Caloric intake

So I work out pretty much 6 days a week burning about 700 calories. But I'm eating way less than I should at this activity level, but I'm not hungry and I'm having a hard time eating over 1600 calories. generally I eat around 1400. With some higher days when I don't eat healthy foods. I don't know how much I ate before I started counting them, but I don't feel like I've cut anything. I've actually added a meal (I rarely at breakfast). Seriously I'm constantly searching for food. I'm at college so I'm eating in a dining hall so my counts are really rough estimates and there aren't a lot of food options. So my question is am I undereating, or should I not worry?

It sounds like you are undereating, especially if you are burning 700 kcal a day exercising. However, we need to know a little more about you in order to find out. Age, weight, sex, goal weight, etc.

It depends on your AMR ... your average calories burned in a day.  Use the "expenditure" tool to calculate your AMR, add the amount of calories you burn through exercise, and subtract the calories you eat.  If the difference is more than 1000, then yes, you're undereating.

Also, I don't know if you're male or female.  Women generally need at least 1200 calories a day to get their vitamin and mineral requirements; men need 1500.

Eating breakfast is a great change (provided it's healthy, not Chocopops or whatever!  ;-).  It helps get your metabolism going in the morning.  Keep it up!

Female, 19, 5'8". I set my daily activity at Sedentary because I'm a student so I spend most of my time sitting in class or at my desk. I do walk to class everyday, so thats like 40 minutes of walking everyday. (I add the 700 in the activity log) so it says I should burn 1250 at sedentary then + 700?? thats a lot for me. The expenditure thing said I burn 2000 a day without the exercise. and the difference is generally between 1000-1500. (breakfast is oatmeal, nutri grain bar, yogurt, or protein bar). Also on Tuesday/Thursday I don't get up until 11. If I sleep more should that make up for the fact that I'm not eating enough?

oh yeah and the thing said I should reach 144 lbs. which seems mad low to me too. I weigh 184 now.

The expenditure calculation shows you burn 2000 calories a day being sedentary at your height weight and age. Add to that the 700 calories you are burning in the gym every day and you are burning close to 2700 calories a day! Thats awesome, but you really need to eat more. If you are only consuming 1400 calories a day, then your deficit is 1300. You should aim for your deficit to be between 500-700 per day, meaning you need to eat between 2000 and 2200 calories.

That seems like a lot. Trust me I know. We are pretty similar in height (5'8"), daily calorie expenditure (around 2000), and even what we burn off at the gym (around 700). I always ate around 1500 calories a day and had no success. So I finally started eating more and the pounds started dropping. I was at 170 in January and right now I am at 161, most of the loss in the last 6 weeks when I finally upped my calorie intake. Just aim for your daily calorie deficit to be around 500-700 per day and you'll be good!

I don't understand the whole calorie burning either, for me it says I burn around 1800 calories a day (Sedentary; I work at a desk most of the day, but during my lunch I do take a 1/2 hour brisk walk just to get out, and burn off calories), and that I shouldn't eat more then 1,200???? Does this account for what I'm eating, or do I still need to keep my calories below the 1,200 to loose weight?

I'm 38, 5'5", weigh 175, and I should be 148, by December this year? My calorie in take varies day to day, anywhere from 1,250 to 1,600 (this was an extremely high day, with a real low day the day before - less then 1,000...so make-up mayb?)

Cherrish: You're right on with the 1800 calorie expenditure. However, go ahead and add the brisk walk since that is not a sedentary activity. Brisk walking burns about 250 calories an hour. So your daily expenditure is about 1925 calories. To lose weight you want your deficit to be between 500-700 calories a day, but you should never go under 1200 calories. That means you should be consuming between 1225-1425 calories per day to lose weight in a healthy manner.

so whats the point of exercising if I'm just supposed to eat it back anyway? beyond the obvious healthy heart etc reasons?

Besides the obvious:

Benefits of Exercise

From the CDC

yeah I meant specifically in regards to losing weight. I know the health benefits.

1 more if you like reading...

Thats the thing. You don't need to exercise in order to lose weight. You know the health benefits of exercising. However, if your calories in are less than you calories out, you will lose weight. If you consume 1500 calories a day, and do nothing, you will lose a pound a week because your body burns 2000 calories a day just to function.

Are you interested in losing weight, or losing fat?  Dieting makes you lose weight.  Exercise in addition to dieting makes more of that weight come from fat.  And, if you're lucky enough to put on lean mass while dieting (which is hard while on a caloric defecit), you will increase your metabolism, which will help you to lose more weight in the long run.

so should I be adding the walking I do to get from class to class into my activity log?

I would, since you set your AMR at sedentary and it's probably a good chunk of your day.  Or see what the AMR is for light activity.

Well the light activity one says 'walking for no more than 2 hours' but it doesn't give a lower limit. On MWF I prolly walk about 40 minutes and less than that on T/TH, and far less than that on Saturday/Sunday. I'm on a small campus so its not like a mile to classes. I feel like my days are too inconsistent to say I do a certain level of activity everyday. So I just set it to sedentary and add what I do. In reality I'm probably closer to moderately active or more.

It would depend on how fast you are loosing weight. Really, I don't think their is any reason to worry, your body would tell you if you needed more food.

hi,last year I went to a doctor to help me to loose some weight ,he  let me stand on a machine to measure my body mass ,water ,minerals etc.......this machine can tell you how many calories you need to maintain your weight relating to your age height and weight and especially to your muscle .then my calories needs were 1128 calories which left me relying on exersising more than cutting calories .he told me to be patient and to loose only onepound every week.I am over 50 years old and too short with oly 15 pounds to loose.