Net Calorie Goal? Must I meet that goal daily to lose weight?

Short answer is yes you will still lose weight eating under your calorie goal and the more under your net goal you are the faster you will lose the weight. However there is no rush and losing at a healthy rate of 0.5 to 2.0 lbs per week (depending on current weight and how much you have to lose) is what you should be aiming for.

Lastly if you are meeting your macros and nutritional requirements eating under your goal then why would you not want to fill any left over calories up with treats that you enjoy

If you don't meet the calorie goal it will make your calorie deficit bigger, which will make you lose more. However, before you start thinking that is a good idea realize that your body can only burn so much fat in a day. For that matter the less fat you have, the less you can burn in a day. So a large deficit for 2 pounds per week as a goal will work well for someone who is morbidly obese because they can burn off that 2 pounds using mainly fat. For a person who only has a little fat to lose, say 20 pounds, they cannot at that fat level burn off 2 pounds of fat a week. They will still lose weigh though, but more of it will come from lean body mass which you don't want to lose.

What all that means is having a larger deficit is not always a good thing. Not knowing anything about how much you have to lose I can't say much beyond that, but assuming you entered your information in the goal setter on MyFitnessPal correctly, reaching the goal calories is what gives you a moderate deficit hopefully bringing more loss of fat than of lean mass. Eating less won't stop your loss, but it might change what is lost.

As far as meeting your calories, assuming that is a problem, that is a different question, but it should be easy enough.

AlwaysHopeful33 wrote: »

Thanks for responding Chris:) I know the question seemed silly but a friend of mine told me that I wouldn't lose weight if I ate under my calorie goal, she mentioned that my metabolism would slow down if I don't eat enough meals throughout the day, so that left me a bit confused. In regards to cardio and fat burning, what would you say is a good about of calories to burn via exercise daily? I just got a treadmill and currently am burning like 200 cals in 40 minutes, I know it's like pathetic and sad!:( but my body isn't used to exercise yet, it's been almost three years since I last exercised. My body feels stiff and very tired after like only 40 minutes of treadmill walking. It's crazy. When I was younger, I could burn 500 cals in one hour which was good but now being 33 and extremely overweight, it's rather difficult to wanna keep this up.

As a professional couch potato I am not the best qualified to give exercise advice but what you are doing seems fine.

Remember that exercise is for fitness rather than weight loss, although the extra food calories it allows is a bonus

You will often hear things about eating regular meals to keep your metabolism going and starvation mode if you don't eat enough etc. Don't worry about those things, they are either untrue or misinterpretations of the actual facts. Keep doing what you are doing and as long as you are in a calorie deficit you will continue to lose weight