Help with understanding calories

jeshutch

Hi everyone -
I'm hoping that putting my question out here will be helpful in getting my stinkin' scale to budge one of these days! I've been working out like crazy (weights and cardio roughly 6 days a week for at least an hour each time), but have seen NO change on the scale. Yes, my measurements are showing real improvement in tone, but I'd actually like to reach my goal weight of 170.

My question is this:
It says that my daily calorie goal should be 1200 (arguably too small, but fine if my goal is to lose weight), but after logging in my exercises and my food, my net calories are less than 1200 every time. Should I be eating so that I hit 1200 NET calories, or should I realistically shoot for 1200-1400 calories period. I know I must be screwing this up. Thanks for any help or advice you can give me!

Dlhigh

You need to be eating a minimum of 1200 net calories per day. If you don't hit it once in a while it's not such a big deal. But you need to be pretty consistently getting 1200 min, net.

Newfiedan

make sure your net never drops below 1200 and you shall shed more fat.

rfcollins33

To my understanding, you should eat up to but no more than 1200. You need the full 1200, if you work out, you log the exercise which earns you those calories back. Let's say you burn 300 cal, you should eat 1500 that day. It's not that hard to only eat 1200, but in the beginning, it can be kind of rough. You'll get there. Good luck!!

andipandi

how long have you been working out? do you use a HRM? are you being honest with you cal count and exercise? you should see weightloss not only toning...when was your last physical and blood work?

ladyhawk00

Ideally, you want your net intake to match or at least be close to your initial daily goal. So yes, if your daily goal is 1200, you want your net to be 1200.

Also, make sure you aren't aiming for to high of a loss/week goal - a common mistake. The leaner you are, the less of a deficit your body can handle. These threads might help you make sure you have your settings correct. Good luck to you!

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/61706-guide-to-calorie-deficits

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/186814-some-mfp-basics

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/12250-1000-calorie-deficit-not-for-people-with-healthy-bmi

jessalice66

Eat loads of protein so you're burning fat not muscle - eggs, fish, peanut butter.
http://www.shapefit.com/dailycalorie-calc.html
That's a good measure of how many calories to take in no matter how much you want to lose. As long as you don't eat until your full to the brim, you eat healthily, and eat all your meals, it should be easy to hit your goal, and shouldn't matter whether you're slightly over/under.

Hope that helped!

niclagi

If you are working out lots you may need to increase your calories. I've read that many people eat up to 75% of their workout calories for best results. Just a thought.

jessalice66

http://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html
found a better calculator!

dj73

Thanks for this post. I am having the same problem, working out everyday and not losing on the scale. It's very frustrating cuz I am a number freak, I just can't seem to gauge my success by my measurements, I need to see the scale go down because I know it can, I've done it before.

I understand now how this works but what confuses me is on WW you eat to your point total and don't have to eat any of the activity points you get and yet you still lose, maybe I'm still not eating enough at 1200 cals plus exercise? So you are saying that I should be eating back most of the calories I just burnt? Help. :frown:

PS: And how do you get your ticker into every post, do you have to paste it everytime? (Figured it out now) :blushing:

Thanks in advance.
DJ

ladyhawk00

Thanks for this post. I am having the same problem, working out everyday and not losing on the scale. It's very frustrating cuz I am a number freak, I just can't seem to gauge my success by my measurements, I need to see the scale go down because I know it can, I've done it before.

I understand now how this works but what confuses me is on WW you eat to your point total and don't have to eat any of the activity points you get and yet you still lose, maybe I'm still not eating enough at 1200 cals plus exercise? So you are saying that I should be eating back most of the calories I just burnt? Help. :frown:

PS: And how do you get your ticker into every post, do you have to paste it everytime?

Thanks in advance.
DJ

Yes, MFP is designed for you to eat the calories you burn in exercise. MFP includes a built in deficit, regardless of exercise. If you don't replace the exercise cals, you make your deficit larger, which may be unhealthy. Read the threads I posted above and that may help you figure out what your deficit/goal should be.

Design your ticker, then click Signature at the top of the board and paste it there.

blueeyedtraveler

I would just like to add to everything that everyone else said...

I go to Zumba 4 times a week and work out HARD. I also do a full body strength training class every other week, which burns about the same amount of calories. The husband of my Zumba instructor is the instructor for my other class and he is a personal trainer. He's been helping TONS of people achieve their goals by helping them understand how to eat. One VERY IMPORTANT factor to remember is to eat every 3 hours.

Imagine that your body is like a wood burning stove. If you don't give that stove wood to burn, the fire will go out. In our case, wood is food/calories. If we don't feed our bodies, they will not burn the fat away, but store it instead.

Also, when I started, I put my NET calories as 1200, but with all the exercise I do, I actually changed it to 1400. This week, I've seen a big difference, so you may want to try that as well.

I wish you much luck!

morganadk2_deleted

You should eat your calories from exersise back! on days i know i'm going to the gym, i log my exersie in the morning , then have bigger meals those days!


http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/10589-for-those-confused-or-questioning-eating-your-exercise-calo

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/61706-guide-to-calorie-deficit


This is just a part of it! please read the link above


Generally someone with a BMI over 32 can do a 1000 calorie a day (2 lbs a week) deficit
With a BMI of 30 to 32 a deficit of 750 calories is generally correct (about 1.5 lbs a week)
With a BMI of 28 to 30 a deficit of 500 calories is about right (about 1 lb a week)
With a BMI of 26 to 28 a deficit of about 300 calories is perfect (about 1/2 lb a week)
and below 26... well this is where we get fuzzy. See now you're no longer talking about being overweight, so while it's still ok to have a small deficit, you really should shift your focus more towards muscle tone, and reducing fat. This means is EXTRA important to eat your exercise calories as your body needs to KNOW it's ok to burn fat stores, and the only way it will know is if you keep giving it the calories it needs to not enter the famine response (starvation mode)



Good luck on your journey

dj73

Thanks for the reply. I did read all three posts and I think I am understanding it better. I might have made my goal too large, I chose the 2 lbs a week goal, maybe I should have chosen the 1.5 lb goal. I haven't been eating back my exercise calories (I day I did, had mom's homemade perogies :embarassed: ). I will try and follow more closely. So if I have a day where I burn 800 cals or so I should be eating most of these along with my base?

I'll give it a try and re-evaluate my goals. Wish me luck.

DJ

dj73

So I just went back and changed my goals to 1400, let's see if this makes a difference this week.

Thanks all.

DJ:flowerforyou:

blueeyedtraveler

Thanks for the reply. I did read all three posts and I think I am understanding it better. I might have made my goal too large, I chose the 2 lbs a week goal, maybe I should have chosen the 1.5 lb goal. I haven't been eating back my exercise calories (I day I did, had mom's homemade perogies :embarassed: ). I will try and follow more closely. So if I have a day where I burn 800 cals or so I should be eating most of these along with my base?

I'll give it a try and re-evaluate my goals. Wish me luck.

DJ

Yes, DJ...you always want to NET the 1400 that you just changed it to. So, if you burn 800 calories working out, you should actually eat 2200 calories that day.

I'm going to add you as a friend so that we can keep a closer eye on each other lol

PoleBoy

when you go to the home page (http://www.myfitnesspal.com/) You want the big "Calories remaining" number to be as close to 0 as you can make it (after filling in your exercise and food diaries)

dj73

Ok thanks, your replies made it much easier to understand. Don't know why I'm having a hard time figuring this out., but Iget it now.

DJ

Karilee75

Hey Jess, I know you already know my opinion, but you definitely need to eat at least 1500-1800 calories per day min. with the amount of working out you do. Also, I know you don't want to hear this, but you might need to workout LESS! Now a days the latest research says RECOVERY is the most important part of a training program. You might be over working, which causes your body to produce stress hormones, and that does not allow you to lose weight. You should stick to 3-4 days a week of hard training, and the other 2 days do something light, like yoga or swimming or just an easy walk to give your body a chance to recover. Take at least one day off of all training per week. I know they say "calories in/ calories out" is the answer, but that is an over simplified answer to weight loss. We are not robots! All the best programs I have read about lately are actually much higher in calories in, and high intensity shorter workouts (less frequently) are becoming the standard. Sorry this is so long, but as your trainer and friend I feel I have to chime in!!

Karilee75

All these posts have some great advice!

jeshutch

I adore you, Karilee How did you find this post? I heard about the whole rest thing from someone else too -- even in the crazy P90X workouts you have a week of rest every three weeks where you can only do light cardio and yoga. So hard when you're a number freak and want that darn scale to fall. The only thing I've ever known is to just stop eating...but I have to remember that what worked for me in my 20s is not going to be my golden ticket at 32. Drat! See you Thursday!

J