calorie consumption

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tmood35
tmood35 Posts: 2
in Introduce Yourself
Hello all! I am new to my fitness pal. Should I be concerned if I do not consume all the calories allotted for me for the day? Yesterday I had over 300 calories remaining . I was completely fine not having anymore food as I had completed my six meals for the day. I have loaded my food for the day for today and still have 500 calories left. Please advise.

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  • Bob314159
    Bob314159 Posts: 1,178 Member
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    You will get many differing opinions on this.

    1. If you do not eat all your calories - you will gain weight, since it puts you into starvation mode and changes your metabolism.

    or 2. If you are not being anorexic and are not constantly undereating, there is no problem and there is no such thing as "starvation mode" for the average person, who is not doing massive amounts of exercise/training or fasting/starving themselves

    Prepare to be confused and also do your own research
  • Tsbarnes
    Tsbarnes Posts: 1
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    I think you should be fine as long as you are satisfied and not starving yourself. As mentioned in the previous reply; do your own research because you will get conflicting answers.
    Best of luck!
  • TeaBea
    TeaBea Posts: 14,517 Member
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    If your calorie deficit is too large (on a frequent basis) ... your body will use muscle tissue for fuel. This is why MFP (as designed) has you eat back exercise calories ... the deficit is already built in and exercise makes it larger still.

    Personally, my goal is to lose "just fat" if I can. I may lose slower, but muscle tissue is so important for my metabolism.
  • erinbolton
    erinbolton Posts: 28 Member
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    If you are not excercising on that given day I would eat closer to the goal amount. If you ARE exercising on that day I usually try to only eat up the original goal weight. So for instance my goal amount per day is 1200 calories, typically if I exercise I have btwn 300-500 calories of exercise calories. So what I will do is eat all 1200 and some of the exercise calories but not all. If you eat them all back you won't lose as quickly. But 1200 is a bottomline amount on average for women, you don't really want to eat much less than that amount. I try to keep it no more than 100 calories under the 1200 if I chose not to exercise. I don't know if that helps, but that is what I try to do.

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