Am i under eating??? Help

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hospitalmakeout
hospitalmakeout Posts: 5 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Lately (the past 4 weeks) i have been eating just 1200 calories and burning between 2100 and 1500 calories a day. am i under eating or should i continue? Also if i do have to eat more, (say 1990 like this website suggests) am i gunna gain weight back? I love exercising and im almost under 200 (again i made it week before last but last week was a bust so) am i just gunna gain it all back :( Help, anyone!!!!

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  • googsgirl
    googsgirl Posts: 76 Member
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    I personally think that if you continue eating so little and burning so much you will gain any weight that you lose, if you even lose any.
    this is not a healthy way to fuel your body.
    Eat at least what MFP suggests, and use your exercise as your deficit. This is a healthy and enjoyable way to lose weight because you will be feeding your body ( hopefully!) very nutritious foods while exercising and toning your body.

    Dont believe the hype of less eating is better.. Your body needs real food as fuel to help it work, like a machine! Would you put kool aid in your car and expect it to run???

    fuel that body that you love to move and it will reward you in a lean and healthy physical self. You will get to your goals if you are smart and have a healthy mindset for PERMANENT changes.
  • jjelizalde
    jjelizalde Posts: 377 Member
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    Figure out your BMR and your TDEE and you'll know how many calories you should be eating. You can't possibly be eating enough to fuel a workout eating 1200 calories or less. Look up the eat-more-to-lose-more group. No point in being so restrictive with your calories when you don't have to! Best of luck!
  • vbcoach25
    vbcoach25 Posts: 27 Member
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    I agree with the others that you may need more calories. I suspect with eating that few that you are not getting the protein you need to form lean muscle to help get that sleek, toned look. The carbs are important to help fuel your energy for workouts. Some fat is also good as your body needs that to function correctly, so carb/protein/fat rations are important. MFP does a nice job of setting up a plan for you. There is also a lot of information out there on the topic depending on your fitness goals and activity levels.

    Great job on your progress to date!

    Julie (aka VBCoach25)
  • iWaffle
    iWaffle Posts: 2,208 Member
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    Lately (the past 4 weeks) i have been eating just 1200 calories

    How are you feeling? If you're not getting sick and not running out of energy you're probably doing just fine.
    and burning between 2100 and 1500 calories a day.
    Doing what exactly. I seriously doubt you're burning that much in exercise but correct me if I'm wrong. MFP tends to over exaggerate the number of calories burned during exercise from what I've seen.
    Also if i do have to eat more, (say 1990 like this website suggests) am i gunna gain weight back?
    MFP does a pretty fair job of estimating your calorie needs. Personally if I were you I would eat their calorie suggestion and not try to eat back what you're spending on exercise unless you're actually working out enough to burn through 1,000 calories. If you're just spending 30 minutes on cardio each day you're probably just talking about 200 - 300 calories unless you're a beast on the treadmill or elliptical.

    I'm eating their suggestion and only counting 200 calories against my daily cardio. I don't even log my strength training calories. This is working just awesome for me and it seems to be dead-on to what I need to lose close to a pound a week on average. Make sure your calorie intake is accurate and discard or be very modest about calories spent during exercise. It works.

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