Cant eat enough calories in a day!!!!

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  • Need2lose456
    Need2lose456 Posts: 131 Member
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    I have a similar issue only with TDEEs up between 4 and 5k. I didn't see your food diary, so there's not much data to work with. What I can share is a general approach I took that yielded some useful results.

    The basic issue is not so much increasing calories; you can do that with junk food. (Turn me lose with a batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies and I'll get 'er done fast.) Rather, it is how to increase your intake to fuel your workouts without abandoning healthy eating habits and do it in a sustainable way (not dieting).

    I set out to increase my intake in a balanced way. What I did was to look at each meal I was eating and try to increase it by 15%. That entailed having a bit larger piece of omlette in the morning and having a slightly larger glass of milk, and so on. One of the things I realized is that certain vegetables don't scale well, lettuce for example, you gotta eat a LOT of it to double your calories. But okay, so you wind up eating a big plate of vegetables...that isn't bad. Still, I tried to stick as much to a healthy diet. I wound up adding in a bit of nuts as a snack and on heavy workout days (>200 minutes of cardio) ate a protein shake.

    This is a more incremental approach, but it may be more sustainable given it is based on making slight tweaks to what you are already eating.

    Thanks for the advice!
  • deksgrl
    deksgrl Posts: 7,237 Member
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    Is it better to eat calories lost from exercise or not when aiming for weight loss?

    It depends on how you have your calorie needs set up. MFP does not include exercise in its calculations, it is set up so that you would lose if you did no exercise. When you do exercise, it gives you more calories to eat.

    If you set up your own goal that includes exercise, then no, you would not eat back extra calories.
  • MrsKerryParkin
    MrsKerryParkin Posts: 35 Member
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    Is it better to eat calories lost from exercise or not when aiming for weight loss?

    It depends on how you have your calorie needs set up. MFP does not include exercise in its calculations, it is set up so that you would lose if you did no exercise. When you do exercise, it gives you more calories to eat.

    If you set up your own goal that includes exercise, then no, you would not eat back extra calories.

    Thank You for your reply

    MFP has me set up for 1200C/D I normally gain back about 300C doing exercise (mainly walking for now on advise of doctor) which would then allow me to eat around 1500C/D but I find once I've had my main meal at around 5/6pm I don't want to eat and I still have (mainly) my exercise calories remaining - Is this OK?

    I've heard conflicting things saying my body needs those extra calories burned and others say if you don't eat back the calories it will aid the weight loss.
  • scottaworley
    scottaworley Posts: 871 Member
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    Is it better to eat calories lost from exercise or not when aiming for weight loss?

    It depends on how you have your calorie needs set up. MFP does not include exercise in its calculations, it is set up so that you would lose if you did no exercise. When you do exercise, it gives you more calories to eat.

    If you set up your own goal that includes exercise, then no, you would not eat back extra calories.

    Thank You for your reply

    MFP has me set up for 1200C/D I normally gain back about 300C doing exercise (mainly walking for now on advise of doctor) which would then allow me to eat around 1500C/D but I find once I've had my main meal at around 5/6pm I don't want to eat and I still have (mainly) my exercise calories remaining - Is this OK?

    I've heard conflicting things saying my body needs those extra calories burned and others say if you don't eat back the calories it will aid the weight loss.

    It may aid your weight loss, but if you're netting under 1200 calories consistently than you are probably losing muscle as well as fat.
  • Lochlyn_D
    Lochlyn_D Posts: 492 Member
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    Eat more calorie dense foods. Pasta has about 300 calories per cup, rice is pretty high too. Peanut butter is 90 per tbsp.
  • jollyjoe321
    jollyjoe321 Posts: 529 Member
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    Just an observation that might make you think about eating enough.

    Went to the gym a month ago as normal with my identical twin brother, bear in mind neither of us have worked on legs before at all really. Up until recently I was pretty much 2 stone heavier than him, I cut back a lot, probably to 1000 calories a day, and over a period of months I now weigh the same.

    Now, neither of us have worked our legs, we went to the leg press machine, my brother started repping the max the machine could do (200kg) with no problem (and yes, he did sit as closes as he could to his feet), I then had a go and my 1RM was 170, I really struggled.

    I personally put this down to the calorie deficit from the previous 5 months!
  • deksgrl
    deksgrl Posts: 7,237 Member
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    MFP has me set up for 1200C/D I normally gain back about 300C doing exercise (mainly walking for now on advise of doctor) which would then allow me to eat around 1500C/D but I find once I've had my main meal at around 5/6pm I don't want to eat and I still have (mainly) my exercise calories remaining - Is this OK?

    I would eat the exercise cals. 1200 is rather low for most people. What I mean by that is, for most people, unless they are very short and don't weigh a lot, just the amount of calories needed for organ function is more than 1200. This is called BMR (basal metabolic rate), it is just what your body needs for heart, lungs, organs, if you were in a coma it is the amount they would feed you to keep you alive. My BMR is about 1400.

    If your BMR is more than 1200 and you eat just 1200, plus you are putting stress on your body by doing more than just sitting on the couch all day, this isn't helping with weight loss. Your body will produce a stress hormone called cortisol, and this prevents weight loss. Your body is essentially sending the signal that these conditions aren't safe for you to drop fat, it is going to need all it can.

    So, I would try to plan your meals better through the day to get the 1500 so you don't have 300 calories left to eat at night. For example, if you eat 3 meals and two snacks, try to make breakfast, lunch and dinner about 400 cals and have two 150 cal snacks. Or, figure out a 300 cal snack that you can eat after dinner if you still have cals left over. It doesn't have to be a lot of volume of food. A full handful of almonds is about 200 calories right there.
  • MrsKerryParkin
    MrsKerryParkin Posts: 35 Member
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    Is it better to eat calories lost from exercise or not when aiming for weight loss?

    It depends on how you have your calorie needs set up. MFP does not include exercise in its calculations, it is set up so that you would lose if you did no exercise. When you do exercise, it gives you more calories to eat.

    If you set up your own goal that includes exercise, then no, you would not eat back extra calories.

    Thank You for your reply

    MFP has me set up for 1200C/D I normally gain back about 300C doing exercise (mainly walking for now on advise of doctor) which would then allow me to eat around 1500C/D but I find once I've had my main meal at around 5/6pm I don't want to eat and I still have (mainly) my exercise calories remaining - Is this OK?

    I've heard conflicting things saying my body needs those extra calories burned and others say if you don't eat back the calories it will aid the weight loss.

    It may aid your weight loss, but if you're netting under 1200 calories consistently than you are probably losing muscle as well as fat.

    I'm hitting 1200C/D sometime maybe just slightly over - Yesterday eg: I used1275c but didnt really go into any of my exercised back calories

    Sorry, I'm a bit slow on picking all this up so if you feel I'm going round in circles please just tell me LOL :tongue:
  • deksgrl
    deksgrl Posts: 7,237 Member
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    Is it better to eat calories lost from exercise or not when aiming for weight loss?

    It depends on how you have your calorie needs set up. MFP does not include exercise in its calculations, it is set up so that you would lose if you did no exercise. When you do exercise, it gives you more calories to eat.

    If you set up your own goal that includes exercise, then no, you would not eat back extra calories.

    Thank You for your reply

    MFP has me set up for 1200C/D I normally gain back about 300C doing exercise (mainly walking for now on advise of doctor) which would then allow me to eat around 1500C/D but I find once I've had my main meal at around 5/6pm I don't want to eat and I still have (mainly) my exercise calories remaining - Is this OK?

    I've heard conflicting things saying my body needs those extra calories burned and others say if you don't eat back the calories it will aid the weight loss.

    It may aid your weight loss, but if you're netting under 1200 calories consistently than you are probably losing muscle as well as fat.

    I'm hitting 1200C/D sometime maybe just slightly over - Yesterday eg: I used1275c but didnt really go into any of my exercised back calories

    Sorry, I'm a bit slow on picking all this up so if you feel I'm going round in circles please just tell me LOL :tongue:

    If you ate 1275 but did not eat any exercise calories then you netted under 1200.

    1275 - 300 = 975 NET.

    You should have netted 1200 (Eat 1500 - 300 exercise = 1200 NET)
  • MrsKerryParkin
    MrsKerryParkin Posts: 35 Member
    Options
    Is it better to eat calories lost from exercise or not when aiming for weight loss?

    It depends on how you have your calorie needs set up. MFP does not include exercise in its calculations, it is set up so that you would lose if you did no exercise. When you do exercise, it gives you more calories to eat.

    If you set up your own goal that includes exercise, then no, you would not eat back extra calories.

    Thank You for your reply

    MFP has me set up for 1200C/D I normally gain back about 300C doing exercise (mainly walking for now on advise of doctor) which would then allow me to eat around 1500C/D but I find once I've had my main meal at around 5/6pm I don't want to eat and I still have (mainly) my exercise calories remaining - Is this OK?

    I've heard conflicting things saying my body needs those extra calories burned and others say if you don't eat back the calories it will aid the weight loss.

    It may aid your weight loss, but if you're netting under 1200 calories consistently than you are probably losing muscle as well as fat.

    I'm hitting 1200C/D sometime maybe just slightly over - Yesterday eg: I used1275c but didnt really go into any of my exercised back calories

    Sorry, I'm a bit slow on picking all this up so if you feel I'm going round in circles please just tell me LOL :tongue:

    If you ate 1275 but did not eat any exercise calories then you netted under 1200.

    1275 - 300 = 975 NET.

    You should have netted 1200 (Eat 1500 - 300 exercise = 1200 NET)

    Riiiiiight, so as long as my net is 1200 then I'm OK?

    (Again I'm sorry lol)
  • mazdauk
    mazdauk Posts: 1,380 Member
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    Bummed..... Looks like i have wasted my money on a Polar HRM :sad:

    Which HRM's do you guys use and trust?

    I use the MFP estimates - free is good, that's why we're here:wink: A lot of poeple say its an over-estimate, but I've used it consistently (except for Wii Zumba, when I use what the game says) and not had a problem.

    Just occurred to me though - are you also weighing your food? If not you could be under-estimating your actual calorie intake. (Especially things like pasta, cereal....)

    ETA properly weighed on a scale - cup measures are inaccurate at best

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