Do you REALLY need to match your calories?

cricket_0408

Hey everyone, I'm new here and have lots of questions. Mainly, is it really necessary to eat that 1200 calories a day? After exercise my calorie intake generally goes up to about 1800. I cant fathom eating that much in a day and losing weight. I usually net anywhere between 300-700 calories a day, but eat overall about 1000.

Thanks for your help!!! :flowerforyou: :happy:

xtinalovexo

i don't understand why you said father? you can't father eating that much???

umachanxo

Try and eat your 1200, but exercise cals.. that's up to you.

ILiftHeavyAcrylics

Yes it's important to eat 1200 net calories per day. Some people can get away with less but the less you eat the slower your metabolism will go. Try calorie dense snacks with lots of protein/good fat and you can get more cals for less food.

xHelloQuincyx

i don't understand why you said father? you can't father eating that much???

Verb:




Understand (a difficult problem or an enigmatic person) after much thought: "he could scarcely fathom the idea".


not father...

Jingmae

Hey there. A registered dietitian that I've worked with on campus said that it takes 3500 calories lost to lose 1 pound. If you break that down by the 7 days of the week, then that's about 500 calories per day, whether it's calories you've exercised or your deficit for the day. I don't always have 500 calories left each day, but it's just something to think about!

logden111

If you do not eat 1200 your body will go into starvation mode and hang on to your fat.

ananda403

Yeah, 300-700 is way too low. Eating too little will make your body go into starvation mode and hold onto every bit of fat it can. And to the chick that posted about "father"...it's fathom...get a dictionary.

mandypandy30g

"Fathom eating that much" that means she can't imagine eating that much

hyde1977

You are going to see a lot of response....Go look at some old posts on the topice.

My opnion 300-700 calories is not enough! A defict is already built into your calorie goal.

Think of your body like car.....if you don't put fuel in the car it will not run....if you don't put fuel in your body it will not work how it is suppose to work.

Will you lose weight only eatting 300-700 per day....of course.....and even though I am not a Dr...you will do damage to your body and probably not feel all that great!

However, everyone has a choice...read some of the success stories! You will see that a lot of them will talk about eatting back your work out calories!

I have always eatten back my exercise calories and now I have lost over 75 pounds.....I never thought eatting more would make me lose weight but it did!!!!

There is so much educational stuff in the community...take sometime to read it and it will help to give you many of the answers that you might be looking for!!!!

Best of luck on your journey!!! This is a great site for support and knowledge!!!!!!

cricket_0408

Read again hon. I said fathom... not father

themommie

eat close to the 1200 cals some people eat their exercise cals , some eat 1/2 some dont eat the exercise cals. I prefer not to unless I have worked out an unusually long amount

mshel19

i can never eat all my calories that i gain with excerciseing i dont think its healthy.. my diet is set at 1200 and i usually eat 1300

julie781

Eating at least 1200 will keep you at optimal performance! You'll notice a difference in your energy levels and be able to give more to your exercise routine. It is possible to eat more and lose weight! Give it a couple weeks... you'll see

PDVanG

It's very important for your overall health that you eat at least 1200 calories a day, but I've found I lose more weight when I don't eat my exercise calories (at least not the full amount). Eating more than 1200 tempts me toward higher calorie foods, so I try to stay away from that.

cricket_0408

Well I've already learned a lot!! Thank you so much! Do you have a time when you cut yourself off from eating? I work from home as a medical transcriptionist and my last hours for the day are 7 p.m. - 10 p.m. (oops... supposed to be working now) , but it has just been ingrained in me for so long to not eat at night. About 6 years ago I lost 60 pounds (50 of which I have successfully kept off) and one of the biggest changes I made was cutting out night eating. Any opinions on this?

HonkyTonks

700 calories a day is not enough. You will lose lean muscle mass. Your BMR (metabolism) is determined by how much lean muscle mass you have. You need to net 1200.

Articeluvsmemphis

yeah, eat the calories, and your exercise calories as well if you are hungry. . .

cobygrey

Well I've already learned a lot!! Thank you so much! Do you have a time when you cut yourself off from eating? I work from home as a medical transcriptionist and my last hours for the day are 7 p.m. - 10 p.m. (oops... supposed to be working now) , but it has just been ingrained in me for so long to not eat at night. About 6 years ago I lost 60 pounds (50 of which I have successfully kept off) and one of the biggest changes I made was cutting out night eating. Any opinions on this?

Others may disagree but a calorie at 7am is the same calorie at 7pm. Keep track of what you eat within a 24 hr period. I know it is recommended that you don't eat later than 6 or 7 because your body should be resting and replenishing system functions. But for overall weightloss it is simply calories in calories out. You were successful before because by setting a cut off time you are still in essence restricting the number of calories you take in within the 24hr period.

xtinalovexo

Read again hon. I said fathom... not father

Such big words! :explode:

cricket_0408

[/quote]
Others may disagree but a calorie at 7am is the same calorie at 7pm. Keep track of what you eat within a 24 hr period. I know it is recommended that you don't eat later than 6 or 7 because your body should be resting and replenishing system functions. But for overall weightloss it is simply calories in calories out. You were successful before because by setting a cut off time you are still in essence restricting the number of calories you take in within the 24hr period.
[/quote]

Thanks for your input! I agree that it worked before because it was restricting the number of calories. I just think the calorie I put into my body at 7 a.m. is different than the one at 7 p.m. because I have all day to work it off. When I eat that calorie at 7 p.m. my body isnt doing that much more exercise, walking aroud, etc. Does that sound crazy?

p.s. why can't I get the quote box to work right? Is there a trick?

MaximalLife

Hey everyone, I'm new here and have lots of questions. Mainly, is it really necessary to eat that 1200 calories a day? After exercise my calorie intake generally goes up to about 1800. I cant fathom eating that much in a day and losing weight. I usually net anywhere between 300-700 calories a day, but eat overall about 1000.

Thanks for your help!!! :flowerforyou: :happy:

Your starvation diet is self sabotage in the extreme.
Simply stated MFP has already figured out your total calories you need to eat per day to lose 1lb etc. a week. That's WITHOUT exercise. You'll notice that when you actually add exercise in, the calorie limit goes up. Why? Because it's telling you to eat your exercise calories. Large deficits aren't really good to do because while you will lose weight, what kind of weight will it be? In many cases you'll lose lean muscle tissue which LOWERS your metabolic rate even more. Then you have to eat even less to compensate for less of a calorie burn to continue to lose the same amount of weight each week.
Be efficient. Exercise hard and eat back the calories. The hard exercise will RAISE your metabolic rate and burn more fat at rest.

Jeff92se

How is being able to eat a butload of exta calories a problem? It would be like Christmas to me

savlyon

I eat about 1800 calories a day and burn 500-900 calories working out and I've lost a total of 75 lbs. It works. Feel free to check out my diary. I don't eat junk or processed foods and it is NOT hard to eat 1800 calories. I follow a diet that people in fitness competitions use. If I followed it exactly I would be eating even more, but they also lift more weights and work out twice a day (at least.)

As a beginner, I would do what the "experts" say and then if that doesn't work experiment with some other things.

stylistchik

What most people don't understand at first is the MFP already factors in a deficit for you, so it's important to stay near the calories the recommend. if your deficit becomes to big your body can't heal, your workouts will be less productive, and your body will start to break down your muscle, bones, etc to get the nutrition it needs causing major problems later on.

It's largely disputed whether you should stop eating after a certain time. I follow the rule: eat when you're hungry. If you need a snack at 10 pm go for it, you won't sleep well hungry. Your metabolism doesn't shut down while you sleep, it goes 24/7.

Eat your calories, you will find some awesome success stories here and you can search for previous topics on the forum home page. Good Luck! You're in the right place!

CAH1968

I was not eating my exercised calories for a long time. And whenever I did eat them, I lost weight. Now over the holidays I stuck to the calories, upped my exercise and all that happened was I maintained and even gained a few pounds. A week ago, I decided to up my calories goal, and now I have lost a pound. Makes no sense to me, but it is true that your body tends to hold on to fat if it thinks you are starving it. So go ahead and eat if you are hungry! You probably are! Try adding avocados or protein bars.

Sd0510

Hey there. A registered dietitian that I've worked with on campus said that it takes 3500 calories lost to lose 1 pound. If you break that down by the 7 days of the week, then that's about 500 calories per day, whether it's calories you've exercised or your deficit for the day. I don't always have 500 calories left each day, but it's just something to think about!

I didn't know that, so thanks for the new info. I was always wondering how many calories equal a pound.

Remember though, MFP already has a deficit from your BMR, so you don't need 500 left over a day, but 500 from your BMR, which you probably are already at without knowing it.

_CowgirlUp_

i don't understand why you said father? you can't father eating that much???

Are you always a jerk or did we catch you on a good day?

wish21

When I was eating 1200 cals a day. after exercising I was about 1800 too. I recommend you change your goal to a pound a week instead. Its a whole lot easier and what I do is I eat 1400 a day, but i DO NOT eat back my exercise cals because when I do I stay at the same weight or gain. You may or may not need to eat yours back. Plus I am not sure how acurate the database is for exercise

MaynardLD50

I'll share my quick story for you because I believe it will benefit you to know where you'll be headed if you continue the low diet road.

I started in June 2011 based off a bet and a contest. I was trucking along and losing weight pretty rapidly every month. I started at 271 and found myself at 218 by November. Everyone I told about how much I lost was amazed and I was pretty excited at how quickly this was happening. I was averaging about 1200 calories a day eaten and that was WITHOUT my workouts. With workouts I was trying to keep my net calories less than 400 for the day. So technically my body only had about 400 calories of energy to rebuild all of the muscle I was tearing up doing extremely heavy lifting at the gym. I was getting frustrated that I couldn't get my weight to go any higher, OH and keep in mind that I wasn't TOUCHING carbs so I had 0 fuel practically. Workouts were miserable, but I endured.

Fast forward to end of November/December and I find myself at 205.5, 205.2, 205.5, 205.2, 206, 205. THE FREAKING SCALE wouldn't move and I was getting frustrated. I tried everything, introduce carbs back, carb load days, carb starvation days, changed my workout, muscle adaptation I thought, increased cardio, reduced cardio, increased lifting, bottom line is nothing worked. I would wake up run to the scale and 205. I'm an avid reader, OCD about the things I'm passionate about and I'm incredibly passionate about health now. I found an article by Martin Berkhan discussing calories and "one of the biggest mistakes people make is they eat too few calories while cutting." At first I was confused and thought "Ugh, what? I thought when you cut that is why it sucks because you can't eat calorie rich food." Boy was I wrong. After an email exchange back and forth I was recommended to read "Feed the Muscle, Burn the Fat" by Tom Venuto to learn the basic pillars of diet, muscles, fat, carbohydrates and overall just how our bodies work. BEST THING I EVER DID! What was I doing wrong? I WASN'T EATING! I had sent my body into a "Starvation Mode", which I never believed existed but I'm walking proof. My body was literally holding on to the little calories I gave it, burning my Lean Body Mass, cannot STRESS HOW IMPORTANT LBM IS, and hanging on to the fat to endure the long slow death my body thought I was going through.

January 1st, 2012 I decided to change my calorie goal from 1800, which it was set at, but actually EAT 1800 calories. I did this for the 1st and 2nd, woke up on the 3rd and weighed myself in the morning 204. HOLY SCHNIKEYS! Learning still from Tom Venuto's book I calculated my actual calories using Katch McArdle method and realized I should be eating about 2200 calories. I bumped up my calories and haven't looked back since. I smashed my plateau, immediately noticed my measurements changed pretty damn fast, body fat dropped, body responded "Holy crap Nick you're not dying, we'll get back to work burning this nasty fat immediately sir!"

TL;DR version: Eat your freaking calories, you will get stuck sooner or later. You will not be able to keep cutting calories if you only eat 400 calories. Also, if you think you're losing weight eating that little, you are, but guess what? It's muscle not fat thus creating a "Skinny Fat Person"

Hopefully you read this and my mistakes won't be repeated. I think I'll share this story in more detail in another post on the forums

cricket_0408

I'll share my quick story for you because I believe it will benefit you to know where you'll be headed if you continue the low diet road.

I started in June 2011 based off a bet and a contest. I was trucking along and losing weight pretty rapidly every month. I started at 271 and found myself at 218 by November. Everyone I told about how much I lost was amazed and I was pretty excited at how quickly this was happening. I was averaging about 1200 calories a day eaten and that was WITHOUT my workouts. With workouts I was trying to keep my net calories less than 400 for the day. So technically my body only had about 400 calories of energy to rebuild all of the muscle I was tearing up doing extremely heavy lifting at the gym. I was getting frustrated that I couldn't get my weight to go any higher, OH and keep in mind that I wasn't TOUCHING carbs so I had 0 fuel practically. Workouts were miserable, but I endured.

Fast forward to end of November/December and I find myself at 205.5, 205.2, 205.5, 205.2, 206, 205. THE FREAKING SCALE wouldn't move and I was getting frustrated. I tried everything, introduce carbs back, carb load days, carb starvation days, changed my workout, muscle adaptation I thought, increased cardio, reduced cardio, increased lifting, bottom line is nothing worked. I would wake up run to the scale and 205. I'm an avid reader, OCD about the things I'm passionate about and I'm incredibly passionate about health now. I found an article by Martin Berkhan discussing calories and "one of the biggest mistakes people make is they eat too few calories while cutting." At first I was confused and thought "Ugh, what? I thought when you cut that is why it sucks because you can't eat calorie rich food." Boy was I wrong. After an email exchange back and forth I was recommended to read "Feed the Muscle, Burn the Fat" by Tom Venuto to learn the basic pillars of diet, muscles, fat, carbohydrates and overall just how our bodies work. BEST THING I EVER DID! What was I doing wrong? I WASN'T EATING! I had sent my body into a "Starvation Mode", which I never believed existed but I'm walking proof. My body was literally holding on to the little calories I gave it, burning my Lean Body Mass, cannot STRESS HOW IMPORTANT LBM IS, and hanging on to the fat to endure the long slow death my body thought I was going through.

January 1st, 2012 I decided to change my calorie goal from 1800, which it was set at, but actually EAT 1800 calories. I did this for the 1st and 2nd, woke up on the 3rd and weighed myself in the morning 204. HOLY SCHNIKEYS! Learning still from Tom Venuto's book I calculated my actual calories using Katch McArdle method and realized I should be eating about 2200 calories. I bumped up my calories and haven't looked back since. I smashed my plateau, immediately noticed my measurements changed pretty damn fast, body fat dropped, body responded "Holy crap Nick you're not dying, we'll get back to work burning this nasty fat immediately sir!"

TL;DR version: Eat your freaking calories, you will get stuck sooner or later. You will not be able to keep cutting calories if you only eat 400 calories. Also, if you think you're losing weight eating that little, you are, but guess what? It's muscle not fat thus creating a "Skinny Fat Person"

Hopefully you read this and my mistakes won't be repeated. I think I'll share this story in more detail in another post on the forums

Thank you for sharing your story!! It makes more sense than you know. I've learned tonight just from this thread that I need to totally change my way of thinking. Awesome!