Negative Net Calories

Hey Guys. So i was looking over my reports and i noticed that on about three days this week i have - net calories meaning i burnt more then i consumed. I'm just wondering if this is really bad.

Now before you go telling me i need to eat a whole lot more hear me out. i'm a dancer and spend 4-7 hours a day dancing + time in the gym etc, so i burn quite a few calories (still need to loose a lot of weight though) and i still eat a fair amount but if i were to consume everything i burnt i would be eating all the time and that's just not going to work? But am i doing myself serious damage by burning more calories then i consume?

Replies

  • angelo
    angelo Posts: 3 Member
    Hey Guys. So i was looking over my reports and i noticed that on about three days this week i have - net calories meaning i burnt more then i consumed. I'm just wondering if this is really bad.

    Now before you go telling me i need to eat a whole lot more hear me out. i'm a dancer and spend 4-7 hours a day dancing + time in the gym etc, so i burn quite a few calories (still need to loose a lot of weight though) and i still eat a fair amount but if i were to consume everything i burnt i would be eating all the time and that's just not going to work? But am i doing myself serious damage by burning more calories then i consume?
  • rheston
    rheston Posts: 638
    The software program is just a general guideline for people use to adjust themselves to a routine and regular diet. It's been my personal experience that if I eat to the calorie intake level I used to begin my program (pre-exercise) then I lose weight regularly. If I eat to the calorie level recommended by the software program to compensate for my exercising then I either lose weight more slowly or I don't lose at all.

    My recommendation is that you start out eating to the level that's your pre-exercise calorie intake goal. If you find yourself hungry between meals then add a healthy snack to satisfy that hunger pang and still stay under the max calorie intake. This way you will be responding to your body's needs rather than a software program's recommendation.

    I hope that helps
  • angelo
    angelo Posts: 3 Member
    Maybe i didn't explain myself well. My suggested pre-excercise calories is 1200,
    in an average day i will consume 1000-1300 calories a day (sometimes only 800 but those are crazy days)
    Also in an average day i will burn between 900-1600 calories through excercise alone (plus all the calories you burn in an average day doing normal activites)
    I don't feel hungry ever (i've been that way all my life, i just don't feel hungry, never have) so i have to remind myself to eat otherwise i will forget i havn't eaten.

    This week alone i've lost 9 pounds (42lbs left to go), but i'm wondering if it's going to be detremential to my health to be burning more calories through my daily excercise then i would consume in my suggested pre-excercise calories?

    I hope that makes sense.. i'm still not sure that i am explaining myself well. Maybe i need to go to bed!
  • When your calories drop below 1200 calories a day your body goes into "starvation mode" meaning when you do eat your body holds on to every calorie because it does not know when it will refuel again.
    I'm not saying you are doing your body harm as long as you are giving our body the vitamins and minerals it needs as well as the protien. The problem is when you do start eating regularly or your cardio level drops your body will still hold on to every calorie and you will gain weight again. This is why when people "yo-yo diet" (going on a diet ,then off t,hen going back on cause they gained the weight back) they usually regain what they lost and say the diet doesn't work. It is a healthy eating style that you need to adapt to become a healthy person.
    Now, if you are on a 1200 calorie diet and you eat those 1200 and burn those calorie (healthy calories + vitamins) you are fine, but those days you eat less than you burn your body will hold on every calorie it can and turn it into fat for energy.
    Maybe i didn't explain myself well. My suggested pre-excercise calories is 1200,
    in an average day i will consume 1000-1300 calories a day (sometimes only 800 but those are crazy days)
    Also in an average day i will burn between 900-1600 calories through excercise alone (plus all the calories you burn in an average day doing normal activites)
    I don't feel hungry ever (i've been that way all my life, i just don't feel hungry, never have) so i have to remind myself to eat otherwise i will forget i havn't eaten.

    This week alone i've lost 9 pounds (42lbs left to go), but i'm wondering if it's going to be detremential to my health to be burning more calories through my daily excercise then i would consume in my suggested pre-excercise calories?

    I hope that makes sense.. i'm still not sure that i am explaining myself well. Maybe i need to go to bed!
  • rheston
    rheston Posts: 638
    I agree with twobits. The medical community wouldn't warn against eating less than 1200 calories a day it if it was not scientifically proven. However, your body is smarter than you might think and when you do not eat enough, it goes into conservation mode...meaning it slows your systems, shuts down what it doesn't think it needs, and conserves as much energy (food/calories) as possible. This is the metabolic rate.

    This makes sense when you put it into this perspective: Those who are anorexic lose their period, slow their heart rate, drop their core temperature, and often lose hair...all because the body sees those as dispensable systems and shuts them down in the effort to keep as many calories for keeping the heart beating. It is the survival mechanism.

    One of the primary reasons that it is 1200 is because this is a baseline for how much it takes to operate all the systems in the body (ie: the liver takes 300 a day, the heart takes 400...that kind of thing).
  • lotusfromthemud
    lotusfromthemud Posts: 5,335 Member
    I started at 1200 calories a day. . . and began to suffer serious side effects from eating so little. If you are active at all, 1200 calories is way too low for you. If you are in "negative net calories", you can damage your health.

    Since your body is your instrument, and you need to call on it a lot, I would really advise you to up your calories to at least 10 times your body weight, and then strive to eat around half of your exercise calories back. Or, on the settings or goals page you can adjust your activity level according to your job, and then you should get more calories (and then not count your dancing as exercise, but as activity) (in other words, don't "log" it).

    Your weight loss will slow down (it would come to a screeching halt in starvation mode, anyway) but it will be the healthy, sustainable kind.:flowerforyou:
  • zenmama
    zenmama Posts: 1,000
    Thank you viviakay and rheston well said!!!

    dd
    nursing student.