Leftover calories

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fmktjod
fmktjod Posts: 49 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Is this a bad thing? I worked out a lot today - more than I normally would. My thinking is that conuming less calories is a good thing, but I'm new to calorie counting and not sure how this effects my matabolism or weight loss goal. Help. Someone please explain, I have over 700 calories left over today.

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  • Tiana405
    Tiana405 Posts: 270 Member
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    Is this a bad thing? I worked out a lot today - more than I normally would. My thinking is that conuming less calories is a good thing, but I'm new to calorie counting and not sure how this effects my matabolism or weight loss goal. Help. Someone please explain, I have over 700 calories left over today.

    Your body will go in to "starvation mode" and you won't lose a THING regardless of how much you work out. You MUST eat as much of your calories as you possibly can in order to lose weight. Try it! You'll see that the lbs/inches will melt away! : )
  • elliecolorado
    elliecolorado Posts: 1,040
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    You will get a lot of different opinions around here. Some people swear by eating all of your calories and all of your exercise calories. Some people say eat some of your exercise calories.

    Personally I try and stay close to my 1200 calorie limit, sometimes I am over and sometimes I am under, but I don't stress to much either way. Sometimes I eat my exercise calories, but only if I am actually hungry. I refuse to force myself to eat if I am not hungry. When I first started I listened to everyone who said that I needed to eat my exercise calories and usually just felt like crap after trying to eat a bunch when I wasn't hungry. In my opinion it isn't good to make yourself eat just to get to a certain number calorie wise.
  • Samerah12
    Samerah12 Posts: 610 Member
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    Its definitely not good to go under 1200 net calories for the day, as then your body will think you are starving and it will screw up your metabolism. So if you ate 1200 calories and burned another 300 with exercise you should DEFINITELY eat that 300 back.

    Other than that eat as many of the other calories back as you'd like. MFP already sets you with a 500 calorie deficit for the day so even if you eat every single exercise calorie back you'll still be losing. Its probably safer to eat them back and make sure you're getting enough food to build and maintain muscle (not necessarily big scary man muscles, but the lean muscle you probably want to see to look thinner and feel healthier).

    Just don't eat them if you're full and do eat them if you're still hungry!
  • fmktjod
    fmktjod Posts: 49 Member
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    Thanks for the explination. :wink: Ok so follow up question. Do I need to eat 700 more calories b4 I got to bed then? And does it matter where the calories come from. How does what I eat effect the weight loss or gain? 700 cals in fruit and veggies for example vs. ice cream or bread.
  • aeckels616
    aeckels616 Posts: 210 Member
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    if you do decide to eat the calories, for best weight loss results, your calories should come from foods that have a low glycemic index.

    If you have eaten at least half of your daily expenditure in calories, you are not going to go into starvation mode. Especially after one day or one week.

    Even if you DID embark on a "starvation diet" you would not stop losing weight. You could, however, have some very serious detrimental mental and physical consequences (so don't do it).

    I don't know anything about what you have eaten today, or what your numbers are (goal, daily expenditure, etc), so I can't say off hand if you need to eat the calories. But it's not always necessary.
  • frugal2
    frugal2 Posts: 24 Member
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    I believe one day of being under a net 1200 cals is no big deal. When i was on WW, this type of thing would happened all the time if you were to add in the exercise for the day. But on Weightwatchers, they don't tell you that you must make up for calories burned for that day. And I lost weight on the program. LOTS of people lose weight on the program. So, I believe this whole thing about "starvation mode" doesn't happen from just one day here and there or even from several days here and there. If you know people on WW, ask them how they tally their points eaten vs points earned by exercise. they don't do that on a daily basis.

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