Can I ask a really dumb ?

This is probably really obvious but I need to clarify something :)

If your burn meter is on sedentary and you have your calories you burn in a normal day (mine is 2370)...and you eat your allowed calories (mine says 1630).  I get that and can follow that.

But just to be sure: if you exercise, and that makes your burn meter go up, should you add more calories to make up for what you burned?

I guess I need to point out that I'm not trying to be able to eat more, but some days I'm hovering around 1400 calories or so, which would give me a deficit of almost 1000, and if i exercise it makes the deficit even higher.

I've been losing weight really, really slowly, so I'm trying to bump my calories up to see if it will help my loss. As I've said in so many other posts, this is tough for me because it just feel so wrong b/c I'm used to the idea being to eat less! But I've had some very high deficits and that's all I can think of as to why I'm not losing. I'm a fairly young (29) guy, I exercise 5 or 6 days a week, and I count my calories as closely as possible without a scale. Breakfast, Lunch, and Snacks are always pretty exact, dinner sometimes I have to estimate on because I don't have the food scale, so I try to make sure I estimate enough that I don't go over. All I can think is maybe I'm really underestimating or something! I haven't gained, but I've had weeks where I lost one pound, one half pound, etc...and I'm used to when I diet, and I mean when I really, really try like I am now, I lose faster than this. On the other hand, this new lifestyle change feels less like a diet than anything I've ever done, which is good...I just wish I could figure out the "trick", at least for my body!

Longest question ever! Sorry :)

1. You don't want the difference between total burned and total eaten (deficit) to be higher than 1000.

2. A sedentary male should eat no less than 1500. If you are exercising, you should eat more.

3. You've got a 640 deficit, so you should be losing just over 1lb/week, which is a perfectly respectable and healthy loss. But remember that the scale is just one measure of weight loss - sometimes it doesn't show up on the scale, but you are losing fat, and it just takes time.

Short answer: yes up your calories so you do not have more than 1000 cal deficit.

I had a similar situation.  I had hit a plateau and couldn't figure out why I was doing these crazy work outs (eg. spin class, core class and 1 of biking in one day) and PUTTING on weight, even though I wasn't eating above my 1500 calories.  After doing some research and calculating my BMR and tracking my deficits I realized I had a 1400-1800 deficit per day and my body was in probably in starvation mode.  So I upped my calories (now eating about 1700-1800 per day, and changed around my workout schedule so I can maintain a 1000 calorie deficit average per day which means reduced my work outs on some days). On the days that I don't work out, or work out lightly (300-500 cal burn) I only consume 1500 calories.  It takes a lot of planning and committment but it seems to be working. For the past week I've maintained a 1000 cal deficit and I've started to lose again and busted through that plateau!  I should note that 1000 cal deficit isn't good for everyone, some people have posted stating that their "sweet spot" for burning is 500-800 deficit.  I guess it just takes some time to figure your body out.

I'm loving these answers, thanks so much yall--keep em coming.

I read this forum everyday, so I see posts like mine have already been asked, but I just wanted someone to reassure me I guess. I used to eat probably close to 4000 calories a day, just from taking an example menu and playing with the calculator on here....I think I've done extremely well changing to get below 1500 calories and not go insane...so the idea of upping it scares me--but I'm doing it. Today I logged 1770...but I also worked out a lot so I still have a high deficit. But I had spaghetti for dinner, and while I counted every ingredient to the best estimate, and used lean ground beef, it's really tough to get an exact calorie count on dishes/portion sizes like that.

Sometimes I find myself sitting and eating with a post it, trying to figure out the measurement of all my foods then I just start laughing out loud...the very thought of doing this two months ago would be unbelievable...I def never realized how many calories I was eating until I started logging. It's AMAZING.

I'd suggest that you go back to the CC calculator and input a realistic average activity level.  If you get half an hour a day... 'light'... if it's over half an hour and/or particularly strenuous... 'moderate'... .and so on.   That will give you one big number to aim for and then there's much less guesswork. 

(If you do a lot more exercise over and above your usual average then only log the extra separately.... and eat a little more to compensate)

And then plan your day out in advance rather than logging it after the event.... this is just so you can get an idea of how much food you really need.  If it turns out that for weight-loss you need a steady 2200 cals, for example, then you could aim for a 500 cal breakfast, 600 cal lunch, 700 cal supper and 400 cals in snacks.  Breaking it down like that can mean you're getting a nice stready intake and.... like feeding a fire regularly.... your body burns energy that bit more efficiently.

Thanks Jane! You always have such great, helpful replies. I'm gonna try that :)

Original Post by gi-jane:

I'd suggest that you go back to the CC calculator and input a realistic average activity level.  If you get half an hour a day... 'light'... if it's over half an hour and/or particularly strenuous... 'moderate'... .and so on.   That will give you one big number to aim for and then there's much less guesswork. 

(If you do a lot more exercise over and above your usual average then only log the extra separately.... and eat a little more to compensate)

And then plan your day out in advance rather than logging it after the event.... this is just so you can get an idea of how much food you really need.  If it turns out that for weight-loss you need a steady 2200 cals, for example, then you could aim for a 500 cal breakfast, 600 cal lunch, 700 cal supper and 400 cals in snacks.  Breaking it down like that can mean you're getting a nice stready intake and.... like feeding a fire regularly.... your body burns energy that bit more efficiently.

 

So going by this what should I have mine on? It's currently set to sedentary (2030 daily). But I run at least 8 miles no more than 10 miles a day 5 days a week. That's anywhere from 1000 to 1200 calorie burn. I always just entered in my activity and eat based on that.

What should I put mine at?

(sorry if this is considered a hijack, I didn't mean too)