Meeting my calorie goal... Help!

drich1989

Serious question here... And please dont make fun of me for asking lol I just went grocery shopping for the week and I'm beginning to eat very clean and natural foods. However eating so healthily makes it hard to meet my calorie goal, especially if I work out. So how important is it to eat back the calories I burn every day?

Say I eat my goal of 1300 then burn 200 calories on a run, is it better for my body to eat back those 200 calories?

Thanks for any help!

BarefootBrendan

Have a look at this article. It might help explain things.

http://www.intense-workout.com/post_workout.html

Pebble321

If your are following the goals set by MFP, then yes, you should eat the extra 200.
MFP takes a calorie deficit away from your food allowance, you don't need to make it larger with exercise.
You'll find its not hard to eat all your cals if you eat real food, not "diet" food. If you need extra cals, things like adding nuts or olive oil dressing to salad, having full fat yoghurt with fruit, adding cheese or avocado to a sandwich etc will get you up there very quickly.

ruby_red_rose

Extra 200 calories isn't much. Eat some high calorie foods just as nuts, nut butter, cheese etc. if you are having a really hard time keeping your calories up.

HonkyTonks

1 tbsp of peanut butter = 150 calories
1 tbsp of olive oil = 100 calories
1 avocado = 300 calories
a few pieces of dark chocolate

And.. really.. as long as you are mostly eating well, there is no reason to disclude "non healthy" stuff like icecream!

drich1989

Thanks for the feedback!