Second week here.... Needing some advice

Welcome! To answer your questions to the best of my ability.... 1. many experts do say that you should eat a bulk of your calories - including protein - at breakfast, then fewer later in the day. I don't eat that way, I actually have a small breakfast and lunch with snacks, then a larger dinner, since my husband wants "real food" for dinner. 2. You shouldn't go below 1200 calories a day, as long as you eat more than that, you should be fine. Just remember that if you don't eat enough, you'll likely get too hungry and eat something you don't really want to. 3. Myfitnesspal tracks your net calories which is total caloric allowance + any calories burned through exercise - calories already eaten for the day. So, yes, you can eat the calories you burn in exercise. It is important to have some protein and carbs following exercise to rebuild your muscles and your glycogen stores.

Hope these help and best of luck to you!

It's important to eat breakfast, but as long as you're adequately fueled I don't think it matters. Although, in Michael Pollan's Food Rules he advocates "Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinnre like a pauper." Something to think about.

Here are some links you should find helpful:
http://shouldieatmyexercisecalories.com/
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/23912-links-in-mfp-you-want-to-read-again-and-again

Hi Courtney,
My doctor has told me that it is better to eat a larger breakfast and/or lunch and a smaller meal for dinner. However, I think the most important thing is that you find meal sizes that feel comfortable to you and are within your daily calorie range. Also, try not to eat a large dinner too late in the evening, especially if you will be going to sleep soon after.

From what I understand from reading other entries on this site, you should try to eat back your calories from exercise. I'm not always sure how accurate these calorie burned numbers are though personally, so I would take that advice with a grain of salt. If you've done exercise that day, its probably safe to assume you should consume more calories so your body doesn't go into starvation mode... just don't overdo it.

As for how many you can leave at the end of the day... if you did not exercise that day, then I think its important to meet your minimum calorie goal. (Being over/under slightly is probably OK.) If you did, then you should still be trying to meet that calorie goal, to some extent.

I am by no means an expert... just someone who has done a lot of research and spent a lot of time trying to better my health. I hope others will weigh in though, if I am misinformed on any of this would be glad to know that!

Hi Courtney,

I don't think you need to swap anything, just make sure you don't eat to close to going to bed, when I'm off work, I work mids, I usually have a small snack around 8 or 8:30.

When you decide how much weight you want to lose a week you calories are determined to lose that amount based on the information you put in, so if you are under that you will lose the weight a little quicker, if you go right to the limit, you will lose whatever weight you put in to lose every week. I usually try to stay under because I'm sure some of my portions aren't measured exactly so I leave little room for error.

I pretty much know what I'm eating a work and home, if I have a good workout, I may eat some of my exercise calories back, it just depends.

Just try to eat good clean portions, I know I could eat better, but I'm improving, so I try not to get to hung up on my numbers, I figure the real set is on the scale and in the mirror ad I figure as time goes on I'll tweak my eating and workouts. Hope this helped, feel free to ask anything else and I know others have great advice too.

Good luck

Sean