Help with calories

I'd say if it's more than a hundred calories and it happens once every couple weeks to not worry about it. If it's happening a couple times a week then it's planning ahead. Eat a bigger breakfast or have a snack on days you know you're going to need more calories.

Your body needs nutrition. It's a miracle machine but no machine runs for long with low fuel.

You should be reaching your calorie goal every day - not eating under it. If you are simply not hungry (i.e. the thought of eating something doesn't appeal to you) then you need to find some ways to bulk out the meals you are already eating with more calories -- meaning depending on what you are eating, adding a calorie dense ingredient (olive oil, sesame oil, dates, other dried fruit, nuts, peanut butter, etc....).

If you are hungry, simply choose a snack that would meet the calorie goal requirement that you have left.

Your calorie goal is a GOAL, not a limit.

Ang_from_Colorado wrote: »

Quite a few is probably between 150-200 daily. And yes I do workout at least 4 days a week and sometimes I will eat my calories back and sometimes I won’t. I have just never had a huge appetite so pushing myself to eat more is tough

You don't necessarily have to eat more in terms of volume...higher calorie foods instead of "diet" foods tends to do the trick. I need around 3,000 calories per day to maintain my weight and I don't get all of those calories from eating more volume. A lot of people cut dietary fat to a large extent and go all in on super low calorie foods that can be very filling in volume. A little more dietary fat goes a long way. Also, with experience you can start to see that you're normally under...so you don't have to wait until dinner...you can eat more earlier in the day. Pre-logging also helps.

150-200 under may or may not be a problem...this would depend on what your calorie target is in the first place and also the accuracy of your logging and exercise estimates. For example, I eat around 2500 calories to lose 1 Lb per week...a couple hundred less than that at 2300 calories wouldn't really be a big deal for me, though I could find myself more fatigued if it was all of the time. As it is, it happens somewhat regularly, but is generally offset by days where I consume more calories...which also happens somewhat regularly as I tend to more or less naturally calorie cycle.

If you already have an aggressive calorie target for losing weight, a couple hundred calories under that all of the time could very well cause issues down the road as you would already have an aggressive deficit. It's a lot of stress on the body and in an effort to conserve energy, with steep deficits, the human body will slow "non-essential" processes...things like growing hair, finger and toe nail health, loss of menstrual cycle, more lethargy, etc. These adaptations slow your metabolism making everything harder, not to mention making you feel like crap. Very low calorie intake also leaves you nowhere to go when you inevitably hit a wall without resorting to extremely unhealthy calorie levels.