Exercise Calories

clairibou1

So a couple of days ago, I was looking at my calorie intake over the past few weeks. My goal settings were on "lose 1lb a week", but since my ultimate goal was to lose around 2lb a week, I was eating about 250 calories less than my goal, which was 1410. Recently I saw a post about one's body going into "starvation mode" if you eat less than 1200 calories a day, which apparently I have been doing for a few weeks now. However, I realized that many of these days, the calorie deficit came from exercise, not not eating enough. So here's my question: would it be dangerous to be a little under 1200 calories everyday if this was because of exercise? Thank you!

SheilaSisco

You don't want to go below 1200 NET calories a day, which means you should eat back enough of your exercise calories to be at 1200. The net goal is the calories your body has to use for regular functions throughout the day, so taking away from those by burning the calories through exercise could be damaging...

MoonShadow_1au

The whole "danger" of starvation mode is that your body decides to burn muscle and store extra fat if you are exercising and not eating enough (my simple understanding of the whole debate).

If your goal is to loose 2 pounds a week you should be trying to eat smaller amounts more often to spread your total calories and exercise calories over the day (according to my PT) so that your metabolic rate always has fuel and does not spike and drop between "normal 3 meals a day". PT's suggest 6 small meals a day to combat this.

My suggestion, make sure you hit your net calories if you are in aggressive loss mode (> 1 pound a week).

Eat good stuff, nuts will help keep your calories up without filling you up and they have good fats. Protein supplements as well if you are working out.

krevelle65

I have no idea. But..... I have the my setting at 1.5 lbs/wk. I always eat over 1200cals . If I don't when I post for the day, I get a comment about starvation mode. I don't eat all of my workout calories back so I quite often end the day with a net calorie count between 900 and 1300. I ALWAYS end the day with my net calories in the green, if I go in the red, I go for a second walk or use the elliptical until I am back in the green. I decided to not change the setting to 2lbs/week because it is too restrictive and I like being in the green. This is a long winded way of saying I am interested in what you get for an answer.