you need to manually input exercise calories to let MFP know you are indeed exercising so it can adjust your net caloric intake associated with your weight goal.

To clarify: since MFP excludes exercise calories into its equation, it essentially treats everyone as a non-exerciser. So exercisers start out with a default deficit, being their exercise calories, before even choosing a weekly weight loss goal.

Thus, that 1780 calorie estimate to maintain weight does not include your exercise activity calories. Let's say you burn a legitimate 500 calories from planned exercise. When you manually enter 500 exercise calories of activity, your NET intake will be changed to 1280 and you will be told to "eat back" those 500 calories so that you end up with a net 1780 calories to maintain weight.

Alternative of choosing the guided route:

Estimate TDEE with this calculator:

http://www.weightrainer.net/losscalc.html

1. Enter weight.
2. Enter 20% as body fat percentage
3. Enter 0 as weight loss goal.
4. Chose the proper activity level that best matches your day, including exercise.

*If you exercise between 3-5 days a week, you'd be considered moderately active; 5-6 days is very active.

By entering those values, I get 2300 calories to maintain present weight at very active and 2068 calories if moderately active. If you go by the conservative 2068 estimate and you end up maintaining weight, then that's correct for you. If you end up losing at 2068, then you need to up calories closer to the 2300 estimate until weight stabilizes.

What to do now:

1. Go to your Goals section and select custom instead of guided. In the net calorie tab, enter 2068 or 2300 calories.
2. At this point, you do not need to manually enter exercise at all since the TDEE estimate includes it by default.

*If you want to manually enter it just for kicks, give it a caloric burn of 1 calorie so it does not change net intake.

Gaining muscle:

If your goal is to increase lean mass, you first need to establish what your actual TDEE is to maintain weight. Thus weigh all food and use MFP to log intake and see what happens to your weight when eating the above estimates and make adjustments accordingly. Once you have successfully maintained weight for a few consecutive weeks, then you are ready to move to the next step.

To gain an appreciable amount of lean mass, you need:
1) A calorie surplus above maintenance.
2) Strength training of sufficient resistance
3) Adequate protein intake (usually 1 gram x lean body mass in lbs)

*It is recommended for women to assume a 250 calorie surplus to increase lean mass by an optimal 1 lb per month. Note that to eat a surplus, you will likely gain an equal amount of fat mass with lean mass. Thus, you will actually gain 2 lbs total, ideally, per month with a 1:1 ratio.

You will cease this surplus of calories once your weight and/or body fat % reaches a pre-determined goal. Let's say you wish to gain 5 lbs of lean mass as an end goal. Thus, you are looking at gaining a total of 10 lbs by the end of a 5 month surplus. According to this, you would be done when your weight reaches 133 lbs.

What to do next:

You will want to reduce fat mass while maintaining as much of the gained lean mass as possible. First, you will need to reduce calories little by little until your weight stabilizes. Since you now weigh more, with more lean mass, your adjusted TDEE will likely be a bit higher than before. Thus, reduce calories until your weight finally stabilizes - that will be your adjusted TDEE.

Once you've maintained your surplus weight for a few weeks, you are ready to reduce fat mass.

1)Eat approximately 250 calories under adjusted maintenance.
2)Keep lifting heavy.
3)Keep protein intake at a minimum of adjusted lean mass.

Thank you for being so generous with your knowledge and time!