Should I always eat up to the MFP calorie recomendation?
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darrenlees
Posts: 65 Member
Hi,
My daily allowance worked out by MFP is 1680 calories. Some days i do eat that amount, sometimes i eat more (if i have exercised). But some days i may only eat maybe 1000 calories, just simply because of healthy choice options, or low cal food.
The app then moans at me and say you will go into starvation mode, is this really that bad? I mean surely if i am exercising and eating to the limit most days my body wont just switch to low metabolism will it?
My daily allowance worked out by MFP is 1680 calories. Some days i do eat that amount, sometimes i eat more (if i have exercised). But some days i may only eat maybe 1000 calories, just simply because of healthy choice options, or low cal food.
The app then moans at me and say you will go into starvation mode, is this really that bad? I mean surely if i am exercising and eating to the limit most days my body wont just switch to low metabolism will it?
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Replies
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You shouldn't really be netting as low as 1000, it's way below your BMR.
However... (and I'm no expert) I wouldn't have thought the odd day of low calories would affect your metabolism that much.
It would cause you problems if you ate like that regularly though.
I often try to hit my weekly target rather than being bang on each day... it seems more realistic to me, as I often can't eat all my exercise calories on the same day I get them.0 -
It's a warning that MFP give to protect themselves from being sued for promoting people starving themselves. Your body won't go into starvation mode that quickly, although if you eat like that regularly then you metabolism will adapt to the lower calories and slow down. I wouldn't say one-off days are that much of a problem.0
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I often try to hit my weekly target rather than being bang on each day... it seems more realistic to me, as I often can't eat all my exercise calories on the same day I get them.
Hmm, i'm more confused now, should i be trying to eat calories that i earn whilst exercising? I mainly just try to aim under my daily allowance but i exclude exercise calories as i see this as additional calories off?!?0 -
It's recommended to eat back your exercise calories (that's why MFP adds them onto your daily calorie goal). There is already a deficit built into your calorie goal, so if you don't eat back your exercise calories you are making the deficit larger.
Sounds like a good thing, but in reality it isn't. Too large a calorie deficit and your body will resist letting go of the weight. Numbers wise, it's just the same as eating too little. You need to fuel your body for the exercise you are doing, same as you would fuel a car for an journey that is longer than the one you usually do.
However, lots of people do struggle to eat back all of them. I do quite a large burn on Tuesday evenings at Zumba, and can never seem to manage to eat them all back. I try to spread it across a couple of days instead, and eat more in the day leading up to it as I know roughly how many I will burn.
This is what works for me personally, but I know others have had success with eating none/some/all of their exercise calories... so I'm sure you'll get some differing opinions.
Basically... try to stick to what MFP tells you to do. If it says eat more... eat more. The goals are not there as a calorie 'limit', you should be aiming roughly around that number for the most effective loss as per your weightloss goals.0
