Net Calorie Confusion!!

swall13

When I exercise, mfp adds those calories burned to my calorie goal for the day. Should I be eating those or ignoring them? My net calorie intake is around 800. I am 5'4" and 138 lbs at 30% bodyfat and want to get down to 110 and 12%. But I don't want to do it the wrong way...I want LASTING results. Thanks for your help!
Also, I am currently eating 1200 calories a day and doing 2-4 miles of cardio as well as P90x.

Longtobeslim

800 calories a day is WAY TO LOW! That is why mfp adds your exercise calories back in. If you continue to eat that few net calories you will put your body in starvation mode. Then your body will hold onto all the calories you eat and your weight loss will store.

I have a hard time eating my extra calories from exercise sometimes too. Some days I don't eat any of them, some days I eat half and occasionally if I got out to eat with friends I eat them all. I try to listen to my body to see if I am feeling more hungry and need the extra fuel. Having said that, I have never eating that few of calories.

When you set your goal for how many pounds you want to lose a week, mfp calculates how many calories you need to eat to lose that amount. So mfp has already cut some calories for you. If you exercise a lot and then don't eat at least some of those calories the calorie deficit becomes even larger which can slow your metabolism down.

Hope that makes sense. I know there are others that can explain it better. I would just say really learn to listen to your body to be able to determine if you are hungry. If you are eat, or try drinking water first to see if you are hungry or just thirsty.

But in my opinion you are not eating enough calories.

Good luck.

Erin

swall13

Thank you! That makes sense. I definitley don't want my body to be in starvation mode. It's just hard to purposefully eat extra when trying to lose weight. Do you know what an ideal net calorie intake is?

Longtobeslim

I know what you are saying. I did Weight Watchers a few years ago. I was exercising 3 times a day and eating on program. I didn't have a loss 7 weeks in a row. I talked to my leader and she told me to either cut out some of my exercise or eat more. I didn't want to cut out any of my exercising because I was enjoying it. So she told me to eat more.

I thought she was crazy! Eat more when I hadn't lost in 7 weeks. But I trusted her so I took a leap of faith and ate more points (calories). I had 3 BIG losses the next 3 weeks. I wasn't eating enough for all that I was asking my body to do. Once I started "fueling" my body again and got it out of 'starvation mode' I started losing well again.

As for the ideal net calorie number, that is different for everyone. The rule of thumb that I have heard and read a lot about is: 1200 calories.

Hope that helps.

Erin