Caloric intake Question

Adina81

My caloric daily intake is set at 1200 (for 2lb/week loss)
I've been excercising a minimum of 900 most days.
I'll eat upwards of 1300-1500 calories on workout days.

Is this still okay?? Or should I be still setting towards my 1200?

lawtechie

I'd suggest eating more.

1200 is NET meaning eating - exercise = NET.

If you're eating 1300-1500 you're netting around 600 calories. Short term you'll be OK but long term you'll be pooped and your exercise will suffer and your metabolism will slow down.

Pandorian

MFP is designed to give you your weight loss goal before lifting a finger in exercise. Eating 1200 and exercising 900 would leave you 300. Eating 1500 and exercising 900 still leaves you 600 which may not be enough. You'll find out. I'm at 2000 calories before exercise and losing.

ashnm88

If your hungry eat, if your not don't worry about it. I know I don't.

aliann30

I'm still kind of confused on this as well. So my NET should be at least 1200? I feel like I've been eating enough and I don't really want to be eating all day - but at the same time I don't want to do all this work and my metabolism slow down because I'm not eating enough. I didn't want to take my calories too low so I thought that if I exercised more that would increase the weight loss. But if exercising more means I have to eat more...I don't know I think I'm confusing myself here.

jonzo21

I'm still kind of confused on this as well. So my NET should be at least 1200? I feel like I've been eating enough and I don't really want to be eating all day - but at the same time I don't want to do all this work and my metabolism slow down because I'm not eating enough. I didn't want to take my calories too low so I thought that if I exercised more that would increase the weight loss. But if exercising more means I have to eat more...I don't know I think I'm confusing myself here.

yes, exercising more = eating more. The point of this is so you are losing weight in a healthy way and not putting your body into starvation mode. For example... say you are allowed 1200 calories (This is what MPF calculates without adding in exercise. It is subtracting how many calories your body is burning just by functioning throughout the day, minus how much minimum your body needs each day, so already there is a deficit of how many you're burning and eating. This is why it's designed so that even without exercise, you are burning more, and can still lose weight). Now you're allowed 1200 calories, you burn 600... your body is using too much energy and not gaining enough fuel because without that exercise you are already burning more than your intake. So if you don't eat those calories, you may lose weight really fast but you will gain it back really fast, or you will slow down your metabolism to a point where your body doesn't burn many calories on normal activities anymore; slowing down your weight loss

msmileyface

You might also want to change it to lose less than 2 lbs a week.