Should I Eat the 2,000 calories it says?!

bloombaby

Today I went hiking for 2 and a half hours with my 5 month old strapped to my back. According to the exercise portion it says I burned 1,200 calories! Now it wants me to eat over 2,000 today on top of the breakfast I already ate... What should I do?

bloombaby

Today I went hiking for 2 and a half hours with my 5 month old strapped to my back. According to the exercise portion it says I burned 1,200 calories! Now it wants me to eat over 2,000 today on top of the breakfast I already ate... What should I do?

Jennnnnnnny

i would just eat if your hungry or try high calorie food. dont force yourself to eat

MyaPapaya75

Today I went hiking for 2 and a half hours with my 5 month old strapped to my back. According to the exercise portion it says I burned 1,200 calories! Now it wants me to eat over 2,000 today on top of the breakfast I already ate... What should I do?

Some do eat them and some dont..both have success ...I would eat like normal and then if your hungry simply eat more ..but good choices Im not big on using food as a reward just because you have calories left over...I wouldnt stuff myself with 2000 calories if I wasnt starved

TheGuardian

visit mcdonalds and then hit baskin robbins on the way home

Seriously though ... just do what you can, don't overeat just to cover the calories.

puppylove84

I say eat what you can... peanut butter is healthy and helps rack up the calories in these situations. It's best to eat all your exercise calories, but if you're not hungry you shouldn't force yourself... kind of counterproductive

kristie874

I'd say to treat yourself with something that's higher in calories that you don't usually have. If you completely omit foods from your diet, especially when you can feasibly fit them within your calorie intake range for the day, you'll just be depriving yourself. Just don't go overboard. There's no shame in having a small fry, a half a cup of ice cream, or some really good chocolate now and then! You have to feed your food soul, too!

nickybr38

After my skiing trip (2000 calories burned ARGH) I had a half a milkshake and then a sheperds pie. ARGH SO GOOD. I didn't worry about eating the rest of the cals back, just gave my body the fuel it asked for, then relaxed and soaked my poor muscles!

GIBride01

I burn 1200 calories in my step cardio pump class, the night of that class I have a treat or something for dinner I wouldn't usually have, but I never eat back all the 1200 cals, I just don't want that much and feel if I'm not hungry, I'm not going to force myself.

neeterskeeter

I still have to watch my calorie consumption even when I work out a lot. I know it's supposed to be calories in, calories out but for some reason I can't lose weight if I eat a lot of calories. I will eat my exercise calories up to about 500, which is what I work out most days. But on days that I work out for a long time, say, skiing or running up the mountain or a long run, I will just eat until I'm pretty full but not gorge myself. I still have to watch what I eat... I would guess that even when I burn over 1,000 calories in a workout I will still not lose weight if I eat more than about 700-800 of those. That's just me though and every "body" is different, I guess what I'm trying to say is don't go overboard on eating because yes you are supposed to eat your calories burned but it is sometimes unrealistic to eat ALL the calories you burn and in my experience it can be detrimental.

I hope this helps... BTW I clicked on your profile and you look absolutely beautiful in that wedding dress!

allaboutme

this is just a thought, but our bodies are made to tell us how much food it needs to survive. For so many years we have been starving in and confusing it. the concept of calories in v. calories out is an excellent theory and logical and because we have been overeating and not exercising for so long, our bodies have become confused about how to deal with calories and needed training.

So now with the help of mfp, we train our bodies that it can depend on us to feed it enough to survive and perform regular activities on a regular basis, and we maintain a good weight. We have successfully retrained our sagging metabolisms. I would think that now that it is working properly again, it will have a built in meter of what it needs to survive, and would tell you need to consume more food because of increased exercise by making you feel hungry. It then tells us we have had enough, because we have learned to eat proper, good food, and to stop when we are satisfied (note I say satisfied, not full :happy: ). I am a firm believer in eating all of your calories, plus your exercise calories for the most part, to give your body the nutrition and energy it needs.

Your body is resiliant and meant to deal with increased energy exertion by telling you to eat more or less. It was confused because for so long we ate food, including a lot of bad food, simply for the enjoyment not because we were listening to our bodies, sometimes in fact we were ignoring it and putting more food in than it wanted or needed, pr not putting enough in when it asked it, but now we are on the right road and have trained it to work properly again.

I am thinking of an athlete. One that is really in shape and has a high metabolism. They don't count every calorie as obsessively as we do (I don't think) and they eat healthy, balanced meals and snacks and extra when they are hungry or work harder, but not calorie for calorie. Sometimes your body is meant to exert more engergy than it expends I think, it is just natural.

So if I burned an extra 1200 today in exercise, I don't know that I would insist that I eat all of them, if I had already consumed a healthy amount. I would certainly eat more because I would be hungrier, but it doesn't seem logical to me to force myself to eat all of them if I am not hungry?

Just wondering how others feel? I know probably opened a whole can of worms here, but wondering if it ever gets to a point that calories in don't balance with calories out???

bloombaby

Thank you neeterskeeter! Would have looked better if I'd already started my diet. What kind of weird person starts dieting AFTER the wedding?! Haha, that would be me.

Thanks everyone for your advice. I splurged and made a homemade pizza for my family tonight. I smothered it in veggies (So dont anyone get mad at me, haha). That STILL didnt get me anywhere close to the 2000 cals it wanted me to eat, but it took a 700 chunk out of it. I'm NOT eating anymore. I'm full. I feel accomplished. Let's move on, eh?

songbyrdsweet

this is just a thought, but our bodies are made to tell us how much food it needs to survive. For so many years we have been starving in and confusing it. the concept of calories in v. calories out is an excellent theory and logical and because we have been overeating and not exercising for so long, our bodies have become confused about how to deal with calories and needed training.

So now with the help of mfp, we train our bodies that it can depend on us to feed it enough to survive and perform regular activities on a regular basis, and we maintain a good weight. We have successfully retrained our sagging metabolisms. I would think that now that it is working properly again, it will have a built in meter of what it needs to survive, and would tell you need to consume more food because of increased exercise by making you feel hungry. It then tells us we have had enough, because we have learned to eat proper, good food, and to stop when we are satisfied (note I say satisfied, not full :happy: ). I am a firm believer in eating all of your calories, plus your exercise calories for the most part, to give your body the nutrition and energy it needs.

Your body is resiliant and meant to deal with increased energy exertion by telling you to eat more or less. It was confused because for so long we ate food, including a lot of bad food, simply for the enjoyment not because we were listening to our bodies, sometimes in fact we were ignoring it and putting more food in than it wanted or needed, pr not putting enough in when it asked it, but now we are on the right road and have trained it to work properly again.

I am thinking of an athlete. One that is really in shape and has a high metabolism. They don't count every calorie as obsessively as we do (I don't think) and they eat healthy, balanced meals and snacks and extra when they are hungry or work harder, but not calorie for calorie. Sometimes your body is meant to exert more engergy than it expends I think, it is just natural.

So if I burned an extra 1200 today in exercise, I don't know that I would insist that I eat all of them, if I had already consumed a healthy amount. I would certainly eat more because I would be hungrier, but it doesn't seem logical to me to force myself to eat all of them if I am not hungry?

Just wondering how others feel? I know probably opened a whole can of worms here, but wondering if it ever gets to a point that calories in don't balance with calories out???

Hunger is too complex to just mean "you haven't eaten enough calories." Physical feelings of hunger seem to be caused by many things, and while it looks like the amount of body fat is one, it isn't the whole picture. If that were the case, anorexics would be hungry, and morbidly obese would always be full. Often the opposite is true.

As far as the athlete analogy...that really depends on the athlete. Michael Phelps counts calories, macro and micronutrients, what foods work before competition, what supplements increase his lap time by .02 seconds, etc. A college athlete might eat total crap because they don't have a sports nutritionist and no one has told them any better--and they never make it to the Olympics. Nutrition plays a huge role in performance, so high-end athletes do monitor it. No matter how hard you train or how strong you are, if your glycogen stores are low or you're anemic, you're not going to perform.

At this level, no, we don't have to monitor things that closely. But I rarely support eating based on physical feelings of hunger or satiety. It's important to stick with one number for a long enough duration to determine whether or not it works.