help getting to my daily net cals after excercise

tulsaBill

MFP is brand new to me. I had an epiphany on the road home from a recent vacation. I was eating breakfast at Waffle House and thought I had a relatively simple meal, that is until I added up all the cals, fat, and salt. Wow! Loaded MFP right there in the restaurant and have been logging everything since.

Here is my issue, since cutting out the Big Macs and french fries and fried chicken and such I'm really finding it hard to get to my net of 2500 after very light exercise (just walking the dog 30-60 min a day). I plan to exercise more vigorously once I have my diet under control so I assume the problem gets even bigger then.

Eating more whole foods is certainly filling me up and I was really surprised that I am not hungry at all. But, other than the first day I've had to really push to eat enough to get to 2500.

Anybody else run into this?

I've been on vacation so it's easy to take the time to prepare good whole meals this week(had an awesome egg, spinach, shrimp, cheese scramble this morning) but as soon as I go back to work it's eating breakfast and lunch on the run.

714rah714

Why are your calories set so high?

beachlover317

What you are experiencing is very common. You begin to fill your body with healthier foods and they satisfy you and then you are full and have not reached the cals you need for the day.

Think of it this way. Your body requires a certain number of cals to function every day to get you through your regular activities. Then you add exercise and the body needs more to just break even. The important thing is to keep meeting your cal. requirements (TDEE - 10 - 15 %) every day. You have to make different food choices to do that some days. Higher cal. dense foods (nuts, nut butters, avocados, etc) will help you meet the caloric needs without being overly full.

Hope that makes sense! :flowerforyou:

pspetralia

What you are experiencing is very common. You begin to fill your body with healthier foods and they satisfy you and then you are full and have not reached the cals you need for the day.

Think of it this way. Your body requires a certain number of cals to function every day to get you through your regular activities. Then you add exercise and the body needs more to just break even. The important thing is to keep meeting your cal. requirements (TDEE - 10 - 15 %) every day. You have to make different food choices to do that some days. Higher cal. dense foods (nuts, nut butters, avocados, etc) will help you meet the caloric needs without being overly full.

Hope that makes sense! :flowerforyou:

^^ this plus here is a link that explains it further...
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/654536-in-place-of-a-road-map-2-0-revised-7-2-12

tulsaBill

Why are your calories set so high?

My TDEE is ~3261 so the daily cal intake before exerciser is ~2500.
330LBS, 5 10, 43yo male. Curently only light excercise until I get this eating right thing down then I'll add some more cardio and strength.