Massively under daily calorie intake, a problem?

I'm no expert in terms of high performance athlete training, but I would say you need to up your calories if you want to avoid losing muscle. Try drinking them - apparently protein shakes are good.

It's not necessarily a problem. I suggest you monitor your performance and adjust accordingly. If you're training and you notice your speed decreasing or stamina not improving, then you have empirical evidence suggesting you need to eat more. How much more? That's something you'll have to experiment with. I trained for a powerlifting competition for 8 months and learned that I did need to eat more than I originally thought, and it had to come from more complex carbs. Sugars made me feel awful, I already had enough protein, and my fats were fine. Good luck!

I only have this problem one or two days a week when I do longer runs or speed work. I don't eat all my calories back. I do make sure to refuel properly after a long run or hard workout with a high protein meal/drink. After that, I typically eat a normal day and maybe a little bit more as a treat. Nothing drastic, though.

I do find, as maybe you do as well, the next day I am typically hungrier than I was the day of the workout. That day I may go a little over. Do what works for you but make sure you are refueling with carbs and protein after a hard workout!

I appreciate that eating virtually nothing is not good for weight loss as you body doesn't react well to it but is there any problem with not eating all the exercise calories earned each day?

For example today due to a 2500m swim session and a 5 mile run i have an extra 2200 calories(i'm big so burn a lot!) onto of my 2060 daily allowance.

I had a really light brekkie as I didn't have a lot in the house and a 1000 cal lunch but even with my planned curry dinner i'll be well over 1500 calls short of the 4200 I am supposed to consume!

This is turning into a bit of a regular occurrence as my training is ramping up quite significantly and it is very normal to burn 2k cals a day extra.

I have always heard that having a great calorie deficit is not a good thing.
Granted, make sure you drink plenty of water and if you feel light headed you might be low on your sugar levels.
Keep us posted.
Good Luck.

I'm no expert in terms of high performance athlete training, but I would say you need to up your calories if you want to avoid losing muscle. Try drinking them - apparently protein shakes are good.

TBH I dont fancy the protein shakes as I love my food so would rather a decent snack over a drink. And thats despite my love of costa coffee at 150 cals a time!

If you'd prefer to eat your calories than drink them then start accounting for your caloric expenditure by having a heftier breakfast and more calorie dense meals in general.

better yet calculate your TDEE

To do this take calories consumed+(lbs lost*3500)/# of days (3 weeks is what I used)

This gives you your TDEE and then subtract a %...that way you don't have to worry about eating exercise calories back..it's just that easy.

TDEE=Total Daily Energy Expenditure which is number of calories you burn in a day, from exercise, regular movement and just living.

Right now I have to think you are using the MFP NEAT Method, which doesn't take exercise into account when doing the calculation just regular life movements, Hence the reason you eat the exercise calories back.

So what you do it find a time period of accurate logging, longer than 1 week (I used 21days)

Add intake of calories+(lbs lost*3500 ***each pound is appx 3500 calories)=total calories in that time period

Divide that number by the number of days you chose=TDEE the amount of calories you need to maintain.

Now if you want to lose weight you take off a percentage.

Now for an example with numbers.

I logged and measured for 21 days and here are my numbers

29,642 (Total calories consumed over 21 days)
12,250 (I lost 3.5lbs in those 21 days so this is 3.5x3500)

41,892 (Total)

41982/21(number of days)=1995 calories to maintain my weight but I still want to lose

1995x20%=399
1995-399=1600(give or take) so this will give me on average 1lb of weight loss a week and I don't worry about exercise calories.

You can lessen the amount say take off 10% of you want 1/2 lb a week.

Would it help it I ate them for you?

Ahh okay gotcha. So I need to do what you call the neat method for a few weeks at least first so i can work out the TDEE?

If you're going to be ramping up your training significantly in the near future (and likely fairly continual increases over weeks/months), you may not want to go with the TDEE method (which "assumes" a consistent level of activity). I would stick with logging exercise as it occurs, monitor weight loss & every levels over time as your training increases and adjust accordingly. If you're training for an ironman-you're probably going to have to start eating a number of your exercise calories at some point just to fuel the workouts.

Ahh okay gotcha. So I need to do what you call the neat method for a few weeks at least first so i can work out the TDEE?

If you're going to be ramping up your training significantly in the near future (and likely fairly continual increases over weeks/months), you may not want to go with the TDEE method (which "assumes" a consistent level of activity). I would stick with logging exercise as it occurs, monitor weight loss & every levels over time as your training increases and adjust accordingly. If you're training for an ironman-you're probably going to have to start eating a number of your exercise calories at some point just to fuel the workouts.

TDEE can be adjusted, I have ramped up my workouts as well and will adjust it accordingly doing the same calculation.

Getting the data for TDEE while the training is ramping up would benefit as the final TDEE would include his now normal workout bu then would need adjusted down when the training returned to "normal"