Is it important to use up daily calories allowance?

silverpuma
silverpuma Posts: 10
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi, I'm a 231lb, 53yr old male. Myfitness.com says to lose 2lb per week I need to have 1450 cals per day.

I burn 300-350 cals exercising Mon-Fri so 5 days a week. This gives me a total daily calorie amount of 1750-1800 cals. I'm finding with reducing my old enormous portion sizes by 50% and being very diligent with my cal counting I have every day approximately 400-600 cals left unused. So I'm content and satisfied on about 1250ish cals daily.

But........should I try to eat my full allowance of cals each day? So 1750 on exercises days and 1450 on non-exercise days? It seems odd to eat more cals when I do feel honestly satisfied.

I've been on the myfiness.com diet now 15 days and have lost 6lb. I've read about your body going into starvation mode with too little cals but the way I feel satisfied could I still be in starvation mode it seems a stretch?

Thanks in advance for any help offered...........

Replies

  • FluffyMcNutter
    FluffyMcNutter Posts: 68
    Most of the MFP 2 lb/wk goals are too low. (You feed yourself so little that you actually wind up doing more harm than good, even you have immediate results...it's kind of fad-diet-like...)

    If you like eating back exercise calories, then try doing 1.5 or 1 lb per week.

    If you don't care about eating back calories, or don't like it, then check out the TDEE-x% method. http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/952996-level-obstacles-lose-weight-target-fat-easy

    MFP's estimates of calories burned during exercise are habitually overstated. Eat 50-75% of them, or get an HRM...or switch to the TDEE method so you don't have to count them at all. It's all preference. :)
  • angieleighbyrd
    angieleighbyrd Posts: 989 Member
    I try to net at least 1500 a day. Net meaning I eat back what I burn....

    My daily calories are set to 1581....

    I haven't always done that. I hit a wall and have been battling the same 9 pounds since November. Since I recalculated my bmr and tdee and have been sticking to it and not going under I feel a lot better. I am not tired at all, like ever. I used to want to crash by 3pm...now I'm good to go all day. My headaches are gone. Before I started eating back my cals from exercise I was only nettig 800-1000 a day even though I was eating 1600. I felt like **** come 3 o'clock everyday. I took naps constantly, I had headaches and dizzy spells etc.

    I feel so much better eating back everything.

    I haven't gotten on the scale yet since I started this....I am strict with the scale and only get on it every 30 days (for my own reasons) but I just have that feeling that I am breaking this wall ya know? My clothes fit better...I just generally feel smaller so I do think it's working for me.

    It's also helped me get control of my ED. I am a binge eater. I have several different triggers. I've been binge free for 10 days now. I know 10 days isn't a lot, but for me it's huge....

    and yes I know my binges could be contributing to the stall in my loss.
  • silverpuma
    silverpuma Posts: 10

    MFP's estimates of calories burned during exercise are habitually overstated. Eat 50-75% of them, or get an HRM...or switch to the TDEE method so you don't have to count them at all. It's all preference. :)

    Sorry to be slowt but what's the ...... TDEE......... method ...........thanks

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