Confused about remaining calories

Dnjsmom

My calorie goal for a day is 1330. Today I have eaten 1277, exercised 717, which gives me a net of 560 and 770 remaining.

I am wondering if I'm supposed to be closer to zero remaining or if I should have such a high amount like this. I've read through the newbie info posts, and maybe it's because I'm tired, but I'm confused on this.

Thanks in advance!

tori_grr

I'm confused to I had like 1300 remaining that's a lot !

imthelobster

You want your NET total to be 1330, so yeah you would want to eat all of those exercise calories back. If you don't, your deficit is too high.

Usually I would suggest eating back about 1/2 - 3/4 of your exercise calories, just to account for the over-estimation of exercise and under-estimation of calorie intake.

AzhureSnow

You want to be as close to 0 remaining as possible, honestly. If you are that far under, you might end up putting your body in starvation mode which can actually prevent weight loss and cause your body to hoard fat.
The way it works is...
You have a Basal Metabolic Rate, which is the BARE MINIMUM calories that are necessary to sustain body functions and maintain current weight. For most people, this is between 1700-2300 calories or so. This only includes basic life support functions like breathing and digestion. A basic sedentary lifestyle only adds a few hundred calories to that BMR, MyFitnessPal calculates your calorie allowance by subtracting a given amount (based on how quickly you want to lose weight) from that BMR. By eating those calories and maintaining your current activity level, you will lose the weight (it takes a 3500 calorie deficit per week to lose 1 pound a week).
When you exercise, your body spends a lot of calories moving your muscles during the workout. Because those calories were spent, it doesn't have access to them to sustain body function. Your body will start hoarding calories because it needs them to sustain functions. You won't lose weight.
By "eating back" your calories, you're replenishing what you've spent, and you're still "netting" a calorie level below that amount that MFP calculated for you to lose weight.

AzhureSnow

And for what it's worth - my daily goal is 1200 calories. I try to have no more than 200 calories left over at the end of the day, and I try to eat back most of my exercise calories if it's been a particularly vigorous workout (more than 300 or so calories in an hour).

tori_grr

Humm well my meals and snacks are around 110 calories besides dinner but the thing is I'm not ever really hungry so I don't want to eat more... I burn like 750 calories from swimming in just an hour so it shoots my calories way up.. I'm afraid if I eat more especially if I'm not hungry I will just gain but I guess I won't know till I try

JesterMFP

Humm well my meals and snacks are around 110 calories besides dinner but the thing is I'm not ever really hungry so I don't want to eat more... I burn like 750 calories from swimming in just an hour so it shoots my calories way up.. I'm afraid if I eat more especially if I'm not hungry I will just gain but I guess I won't know till I try

One thing to bear in mind is that when you are not feeding your body enough calories, your metabolism adjusts downwards. Part of that process means that people often don't feel as hungry. Purely from my own experience, I have been on very low calories and not felt hungry. There are messages on these boards all the time from people who are not on enough calories, but don't feel they can force themselves to eat any more. People often say "only eat when you're hungry" or "your body will tell you what it needs". It's a nice idea, but unfortunately it doesn't always work like that. Just because you're not hungry, doesn't mean your body doesn't need the fuel, it might just have stopped sending your brain hunger signals. Often, when people increase their calorie intake, they actually start getting hungrier - as their metabolism starts increasing.

If you have 1300 calories remaining on MFP, then that's how many calories you are depriving your body of, on top of the healthy calorie deficit already built in by MFP. Honestly, your body is not going to thank you for that in the long term. You might even find it harder to lose weight as time goes on, if your metabolism slows down too much. I've been eating at maintenance for a couple of weeks (the number of calories I can have without losing or gaining weight). I'll admit, it was a struggle for a couple of days and I did feel like I was stuffing myself with food. Only for a couple of days though! I now feel great, and the crazy thing is, I'm still losing! That's at 1750 NET calories (so, I eat all my exercise calories too). Don't be afraid to eat more. As long as you still have a calorie deficit, you will lose.

Pebble321

Yes, you should aim to have 0 calories left at the end of the day. You don't have to be obsessive about it though - I tend to think that 50 - 100 under or over is not a big deal, as long as they balance out reasonably well over the week.
Just make sure you logging your food and exercise as accurately as possible - bearing in mind that all the numbers are estimates.

If you find that you have a lot of cals left at the end of the day, you probably need to start planning better. Log in the food you plan to eat for meals and snacks, take a guess at how much you are likely to exercise and adjust your diary til you have 0 cals left.
Eat what you've planned even if you don't feel hungry - my opinion is that many of us are way out of touch with what our bodies need and relying on hunger is not a very good strategy. Try that out for a month and see what the results are - if you are losing faster or slower than you expect then you can change things around.

(Or I could just have said: "read what Jester says!")

Dnjsmom

I use my UP band to tell me what my exercise calories are and I log those in under my cardiovascular, and those are fairly accurate. My food numbers are accurate as I am measuring and scanning barcodes (making sure info on pkg matches barcodes because often it hasn't). On some days I can have up to 700 calories burnt between treadmill and walking outside, other days I will have much less.

I have no problem eating all my calories, it's just when the exercise starts subtracting and leaving me with remaining calories that I'm going to have to fix. Add to that I'm diabetic as well - my blood sugars have been awesome all this week, now to eat more....eek!

I'll have to tinker more with what I'm eating and get it closer together! THANK YOU!