Questions about my daily totals vs. daily goals...

pines2palms

Okay, so at the bottom of the food diary page, it gives you your daily totals, daily goals, and how much of each is remaining. (I love this, by the way!) So, I just finished logging my dinner calories, and do not plan on eating anything else today. I still have 300+ calories remaining, several of each "category," but 3 remaining in the fat category. My questions... Does it matter if you are this far UNDER your daily calorie goal? How far UNDER is okay? I don't WANT to see how little calories I can eat...I just want to know if I NEED to fulfill those calories...and at what point would it be so low that I would need to eat something else to fulfill more of the calorie goal. My second question...I have all of these "leftover" calories, carbs, etc. to work with, but am really close on the fat. How can you meet (or at least get close) to your calorie goal without going over on the fat grams? This is something that I had a hard time with even when I was adding things up on my own with pen and paper. I couldn't meet my calorie goal because the fat grams were so high already... Any tips and advice appreciated!

CoryIda

MFP and most health professionals will recommend that you not end up with less than 1200 net calories. If your daily goal is 1200 and you have 300 left, you haven't eaten enough. It's difficult for your body to get adequate nutrition on less than 1200 calories AND it may think you are starving it and hold onto whatever calories you have given it.

If your goal is 1500 a day and you have 300 left, you are probably ok. You just want to try to make sure you hit at least 1200.

TrainingWithTonya

Per my nutrition certifications and college courses (I'm doing an exercise physiology major and nutrition minor), you don't want to eat less then 80% of what you burn. What you burn is from BMR, activity not counting exercise, and added exercise. So, say MFP gives you an estimate of 1500 calories burned (on the goal page, not your recommended intake on your log page) and then you burn another 500 calories from planned exercise, you've burned 2000 calories for the day and shouldn't eat less then 80% of that, which in this case would be 1600 calories. Unfortunately, one of the drawbacks of MFP is that it doesn't set this limit in the software, so it will let you go under what could be your starvation level, and only sets 1200 calories as the starvation level for everyone when it may or may not be correct for each individual depending on their body composition. I try to go with that number, personally, by editing my goals.

pizzy

one good way to get your close to your goal is eat 6 meals a day, just not big ones. this will help with a calorie deficit and also keep you metabolism in check which will be better. i find this helps. i eat a good breakfeast, moderate lunch and a good dinner, but then i also have in between those meals good little snacks. one thing i also do sometimes is i get a footlong subway, eat half at lunch then 3 hours later eat the second, and thats a good 600 cal. just play around with it and youll find a good median

ickybella

Per my nutrition certifications and college courses (I'm doing an exercise physiology major and nutrition minor), you don't want to eat less then 80% of what you burn. What you burn is from BMR, activity not counting exercise, and added exercise. So, say MFP gives you an estimate of 1500 calories burned (on the goal page, not your recommended intake on your log page) and then you burn another 500 calories from planned exercise, you've burned 2000 calories for the day and shouldn't eat less then 80% of that, which in this case would be 1600 calories. Unfortunately, one of the drawbacks of MFP is that it doesn't set this limit in the software, so it will let you go under what could be your starvation level, and only sets 1200 calories as the starvation level for everyone when it may or may not be correct for each individual depending on their body composition. I try to go with that number, personally, by editing my goals.

Thanks for that info!

I try to eat at least some of my exercise calories. I have been losing weight regularly since I started that, and my weight loss doesn't depend so heavily on silly things like if I got enough sleep or holding too much water. I think you should try to get near your daily goals.

pines2palms

Thanks for all of the replies. My daily goal is right around the 1200 range...and I only got somewhere in the 800s today. It worked out that I have 300 and something left... ??? My fat grams are almost @ daily goal level, and I certainly do not want to go over...but I am having a hard time finding good calorie stuff with low fat grams...so that I can get my caloric intake up to par, but not go over on the fat grams. Am I thinking about it too much? Probably...but I had a friend tell me to watch my fat gram intake...and when I started doing that, I lost weight faster...but I felt like I was starving because I couldn't find ways to get the calories I needed without going WAY over on the fat grams... So, this has been a lingering question, and now that I am here, I figure someone can help!

TrainingWithTonya

I suggest adding whole foods like fresh fruits and veggies to get the calories up (and vitamins and minerals) without increasing fat grams.

takethepieces

The healthy way would be to add lots of fruits and vegetables, which have calories but very little fat. The less healthy way would be to eat things like fruit gums, which are high in calories but low in fat. Depends what your sugar intake is like too if you're counting that.