I'm All Over The Place With My Net Calories, Please Help :0)
mithion
Posts: 78 Member
11 of those days I was below the red line, some of those 11 a lot below(that last day is today and not complete yet)
4 of those days I was way over the line
4 of the days I was pretty close and probably where I should be all the time
I either eat too much and don't exercise it back or I eat too little or even enough but exercise too much and have too many left over. I need to figure out a way to get closer to the red line each day. I don't want to stop exercising and a lot of the time I am really just no that hungry to eat back to the net goal.
Any suggestions?
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Replies
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Is your lack of appetite new? If so, I recommend a checkup.
If your lack of appetite is related to your food choices (some people find it hard to eat enough when they're following certain dietary styles), then that is what you'll want to adjust. For example, if you're eating high fat and it's hard for you to eat enough, you'll want to eat less fat. Same with high protein or fiber. This might require a bit of work to figure out how to tweak your diet. There is a list of calorie-dense foods in the "Food" area that might be helpful for you to figure out what kind of things you could add to your diet to get more to eat.
What's happening on the days when you go over? I find when I have a day where I really eat much more or less than I wanted, it really helps to do a quick recap at the end of the day. Was it planning? Was I in an unexpected situation? Was it emotional? This gives me tools to plan for the future.3 -
The binge/restrict cycle is a dangerous place to be. I used to try to play that game. "Oops, ate too much yesterday. I'll eat a lot under my goal to try to make up for it today." Then tomorrow I would be starving and back on the teeter totter I would go.
Now I just get back at Goal ASAP. On those 3000+ calorie days? I still try to eat my 1750 on the next day. That's the only way I broke that bad cycle. Moderation is a lot easier than binge/restrict. I don't know if you are doing that on purpose or not.
I still have at least one blowout day a week, eleven years in. My normal calories are set at 1750, but on many days I eat 2000-2200 and on at least one day I eat 2500-3000. It doesn't affect my weight, and I still eat my 1750 the next day.
Here's mine:
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First, what are your stats? Height, weight, goal weight? How much are you set to lose per week?
It likes the days you eat way over occur after a day or 2 of eating quite a bit under. You know you need back those calories, so go for calorie dense foods to fill in. Look at this thread: https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10142490/a-list-of-calorie-dense-foods/p10 -
edit.
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janejellyroll wrote: »Is your lack of appetite new? If so, I recommend a checkup.
If your lack of appetite is related to your food choices (some people find it hard to eat enough when they're following certain dietary styles), then that is what you'll want to adjust. For example, if you're eating high fat and it's hard for you to eat enough, you'll want to eat less fat. Same with high protein or fiber. This might require a bit of work to figure out how to tweak your diet. There is a list of calorie-dense foods in the "Food" area that might be helpful for you to figure out what kind of things you could add to your diet to get more to eat.
What's happening on the days when you go over? I find when I have a day where I really eat much more or less than I wanted, it really helps to do a quick recap at the end of the day. Was it planning? Was I in an unexpected situation? Was it emotional? This gives me tools to plan for the future.
I think when I first started I got my self into this mindset of having to eat super healthy and scrutinize my calories and exercise as much as I can, tons of cardio etc. I think that changed my appetite and I am afraid to go back to where I ate terribly and put on all this weigh I want to lose. I need to find a good balance. I find my self looking at my MFP app at the end of the night and being like wow I have too many calories left but I don't want to eat anything right now at 9pm or 10pm. The days I went way over were like friends came over or I went out to eat and didn't pay as much attention to what I was eating. I guess I just need more discipline. I think I am going to eat more times throughout the day, keep it healthy but just eat more food more times per day.
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cmriverside wrote: »The binge/restrict cycle is a dangerous place to be. I used to try to play that game. "Oops, ate too much yesterday. I'll eat a lot under my goal to try to make up for it today." Then tomorrow I would be starving and back on the teeter totter I would go.
Now I just get back at Goal ASAP. On those 3000+ calorie days? I still try to eat my 1750 on the next day. That's the only way I broke that bad cycle. Moderation is a lot easier than binge/restrict. I don't know if you are doing that on purpose or not.
I still have at least one blowout day a week, eleven years in. My normal calories are set at 1750, but on most days I eat 2000-2200 and on at least one day I eat 2500-3000. It doesn't affect my weight, and I still eat my 1750 the next day.
I am not consciously doing any kid of binge/restrict but I def see what you are saying.
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First, what are your stats? Height, weight, goal weight? How much are you set to lose per week?
It likes the days you eat way over occur after a day or 2 of eating quite a bit under. You know you need back those calories, so go for calorie dense foods to fill in. Look at this thread: https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10142490/a-list-of-calorie-dense-foods/p1
I am 36 y/o, 5'10 and currently weight 191. Goal weight is 165-1701 -
janejellyroll wrote: »Is your lack of appetite new? If so, I recommend a checkup.
If your lack of appetite is related to your food choices (some people find it hard to eat enough when they're following certain dietary styles), then that is what you'll want to adjust. For example, if you're eating high fat and it's hard for you to eat enough, you'll want to eat less fat. Same with high protein or fiber. This might require a bit of work to figure out how to tweak your diet. There is a list of calorie-dense foods in the "Food" area that might be helpful for you to figure out what kind of things you could add to your diet to get more to eat.
What's happening on the days when you go over? I find when I have a day where I really eat much more or less than I wanted, it really helps to do a quick recap at the end of the day. Was it planning? Was I in an unexpected situation? Was it emotional? This gives me tools to plan for the future.
I think when I first started I got my self into this mindset of having to eat super healthy and scrutinize my calories and exercise as much as I can, tons of cardio etc. I think that changed my appetite and I am afraid to go back to where I ate terribly and put on all this weigh I want to lose. I need to find a good balance. I find my self looking at my MFP app at the end of the night and being like wow I have too many calories left but I don't want to eat anything right now at 9pm or 10pm. The days I went way over were like friends came over or I went out to eat and didn't pay as much attention to what I was eating. I guess I just need more discipline. I think I am going to eat more times throughout the day, keep it healthy but just eat more food more times per day.
Yeah, I think we all sometimes have days where we have more calories left than we thought, but over time you should develop a sense for how many calories your body is using and then plan larger meals throughout the day. It's not like I'm realizing at 10 PM that I ran 8 miles earlier in the day, it was planned so I know to take more food to work for lunch or plan to have a higher calorie dressing on my calorie with dinner, etc. Waiting until the end of the day to figure out what calorie range you want to be in for the day is less likely to be successful.
Or if you truly do find yourself in a situation where you regularly realize late in the day that you have calories left, just eat them the next day. I find that long runs depress my appetite so I rarely eat much more on my really long run days. But I'm absolutely ready for them the next day so I'll plan to spread them out then. Your body doesn't run on a straight 24-hour clock, so if it works better for you to have them the following day, don't be afraid to do that.1 -
The other thing is that you may be logging food, but actually eating more than you log.
If you open your FOOD page we may be able to spot some common errors people make. What I'm saying is that you may not be hungry because you may be eating more than you think.
FOOD>Settings, scroll to the bottom and click "Public" so we can take a look. If you've only been logging for less than a month there are lots of places where you could be making some common errors.0 -
cmriverside wrote: »The other thing is that you may be logging food, but actually eating more than you log.
If you open your FOOD page we may be able to spot some common errors people make. What I'm saying is that you may not be hungry because you may be eating more than you think.
FOOD>Settings, scroll to the bottom and click "Public" so we can take a look. If you've only been logging for less than a month there are lots of places where you could be making some common errors.
I am super strict and consistent with logging my food. I measure and weight EVERYTHING lol. I think I just need to pay closer attention throughout the day and predict a little more and be more disciplined.0 -
You seem to be stressing about a lot of things, OP (based on your other threads). If you want to try to level out your calorie intake, that's fine. Some track their weekly calories as opposed to daily and eat however they want within the course of a week to meet their goal. It really doesn't matter, unless it is causing difficulty for you in some way. Like we established in the other thread, you've been under-eating somewhat for your activity, and as has been pointed out, this can lead to unintentional "refeeds". But in general, just eat in whatever way makes you comfortable and be aware there's no reason you can't fill in your calories on lower days with foods that aren't spectacularly nutritious (once a person has met their nutrition goals for the day, there's no extra credit for more broccoli
). 3 -
Does the day to day matter that much? (As long as you are feeling ok that is)
Why not just look at weekly totals? Some days might be higher, some lower, but if it all balances out at the end of the week don't sweat it.1 -
Does the day to day matter that much? (As long as you are feeling ok that is)
Why not just look at weekly totals? Some days might be higher, some lower, but if it all balances out at the end of the week don't sweat it.
How do I see weekly totals without having to add it all up myself?0 -
I find I am MUCH better off averaging my weekly calorie burn, and just eating about the same amount every single day. I can't handle having an extra 500 calories a few days, and then NOT having those on other days - that's a small meal in itself!
Therefore, I actually use a different app to track my calories (or you can upgrade here) where you can set your own calorie goals (I don't think the free version lets you do that, but I could be wrong).
That helped me prevent the ups and downs, and made planning my days MUCH easier. You just have to be really honest about how much you're actually exercising....2 -
Does the day to day matter that much? (As long as you are feeling ok that is)
Why not just look at weekly totals? Some days might be higher, some lower, but if it all balances out at the end of the week don't sweat it.
How do I see weekly totals without having to add it all up myself?
If you go into the nutrition section (where your net calories etc are) you can change it to display the week instead of day. Actually that graph you show is from the same page. There is a summary that will show how many calories you averaged and how much over or under your goal you are forthe week0 -
Does the day to day matter that much? (As long as you are feeling ok that is)
Why not just look at weekly totals? Some days might be higher, some lower, but if it all balances out at the end of the week don't sweat it.
How do I see weekly totals without having to add it all up myself?
If you go into the nutrition section (where your net calories etc are) you can change it to display the week instead of day. Actually that graph you show is from the same page. There is a summary that will show how many calories you averaged and how much over or under your goal you are forthe week
Do you mean the weekly digest?
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In the app, select the little pie icon at the top of your diary page. You now have the option to select Day or Week. Select Week and make sure you're viewing Calories, not Nutrients or Macros.1
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