Meeting Calorie Goals

jsam163

I am currently set to eat about 1300-1400 calories a day, in order to lose weight. I can meet that easily when I don't work out, but when I work out I have trouble eating all my calories back. Is that going to hinder my weight loss? I eat after I work out, but I rarely hit the goal. Sometimes I'm only a few hundred calories off, and other more active days (like today) I am about 1000 under my calorie goal. I know some people eating under their goals can really mess with their metabolism, but I still have 30+ to lose, is it still such a concern even if I eat about 1500 a day?

Should I be revving up my calorie intake? Or should I just eat what feels like a decent amount?

BrynnyB

I am having the same trouble. I can't seem to eat enough calories to get to my goal and it is a bit worrisome.

ipag

You can always add a handful of nuts, add more protein, or just be real liberal with the olive oil and other healthy fats. That is, if you want to meet your calorie goals. If you are eating that amount and are not feeling hungry, then keep on doing what your doing.

SweetxCatastrophe

I'm in the camp that doesn't eat back exercise calories so, as long as I meet my original goal (for me its 1400), I don't worry about it. I don't seem to have any negative effects from just eating to 1400 and not worrying about eating back. I'm sire someone will say I'll die that way or something, but it works for me and I feel great

impyimpyaj

It depends on how close you are to your healthy weight range, what your BMR is, and how many calories you're burning through exercise. If we're talking a couple hundred calories a day, it's probably not going to be a huge deal, at least not for a while. If you're getting huge burns, you'll probably eventually want to eat at least some of those calories back in order to stay healthy and keep from losing too much muscle.

ipag had good suggestions for increasing your intake. Look for healthy, calorie-dense foods so you don't have to eat so much food volume-wise in order to get the calories. Nuts, bananas, oils, avocado, etc. Full-fat dairy, if you consume dairy.

CRody44

I haven’t figured this out yet – eating your exercise calories. I went several months (Primal) without eating them back and started losing my hair and my fingernails started cracking. I was told this was a sign of starvation. During this time, I lost a lot of weight, but I was also exercising a lot, ending up with 900-1000 calories per day. I got frustrated and started eating “junk style” again for about six months. I gained weight but my hair stopped falling out. In the beginning of June, I started Primal again and lost weight, not eating my exercise calories, but limiting my exercise so that I would not go under 1500 calories. Then I joined a gym and started exercising more so started eating my exercise calories again, and again, gained weight. Another problem with this is the increase in sodium, ingesting 1000-2000 mg over my doctor prescribed limit.

Since this is an ongoing experiment, I’m going to go back to not eating my exercise calories, but limiting my exercise so that I don’t eat less than 1500 calories per day.