Eating way below your calories ?

If your below the calories it doesn't track you, should I be bothered by this?

Thank you for your replies and help 😊👍

rosechu76 wrote: »

Hi,
I don’t think I understand about Net calories. Currently I’m on a 2000 calorie daily diet, macro nutrient dense, exercise four days a week weight training and cardio as well. Currently weigh 128lbs, height 5’ 6” female 43 yrs old and my net calories is approx 1250. Is that good or bad for net calories ?

In MFP-think, weight management is all about net calories. In simplest form, to maintain weight, we need to eat as many calories as we burn from all sources: Heartbeat/breathing/etc., daily life and job, exercise. To lose weight, eat a little less; to gain, eat a little more.

One needs enough gross calories to get adequate nutrition, and 2000 (at your size) should cover that pretty nicely, I would think. Some of the women with a low gross calorie level aren't really making it easy - maybe not even possible -even to get adequate nutrition. Need food to get nutrition, right? Sometimes people imagine that if they hit their macro percents, even at tiny calories, they're getting good nutrition. That can be very incorrect. We need absolute-number minimums of certain nutrients.

However, even beyond nutrition, fast weight loss is not necessarily a great plan, and the less fat we have to lose, the more risk-aware it can be to do it slowly. (Sure, if someone is at a healthy weight with a couple of pounds to lose, doing that somewhat quickly over less than a month is probably not a huge physical stressor, but losing the last 10-20 at 2 pounds a week is probably unnecessarily risky for most people, not to mention probably unpleasant. A bigger deficit is a bigger physical stress, longer length of time at a deficit is also a bigger stress, and stress is a thing to be managed, y'know? )

If you're trying to lose weight, at your current weight**, half a pound a week would be a good loss rate target, especially if your fitness level is a priority (as it sounds like). But what really matters is how fast you actually lose, averaged over 4-6 weeks (comparing same point in two different menstrual cycles, if that's relevant for you). Calculators and fitness trackers are only giving you estimates.

At your current weight, though, if you're not trying to lose weight - since you're already at a healthy weight, BMI 20.7, which is pretty light already - then you want to be eating with net calories at your maintenance level, whatever that is.

** FWIW, I'm 5'5", currently 129-130, age 64. I'm lately losing a few vanity pounds in year 4+ of maintenance, doing exactly what I recommend above, half a pound or less per week. For me, based on long experience logging - I know that requires around 1850 net calories daily, which becomes something in the lower 2000s gross calories when I exercise. If I wanted to maintain again, I need to average something in the low 2000s net, i.e., so more like mid-2000s gross calories, depending on the day. Those won't be your numbers, because you're not me (I'd lose crazy-fast for my current weight at 1250 net, personally - you may or many not).

But that's the concept: Enough gross calories to get adequate nutrition, but also the right net calories for one's weight-managment goal. Sometimes, when we're offering advice to someone whose gross and net are both quite low, those issues become entwined.

Does that make sense?

This is the passage I was emailed from lifesum "4 things to avoid when losing weight"

Don't eat less than you need to get a stable weight loss curve. Risks are you'll just trigger your hunger so badly that once you treat yourself to something, you'll overeat like there is no tomorrow. Grehlin, also known as "the hunger hormone" will constantly work against weight loss to make sure the body doesn't starve, so by taking care of your hunger hormone, you're also paving your way to successful weight loss.