Calories

jenjam27 · February 2011

I've just started getting serious about counting calories AGAIN and I have a question. Is it really important to eat all your calories? What about the calories you earn by exercising, should you eat those too? I've read different things regarding starvation mode some say you will still lose I just want other peoples thoughts.

bluehooked · February 2011

I try and eat 80 percent of my allocated calories and try not to dig into my exercise calories although some days are better than others. I'm averaging about a 2lb loss per week with this method.

amaried621 · February 2011

Your body gains energy by you eating food and the more you eat the more it increases the speed of your metabolism. You should eat as much as possible to get to your goal calorie range. It's a way to teach you to each healthier options so that you can eat more throughout the day and be full and have lots of energy for when you exercise.

Hope that helps!

sabrinafaith · February 2011

I make sure my net calories are above 1000 for the day. I used to only get to 850 net cals and I hit a plateau after 6 weeks which lasted about 3 months because I was so scared to eat more. Don't be scared to eat. Your body needs nourishment, especially if you are very active.

ajh2011 · February 2011

It is important to eat all of your calories including those earned by exercizing. Make sure your net calories for the day are really close to your goal. I have found that if I don't eat all of them, I hold at the same weight. I have been playing around with it for a while- you may have different results depending on your age. You should search for exercise calories on here- there is a lot of great information about it.

dmmoreno81 · February 2011

Hmmm I would say it depends on how many calories your not eating...when I was doing weight watchers you could save your points within reason because as you know some days you feel like eating everything and you cheat a little...I mean if your talking about a few hundred calories I would say it's not a big deal because that's how you lose the weight but if you're talking about not eating 500+calories I would say watch out because you don't want to starve yourself it's about portion control good luck!

karljp · February 2011

Yes, eat your exercise calories! MFP calculates calories to eat per day without exercise, so you should eat them.

SaraTonin · February 2011

Please eat your exercise calories so your muscles can recover.

cnjbarry · February 2011

I try to eat all my excercise cals back but some days I only get to 75 or 80%

texasguy · February 2011

I joined MFP because i had trouble controlling my weight. So I am not going to come on here and become the expert on nutrition all of a sudden, when i can't control my waist line.

MFP recommends not losing more than 2LBs a week so i am going to leave it up to the experts and take that advice. And when i workout MFP adds those "workout" calories back to my "Calorie Goal" so i am assuming they want you to eat those back because then why would they add it back on to the "Daily Calorie Goal".

So far i eat back all of my calories and i stay right under my calorie goal and i lose just about 2lbs a week. Sounds like MFP knows what they are doing.

Thats just my opinion.

jenjam27 · February 2011

Thanks for the info....I have done weight watchers and I remember we were suppose to eat all our points. I usually end up with about 300 calories that I haven't used at the end of the night. I have started exercising but I am only working out about 30 min. to burn appx. 300 calories, I have found in the past if I work out more than that I would hold on to my weight probably because I wasn't refuling and eating those calories I just burned. So I am thinking once I slow down on the weight loss then I will add more or change it up

hpsnickers1 · February 2011

read the posts in my signature.

I learned the scientific name for starvation mode is adaptive thermalgenesis (I think I spelled this right). It's real. Stay above 1200 and eat your exercise calories. I upped my calories from 1250 to 1500 last week and I lost another pound.

On days of exercise I do what I can to eat enough before hand. It also forces me to exercise so I have more calories for dinner and late night snack.

If you are under 1200 (this is NET calories) on some days that's ok. Just don't stay under for more than a couple of days at a time.

Sometimes I am under and sometimes I am over. It's not an exact science.

Gawqueenpenguin · February 2011

If you have given yourself a certain amount of calories for the day say 1200 calories and you only eat 1000 that shouldn't hurt you. If you only eat 500 that is not good, that I would think is verging on starvation.

If you have allowed yourself 1200 calories and you eat all your calories you will either maintain your current weight or lose some if this is lower than what you would have allowed yourself before starting the diet. Therefore, if you were eating 2000 calories before starting your diet and you changed to 1200 calories then you should gradually lose weight. However, how many calories you eat should be based on your own body.

If you have been dieting for a while and letting yourself eat 1200 calories and you find that you cannot lose any more weight it is possible at this point that diet alone is not enough for you. Normally you do not want to cut your calories any more at this point either because you are at your personal recommended amount of calories. That is why you start exercising. You can start with walking and eventually walking will turn into speed walking or possibly running as you get more fit. That will open up more calories for you to eat and you can eat them or you can let them go. If you find that you are getting tired easily, you might need more calories but go for healthy calories like have an apple before you go for a walk. If you are exercising, you need carbs! I can't stress this enough people are all crazy about cutting carbs which can be one way you if you aren't doing a lot of moving around but if you are going to be exercising you need healthy crabs like fruit carbs or whole grains.

I hope I was able to help

jane77 · February 2011

The bag says 1/4 cup and something in grams (I don't remember now). Last night, I was curious about this, too.
I measured the grams and it's less than a 1/4 cup. I'm starting to go more by what my food scale says because a friend of mine had mentioned about peanut butter being the same way. What he thought was the typical serving of 2 Tbs, ended up being less on the food scale.
I'd go by the food scale whenever you can.

In other words, if you're weight loss has stalled and you're using cups/spoons, you could be getting more than you should.

I know, sucks! Sorry!!

Yup I've had this happen too - thought i was doing good to measure my cheerios by the cup but one day I actually weighed that cup I pulled out and it was way more than the suggest weight. I don't know how they do it, maybe it's a conversion thing and not a physical cup thing. I've started to use the principal that if it's solid - weigh it and if it's liquid measure it (cups, spoons, etc)

Then there's always the process of measuring solids too - packed like brown sugar or loose like flour? you could be way off your caloric mark if you pick the wrong one.

Ya it sucks but if the scale is stuck here's the first place to go. the 2nd exercise calories usually estitmated to high check a few web sites before you eat them all back

Calories

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