I'm confused

irma73
irma73 Posts: 25 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
My total daily calorie is 1200, but do I also eat my net calories? Has anyone ever not eaten them and seen faster results? Or should I use them up so that I wont get sick? Any help would be greatly appreciated. ;):huh:

Replies

  • ldula88
    ldula88 Posts: 169 Member
    Net Calories is just what calories you eat minus what you burn through exercise. For example:

    1350 calories eaten - 150 calories burned on the treadmill = 1200 Net Calories

    If you don't exercise during any given day, your Net is equal to the calories you've eaten that day.

    Your Net should always be above 1200 to get enough energy to fuel your body. A lot of people find they lose even better at a Net of 1400 or so. Hope this helps!
  • ImtheOnethatsCool
    ImtheOnethatsCool Posts: 212 Member
    YOu should eat your exercise calories. If you aren't confident in the accuracy of the exercise count, eat at least half of them.
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,431 MFP Moderator
    By creating a larger deficit, you will see faster weight loss... but then again, a lot more weight will probably be from muscle. Ideally, you want to maximize fat loss and minimize muscle loss because getting a lean and tight body is not about weigh, it's about body composition. You accomplish this by eating adequate protein, having a moderate deficit (1 lb per week max or 20% less than TDEE) and resistance training. In fact, most women I know eat a total of 1700-2100 calories and losing weight. Also when you actually fuel your body, you decrease the chances your resting metabolic rate will adapt to burn less calories.

    If you want, post your height, weight age and workout routine and we can look at your estimated calorie requirements.
  • vjohn04
    vjohn04 Posts: 2,276 Member
    I would eat as many calories as I possibly can while still losing weight.

    Why needlessly deprive yourself of tasty calories?
  • vjohn04
    vjohn04 Posts: 2,276 Member
    By creating a large deficit, you will see faster weight loss... but then again, a lot more weight will probably be from muscle. Ideally, you want to maximize fat loss and minimize muscle loss because getting a lean and tight body is not about weigh, it's about body composition. You accomplish this by eating adequate protein, having a moderate deficit (1 lb per week max or 20% less than TDEE) and resistance training. In fact, most women I know eat a total of 1700-2100 calories and losing weight. Also when you actually fuel your body, you decrease the chances your resting metabolic rate will adapt to burn less calories.


    this^
  • Achrya
    Achrya Posts: 16,913 Member
    I would eat as many calories as I possibly can while still losing weight.

    Why needlessly deprive yourself of tasty calories?

    I wonder this myself. Food is so delicious, why wouldn't you want to eat all you can while still attaining your goal?
  • PikaKnight
    PikaKnight Posts: 34,971 Member
    Faster results?
  • W8G0
    W8G0 Posts: 30 Member
    Faster results?

    This
  • jofjltncb6
    jofjltncb6 Posts: 34,415 Member
    I would eat as many calories as I possibly can while still losing weight.

    Why needlessly deprive yourself of tasty calories?

    ^this...even though it's clearly a very unpopular approach.
  • MyChocolateDiet
    MyChocolateDiet Posts: 22,281 Member
    My total daily calorie is 1200, but do I also eat my net calories? Has anyone ever not eaten them and seen faster results? Or should I use them up so that I wont get sick? Any help would be greatly appreciated. ;):huh:

    Yes you should use them up. As many as you can while still losing weight. I get headaches if i don't use mine up. I know the half is recommended but I go for them all. Try both ways, maybe if you have no predispositions to headaches or anything you can do the half of them thing, or maybe you can lose just fine eating them all like me. I also have more energy eating them back, and just really more fun. It makes restaurant nights with husband much easier on days I worked out. Good luck, :flowerforyou:
  • irma73
    irma73 Posts: 25 Member
    Thank you for responding to my post. After yesterday's workout I was exhausted. I felt better after eating lunch and drinking plenty of warer. As long as I see results I will continue eating my exercise calories, but once I hit a plateau I think I'll eat half of them. What do you guys think? THANKS!
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    Thank you for responding to my post. After yesterday's workout I was exhausted. I felt better after eating lunch and drinking plenty of warer. As long as I see results I will continue eating my exercise calories, but once I hit a plateau I think I'll eat half of them. What do you guys think? THANKS!

    I always ate mine back throughout the entire process. If you plateau it is likely that you have an estimation error somewhere...intake or burn or both. Precision is the key to all of this...if you are as precise as possible and consistent you shouldn't really have plateaus save for the fact that weight loss isn't linear and you will have weeks with no loss, etc...but those aren't plateaus.
  • irma73
    irma73 Posts: 25 Member
    By creating a larger deficit, you will see faster weight loss... but then again, a lot more weight will probably be from muscle. Ideally, you want to maximize fat loss and minimize muscle loss because getting a lean and tight body is not about weigh, it's about body composition. You accomplish this by eating adequate protein, having a moderate deficit (1 lb per week max or 20% less than TDEE) and resistance training. In fact, most women I know eat a total of 1700-2100 calories and losing weight. Also when you actually fuel your body, you decrease the chances your resting metabolic rate will adapt to burn less calories.

    If you want, post your height, weight age and workout routine and we can look at your estimated calorie requirements.

    I'm 5ft an 7 inches, I weigh 181lbs, I'm 40 years young, and my workout routine consists of cardio 5 days week for 60 minutes. Btw what is TDEE?
  • focuseddiva
    focuseddiva Posts: 174 Member
    You and i Have basically the same stats. So I'd love to know how you do and what you wind up doing. I have a calorie goal of 1200. I exercise and try NOT to eat back those calories, but I often wind up snacking a bit and eating some of them back. I only started MFP 8 days ago. It looks like, on average, I have would up consuming 1300 cals NET. Cals eaten are more like 1600-1700. I have not yet jumped on the scale. Want one more week of doing this to see what happen.s
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,431 MFP Moderator
    By creating a larger deficit, you will see faster weight loss... but then again, a lot more weight will probably be from muscle. Ideally, you want to maximize fat loss and minimize muscle loss because getting a lean and tight body is not about weigh, it's about body composition. You accomplish this by eating adequate protein, having a moderate deficit (1 lb per week max or 20% less than TDEE) and resistance training. In fact, most women I know eat a total of 1700-2100 calories and losing weight. Also when you actually fuel your body, you decrease the chances your resting metabolic rate will adapt to burn less calories.

    If you want, post your height, weight age and workout routine and we can look at your estimated calorie requirements.

    I'm 5ft an 7 inches, I weigh 181lbs, I'm 40 years young, and my workout routine consists of cardio 5 days week for 60 minutes. Btw what is TDEE?

    TDEE stands for total daily energy expended, aka your maintenance calories. This is the amount of calories you burn through your metabolic rate, daily activities and exercise. So to show the math, assuming you have a sedentary job, your estimate BMR would be 1565 (based on stats) and you burn around 300-400 calories per workout (about common with cardio workouts) then the math would look like:


    TDEE = 1565 * 1.2 + 300 = 2178

    What this means is, you can NOT gain any new body fat unless you exceed 2178 calories. Essentially, you maintain at 2178 calories From this number, you form a deficit. With only 25 lbs to lose, 1 lb per week ideal. So your caloric goal should be

    CR = 2178 - 500 = 1678.

    So ideally, I just set a custom goal to 1700 calories. I would also adjust macro's to around 40% carbs, 30% protein and fats because you should try to hit 1g of protein and .35g of fat per lb of lean body mass.


    Additionally, I would suggest you replace 3 cardio days with full body weight training or resistance training. WT is very important, especially as we age, as it will help maintain your lean body mass (more lbm means a tighter body), it will help prevent osteoporosis and make sure strong bones. Something that cardio does not do. Also ,when you pick up weight training, you will see more composition changes because you are concentrating on muscle retention and trying to maximize fat loss.

    One last thing. To ensure accuracy, I would suggest getting a food scale. This will be your key to understanding how many calories you are eating.
  • irma73
    irma73 Posts: 25 Member
    Great add me as a friend. :smile:
  • irma73
    irma73 Posts: 25 Member
    WOW! Thanks for the detailed plan. At some point in my my weight loss journey will this plan need to be modified?
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,431 MFP Moderator
    WOW! Thanks for the detailed plan. At some point in my my weight loss journey will this plan need to be modified?

    Feel free to add me. Also it may need to be modified but generally when you lose weight you increase exercise intensity. The others things that can affect it are medical conditions (pcos, hypothyroidism, etc) or diet history on occassion or food sensitivity.
  • irma73
    irma73 Posts: 25 Member
    Thanks!

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