Advice wanted on exercise routine...healthy?

ZtyS89

If I'm eating 1,800 calories/day but my exercise counter says I've lost over 600 of those calories from jogging, is that a healthy caloric intake? I'm usually not hungry afterwards, but don't want to unknowingly send my body into starvation mode. Any info is welcome...just recently got motivated to really start exercising.

HaleyAlli

What is your "net calorie intake" supposed to be?

LovelySnugs

www.shouldieatmyexercisecalories.com

that should help you find the basic information. in the end, it's up to you to decide what's best for your body, and "what's best" will probably change as you get closer to your goal. but The URL is a good place to start. with gratitude to MFP user Taso42 (cuz due credit must be given).

hope that helps!

ZtyS89

Lol, is it the site that just says "yes"..."how about now?"...."still yes"

pretty funny, and to the point. I'll have to read up on it more, because while I know diets take time, I don't want to devote over a year for some minimal weight loss. I'll probably keep with what I'm doing until i notice any sort of negative effect...exhaustion, hunger, etc. Once/if that happens, I'll be good, and follow suit.

Thanks for the replies.
PS: is my desired calorie intake listed on this site? If it's what I'm seeing, then it says I should eat over 3,000 today.

SusieB01

Unless I'm dreaming, MFP can and will compute your recommended calorie intake and weight loss amount. Of course, they want you to lose the healthy way--not too fast. There's a good BMI calculator on this site too. From what I know about it, it's pretty accurate. It calculated my BMI close to what my insurance company said. I was obese when I started. I've only lost 10 lbs, so I didn't calculate it again. I may just do that-if I can find the calculator again. Anyway, that will tell you how many calories you should eat, and from the amount of exercise you're doing 1800 doesn't really sound like too much.

LovelySnugs

Lol, is it the site that just says "yes"..."how about now?"...."still yes"

that's the one! but i refer people to that one because "still yes" has the links to (in my opinion) the most useful information. lol it's just easier than copy-pasting them myself every time.

SusieB01

I know, I'm replying to myself, but I'm excited! I just did my BMI and I'm only overweight now! My doctor told me 10 lbs. would make a difference.

By the way, the things I told you about are under tools in the toolbar at the top of the page.

And, if you burn 600 calories in your exercise, you should subtract it, so you really are getting only 1200 calories when you do that. I know that's not too much! (Or, in MFP does it in reverse-you should add it on and "eat" your exercise calories). I wouldn't be surprised to find out you're pretty close to right-on with what you're doing-or maybe a little under. Oh, yeah, for it to work, you need to enter your exercise as well as what you eat.

I'm pretty tired right now, so I may have mixed up BMI and BMR in my last post. BMI 'amounts to' a body fat reading. It isn't an actual reading, but merely a guess using your height, weight, and gender. It's expressed in categories. Right now, I'm most familiar with obese and overweight. For some reason I'm having a mental block about what the other two are called. BMR is the # of calories you burn when you're resting-and of course, It's expressed in calories. But MFP does better than that, it calculates the # of calories you should eat in order to lose at a healthy rate, the nutrition in your food and automatically adds extra calories for when you exercise.

donicagalek

pretty funny, and to the point. I'll have to read up on it more, because while I know diets take time, I don't want to devote over a year for some minimal weight loss. I'll probably keep with what I'm doing until i notice any sort of negative effect...exhaustion, hunger, etc. Once/if that happens, I'll be good, and follow suit.

Very reasonable and smart of you. Mainly because a lot of "calories burned" calculators aren't quite accurate. Neither are readings from machines. Neither are HRMs. I'm not saying the world is out to get you, but it happens.

ZtyS89

@_@ But...the world IS out to get me!
Or maybe it's all of the sleep deprivation...waking up for school at 5:40am after getting home from work at 1:15am. Does anyone know if that can affect weight loss? Pretty sure it does in a way since it throws off your body's natural rhythm, but I just wanted a second opinion instead of running off a hunch.

SusieB01

I have heard if you sleep more you lose weight. But I would have thought that it would be the other way! I mean, if you're up, aren't you burning more calories. I'm wondering if the article I read wasn't just saying that you would lose weight because you wouldn't be eating if you were asleep??

LovelySnugs

I have heard if you sleep more you lose weight. But I would have thought that it would be the other way! I mean, if you're up, aren't you burning more calories. I'm wondering if the article I read wasn't just saying that you would lose weight because you wouldn't be eating if you were asleep??

the sleep thing is basically this: when you sleep, your body is resting and recovering from the day, preparing you for the next. if you don't sleep enough, your body doesn't function the way it should, becomes less efficient, i guess, and weight loss becomes more difficult. i think it has more to do with hormonal imbalances (the word cortisol comes to mind, but i don't feel like googling it right now) and fat deposits than with actual calories burned.

in the end, it's not so much sleeping MORE as sleeping ENOUGH. but that's what fitness is all about in the end - balance.

fteale

You won't go into starvation mode, you will probably find if you keep up that level of exercise for a few weeks or months that you will get hungrier. I wouldn't over think it if I were you. Just do what feels right and try not to eat junk!