Excercise and Calorie question.

tobitude

I am considered morbidly obese and I am ready to lose the weight. I want to excercise and eat right, but my only concern is that with my body weight I have a high calorie intake as it is and any excercising I do adds more available calories for me to eat. To be honest with you guys that is alot of calories when you get a girl my size up and moving. I feel better when i excercise but I dont really want to eat that many calories. If anyone has any insight on this I would greatly appreciate it. With riding my bike i can end up with a total of 2500 calories to eat in one day, that is alot if I am eating healthy.

Thanks

Angie80281

From what I understand, you at least need to eat your minimum daily calories as calculated on MFP. From there, you should eat at least some of your workout calories back, since you're burning up so much extra energy. However, you need not eat all of them. My recommendation would be to use your body as a guide. If you start feeling weak or sick from working out, you probably need more energy from calories.

RZO42488

2500 is more than enough calories...........I would start out and eat what you want as long as it is low fat, low sugar, and low sodium. Its hard to jump right into a diet, you need to ease into it. Eat things that are good for you and give you alot of energy (if you'll be working out). Start with high carbs and protein and gradually decrease as your body feels better and better.

ChRiStA_1983

My advice (not sure how much it's worth, but here it is, regardless): Only eat back what you feel that you CAN. Do NOT force yourself to eat more! Basically, as long as you are consuming a minimum of 1,200 calories per day, you're set....You don't want to be eating LESS than 1,200 (after exercise), but so long as that ends up being your net, you're fine.

There's no rule that you have to eat back all of the calories that you burned through exercise! Basically, you just want to NET a minimum of 1,200, is my understanding.

Happy exercising, and eating!

cacrat

Then don't eat your exercise calories. You don't HAVE to eat them back. As long as your body doesn't fight back and put itself into starvation mode, you'll be fine. That will only happen if you go too far in your exercise+cal restriction. As long as you're getting plenty of good clean food, don't worry about eating back your exercise calories. However, I hope you know what I mean by good clean foods. What is eating healthy to you?

tobitude

My eating healthy is fruits and veggies and Low calorie and low fat, I also have to keep my sodium on the lower side.

ladyhawk00

Having a lot to lose, you can withstand a larger deficit than many people. However, you still have to fuel the body properly to maintain muscle mass and keep your loss at a reasonable, healthy pace. Rapid weight loss comes with a lot of risks - arrhythmias, gallstones, hair loss, menstruation changes, loss of muscle mass, loose skin, binges and weight regain.

You MAY not need to eat all (or any) of your exercise cals at this point. But you need to make sure you are eating healthy foods and meeting your macro (protein/fat/carbs) AND micro (vitamins/minerals) needs each day. The reason MFP has a limit of 2 lbs per week is that faster loss leads to problems and a moderate, steady deficit is much healthier.

If you are having trouble meeting cal goals, focus on making sure you're getting enough protein and healthy fats and healthy carbs. Don't just focus on low cal stuff - make sure it is nutrient dense. Things like low fat dairy, lean protein, nuts, natural oils (olive/canola), etc can all add good cals to help you meet your needs.

Remember, MFP is a tool to help you learn to eat a healthy AMOUNT of healthy food. So going from too high of an intake to too low isn't a good strategy.

And congrats on your commitment to get healthy! :flowerforyou: