Is it OK to have negative net calories?

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2

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  • Teliooo
    Teliooo Posts: 725 Member
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    You might lose something, but its going to be a lot more muscle than if you did it reasonably.
    Correct, and as soon as you starting eating more again, the weight will pile back on. This is why Fad diets do not work.
  • moushtie
    moushtie Posts: 371 Member
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    Please remember, while you're burning off 1400 calories with exercise you are choosing to go out and do, you will be burning off the same again simply by fueling your vital organs, your brain, heart, and lungs and maintaining your muscles. Do you want to find out what happens if those vital functions don't have enough fuel to do their job properly? I sincerely hope not.

    MFP already builds in a deficit into your daily allowance, you don't need to be burning off every calorie you eat with extra exercise.
  • ellzeez
    ellzeez Posts: 5
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    Exactly what RubyBelle said.

    I can't imagine how hungry I'd be if I did THAT much exercise and ate THAT little!

    Don't exercise so much, I'm sure if you stuck with the MFP calories, that will give you a deficit anyway!
  • FitToBeFab
    FitToBeFab Posts: 537 Member
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    I'm going to say it's not good but I'm also going to say that I can see how you'd want it.

    It's very tempting and exciting to drop a bunch of weight in a short amount of time, but you body needs food to function. It can't live off of stored fat forever! In fact, it won't live off of stored fat for very long and pretty soon it'll think it's starving to death and hold on to every last cell it can. Thus, you won't lose anything.

    All over the forums you'll see people say "You should have at least xxx net calories left!" My advice is to consult your doctor. And to eat more :smile: You should have some net calories left, probably around 1200 (not really sure where that magical number came from, but it seems to work! When I wasn't losing, I noticed my net calories were around 900, so I ate more, and my body restarted and dropped weight).

    Edit: WOW! A lot of people responded in the time I took to write my post! So, yeah...what they said.
  • ashleymashley02
    ashleymashley02 Posts: 107
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    How the heck do you get that many calories in in one day? That would be eating like 2500 calories? Unless I go to mcdonalds lol.. and I don't think thoes are the calories I should be eating! anyone who wants to friend me and look at my food diary and help me I would really appreciate it!
  • capriciousmoon
    capriciousmoon Posts: 1,263 Member
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    How would you have enough energy to do anything?

    You'd probably be able to go just fine for a bit, anywhere from a few days to weeks, and you would lose weight. Starving like that has bad effects on your mood and energy levels though, and after a while you'd probably be so hungry that you would end up binging and gaining a lot of the weight back... so it's a lot of hard work and pushing yourself for nothing.
  • anubis609
    anubis609 Posts: 3,966 Member
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    Well, if the term "exercise bulimia" sounds like a good thing to you, then by all means keep your calories in the negative. When you slowly start becoming increasingly lethargic, irritable, physically, and [eventually] mentally dysfunctional, you may want to reevaluate your goals at that point.

    Until then, the rest of the community will simply tell you "no, it's not a good thing" in the meantime.
  • jbudge1
    jbudge1 Posts: 62 Member
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    How the heck do you get that many calories in in one day? That would be eating like 2500 calories? Unless I go to mcdonalds lol.. and I don't think thoes are the calories I should be eating! anyone who wants to friend me and look at my food diary and help me I would really appreciate it!

    Mix in some protein shakes, almonds, and peanut butter. You can get to 2500 pretty easy.
  • SergeantSunshine_reused
    SergeantSunshine_reused Posts: 5,382 Member
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    How the heck do you get that many calories in in one day? That would be eating like 2500 calories? Unless I go to mcdonalds lol.. and I don't think thoes are the calories I should be eating! anyone who wants to friend me and look at my food diary and help me I would really appreciate it!

    Add olive oil to all your veggies and meat, nuts, avacado
  • reepobob
    reepobob Posts: 1,172 Member
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    How the heck do you get that many calories in in one day? That would be eating like 2500 calories? Unless I go to mcdonalds lol.. and I don't think thoes are the calories I should be eating! anyone who wants to friend me and look at my food diary and help me I would really appreciate it!

    My diary is open...I have ZERO problems eating...I am on maintenance and am consuming around 2800 calories a day and burning on average about 600...everything I eat is clean...no junk...
  • Lizzy_Sunflower
    Lizzy_Sunflower Posts: 1,510 Member
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    How the heck do you get that many calories in in one day? That would be eating like 2500 calories? Unless I go to mcdonalds lol.. and I don't think thoes are the calories I should be eating! anyone who wants to friend me and look at my food diary and help me I would really appreciate it!

    Mix in some protein shakes, almonds, and peanut butter. You can get to 2500 pretty easy.

    google high density foods. things like whole grains, avacado, cheese. you could even drink juice to help if you simply could not eat another bite

    good luck all things are possible
  • ilookthetype
    ilookthetype Posts: 3,021 Member
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    How the heck do you get that many calories in in one day? That would be eating like 2500 calories? Unless I go to mcdonalds lol.. and I don't think thoes are the calories I should be eating! anyone who wants to friend me and look at my food diary and help me I would really appreciate it!

    Justin's Nut Butter comes in packets and you can suck it straight from the packet, I keep a bunch in my bag. <- I know that sounds like an innuendo, it's really really not. (justinsnutbutter.com - the song is catchy), keep a bag of nuts in your bag and eat high calorie foods (avocados/olives)
  • Teliooo
    Teliooo Posts: 725 Member
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    How the heck do you get that many calories in in one day? That would be eating like 2500 calories? Unless I go to mcdonalds lol.. and I don't think thoes are the calories I should be eating! anyone who wants to friend me and look at my food diary and help me I would really appreciate it!

    Are you working from MFP cal burns? They tend to be way off so you are probably burning half of what it says. Also what they say below. Educate yourself on food a bit more. Some foods are great for adding cals but not too much fat. Fat with not too many cals and so on.
  • McKayMachina
    McKayMachina Posts: 2,670 Member
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    How the heck do you get that many calories in in one day? That would be eating like 2500 calories? Unless I go to mcdonalds lol.. and I don't think thoes are the calories I should be eating! anyone who wants to friend me and look at my food diary and help me I would really appreciate it!

    Every other site calculates what you need to eat to MAINTAIN your current weight. MFP factors the deficit in FOR YOU. That's why it's different.

    Do you understand?

    P.S.: If you add cheese, eggs, avocados, dark chocolate, nut butters or other calorie-dense foods that you enjoy, it will be easy to reach your daily net goal. :)
  • ashleymashley02
    ashleymashley02 Posts: 107
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    Thanks guys, I am a VERY over weight person (not as overweight since Ive been losing weight) .. but I am 5'4 and 209 lbs and I have been trying to exercise and keep track of calories etc.. I am using MFP to do all that counting etc.. says I should eat about 1400 without exercise.. I need to exercise.. so my MFP says that I should be eating over 2000 calories a day.. just for me being so fat I don't think I should be...
  • Teliooo
    Teliooo Posts: 725 Member
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    Thanks guys, I am a VERY over weight person (not as overweight since Ive been losing weight) .. but I am 5'4 and 209 lbs and I have been trying to exercise and keep track of calories etc.. I am using MFP to do all that counting etc.. says I should eat about 1400 without exercise.. I need to exercise.. so my MFP says that I should be eating over 2000 calories a day.. just for me being so fat I don't think I should be...

    This is because you need to educate yourself on dieting, healthy eating and so on.
  • nursenelson
    nursenelson Posts: 295
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    Thats not good. That's HCG diet followed by a colon cleanse levels of insanity right there :/


    LOL Funny!
    But I agree - not good
  • McKayMachina
    McKayMachina Posts: 2,670 Member
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    Thanks guys, I am a VERY over weight person (not as overweight since Ive been losing weight) .. but I am 5'4 and 209 lbs and I have been trying to exercise and keep track of calories etc.. I am using MFP to do all that counting etc.. says I should eat about 1400 without exercise.. I need to exercise.. so my MFP says that I should be eating over 2000 calories a day.. just for me being so fat I don't think I should be...

    This is because you need to educate yourself on dieting, healthy eating and so on.

    That's exactly right.

    Trust us. We have PROOF that this approach works.

    I was 235 lbs. when I started. I've lost 60, making me 175 now and I eat my exercise calories. Not bad, eh? You can get there, if you open your mind and learn why your approach is not healthy. Trust me. How much would it suck to lose a little bit of weight and then find yourself sick and stuck because you didn't properly fuel your body?

    I'm going to be done trying to explain this now. If you want to educate yourself, you can search the forums and google it. All the data is there. Good luck.
  • vikesfanmb
    vikesfanmb Posts: 291 Member
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    Hi Ashley . . MB here. Team Purple. :smile:

    Everyone who has posted so far is exactly right. I didn't realize you were consuming that few calories . . I try to look at my friends' food diaries every day . . guess I just haven't been paying good attention and I apologize.

    You definitely need to eat back at least some, if not all, of your exercise calories. I eat back roughly half of mine . . but sometimes all. And I have lost 58 pounds so far, since January . . but I've only "officially" been on MFP since April and in that time, I have lost 55 pounds.

    Gosh, I really wish we lived closer . . we could work out together and share nutrition tips. But MFP will just have to do!!

    There are so many non-junk food choices you can make to "fill up" your calories . . like others have mentioned, peanut butter, almond butter, whole grains, cheeses, nuts (even though nuts are high in fat - it is the "good" kind of fat) and I've been trying to drink protein shakes myself but I don't do them regularly. But just 1 Special K protein shake (and they are delicious!!) has about 190-200 calories and of course, it''s high in protein, but not too high in fat, and it even has fiber. Baked potatoes also - high in fiber, potassium not to mention delicious with broccoli and/or cheese. YUM

    I also love cereal. I am completely addicted to cereal actually! Oatmeal with peanut butter is just so delicious . . tastes like a warm peanut butter oatmeal cookie. Also, there are a lot of good, healthy cereals which are relatively high calorie (not the sugary ones, I'm talking more like Grape Nuts, Raisin Bran, etc.) and you pair that with skim or 1% milk, well it's just a bowl full of goodness!

    Okay . . I will jump off my soap box now. LOL :smile: I hope this helps even if only a little bit! Feel free to message me anytime.
  • McKayMachina
    McKayMachina Posts: 2,670 Member
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    Vikesfanmb: Good message and good loss!

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