Should you eat ALL your calories?

Generally, yes. Especially if you are logging accurately.

In your case, if you have not been losing at the rate you have chosen adding calories will not help you lose more.

May I ask, I know you are coming from WW, have you been logging your fruits and vegetables?
Do you use a food scale?
Are you sure to weigh all cooking oil, condiments, and drinks?

Usually if people aren't losing what they expect to it is because they are making mistakes with logging their foods, in rare cases it can be for medical reasons. The most important thing is not to use measuring units like 'a cup' and weigh/measure everything properly. Also if you buy ready meals at all know that the weight on the packet is not always going to be the weight you get - I think it can fluctuate by 20% upwards of the marked weight due to penalties imposed on companies for selling less than they advertise.

Other things to take in to account are your weekly calories are determined by how active you told MFP you are and if you are doing less than what they have factored in you will not lose as fast, also any exercise you log will tend to estimate on the high side for calories burnt so eating them all back might be a problem.

As for eating your calories, I personally tend to try to average over the week to around my goal rather than force myself to eat up to my calories or miss out on a treat on any given day. This way also has the advantage that if you have a bad day you don't beat yourself up like some people do, you just take it as part of your normal routine.

AutumnStruk01 wrote: »

I've been doing this for two weeks now and have lost a small amount and am wondering if because I'm under my calories if that is the reason. Any help would be great! Thanks!

You are not losing slowly because you are eating too little. It doesn't work that way.

Sometimes people lose slowly because they're not accurately recording what they eat, so they think they're eating 1200 calories, and they're actually eating 1500 or more. This is a very common, honest mistake, so please do not feel like the suggestion is an attack or an accusation.

Could you respond to the questions about whether you use a scale to weigh your food, and whether you log everything you eat (rather than treating certain fruits and/or veggies as "free")?

Another common problem among people who feel that they are losing slowly is having unrealistic expectations. You say you've lost a "small amount." How much is that, and how much overall do you have to lose? The less you have to lose, the harder it generally is to create a large energy (calorie) deficit to lose weight, which is a good thing, because too large a deficit means you lose too much lean mass (muscle, etc.) in addition to whatever fat you're losing. If by "small amount" you mean 2 or 3 lbs in two weeks, and you only have 20 or 30 pounds to lose, that would be a terrific, very successful rate of loss.

Thank you

Sometimes people lose slowly because they're not accurately recording what they eat, so they think they're eating 1200 calories, and they're actually eating 1500 or more. This is a very common, honest mistake, so please do not feel like the suggestion is an attack or an accusation.

So true. I thought I was eating around 1300 everyday, but once I started logging accurately - including every little bite of food I eat, I realized I was actually eating 1700 calories.
I'm a food grazer, so I will pick at stuff throughout the day. I didn't realize how fast the calories were adding up until I joined MFP.

AutumnStruk01 wrote: »

I appreciate all of your feedback. Daily I'm eating about 1200 and MFP says to eat 1490. Could I be under eating?

1200 is a minimum default (BEFORE exercise) to help you meet nutritional minimums. Most women can eat more and still lose. Senior and very petite ladies may need to go as low as 1200.

Accurate logging is tougher than it sounds. Many entries is the database are flat out wrong. You could be eating more than you think.

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1234699/logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide/p1

If you're not losing weight faster than you think is safe and comfortable (most people seem to agree that 2 lbs. is a good limit), then you should never lose sleep over eating fewer calories than the program tells you to eat. The program is a very, very blunt instrument, and so are your food measurement skills. It's just giving you a general idea of appropriate goals. The important thing will always be whether you're losing at a safe rate that suits you. Try it for a week or two and see what happens! The more you can eat while losing, the happier you're likely to be and longer you're likely to keep it up, but I'll be darned if I can see why you should eat when you don't feel like it, if you're not actually wasting away (and few of us here are).