That is easier said than done, but if it works great. My body is very sensitive to everything, I believe this is because of survival mechanisms learned when I was a baby which has made my entire life a constant struggle.
Mothers........feed your babies healthy, wholesome, well rounded foods and if you can't, get help! Educate yourself on what the needs of a growing child are nutritionally and never just feed them one single food for all meals because that is all you have or can afford! There is help, don't be afraid to ask for the health of your child.

This then would especially be more accurate. If you recorded everything you ate while living your life as it is, including your exercise over say 5 to 6 weeks then dividing the total calories by the amount of days, that would give you your maintenance. Trying to figure out what your particular metabolism is like or trying to figure how many calories you burn doing a list of different life events on an online computer would be futile and frustrating given your above response. good luck with your struggle.

How many calories did the calorie calculator say to eat per day? 900 calories a day sounds like starvation! What's your age/gender/height/and weight?

If it tells you to eat, say, 1,300 calories a day THAT is what you should eat. Eating less is not better, especially if you're exercising. Starving yourself while working out excessively will just give you that sickly anorexic look.

Question.

Is the purpose to literally burn more calories than you eat? My calorie intake has me eating up to about 3,000 calories a day, but I never eat that much, and I burn about 1,500 a day because I work out.

Overall, I'm in the negatives. Is that the point? Because I'm not hungry, I'm just pushing my body a lot-I am trying to get in shape so I'm swimming regularly and lifting weights a lot and it's helping.

Just want some clarification. Thanks!

If your maintenance calories are 3000 for example, that would include all activities including exercise.....that's what maintenance means......A deficit is created by consuming less than your maintenance. If your saying what I think your saying and your consuming 1500 less than TDP has you set up for your weight loss goal (3000), your eating far too few calories, like 1500 too few. Not good. Say goodbye to your muscle and hello to fat preservation.

Im amazed this is sooo complicated =/

I know theres a level your not supposed to go below so you dont go into starvation mode and a minimum o f what your body needs to support its organs. You take food in to take care of that. Im still not understanding, if you burn off calories that go below that level is that considered going under a danger level or not? I have days i eat not enough even though i thought i was eating a lot then at the end of the day i panic and eat a bunch of junk food haha

Perhaps its better to estimate activities before they are done? say i eat six meals a day about every 2 or 3 hours apart and the level the site tells me to eat to lose 2 pounds a week is say 1,389 calories(which strangly is below what i thought is something your not supposed to go below of 1,500 or was it 1,200?)

1,389 calories / divided by 6 meals = 231.5 calories per meal if i dont do any real exersize but if i do exersize i should add to that meal or several meals perhaps based on an estimate of how much i might do later on?

does that solve the problem? im confused, not sure if im stupid or what

Your calorie intake each day figured out by TDP shows how many calories you need to consume in a day to lose the weight goal you set.

If you plug in all your data and it says that you need to consume 1300 calories a day, then you eat 1300 calories a day to continue supporting the lifestyle you picked (inactive, active, whatever). This does not include exercise unless you included your exercise as part of your lifestyle activity level, which I wouldn't do because then you force a routine that says you work out every single day of your life.

If you are exercising your body will eat up more calories. If you consume the same amount of calories that you used up during your exercise you are still going to lose weight because the goal should have been setup without exercise in mind.

For example, when I'm not at work or exercising I have a very inactive lifestyle. I picked the low activity lifestyle. If I'm to eat 1300 calories a day and I work out -1000 calories in a day, I can eat up to 1000 more calories and continue to lose weight at the rate of my goal. DO NOT EAT if you are full or don't feel depleted of energy. Your body will let you know when you are in starvation mode. You will feel hungry. You will feel weak. You will lose energy and motivation.

Being a little negative isn't that bad. It is just a faster pace than the goal you set, but don't consume less than 1000-1200 calories a day after calculating your exercises. Try an manage at least 1000 calories even if you have already eaten 1300 calories.

For example, if you worked out extra hard today and burned 1000 from exercises and you plan to consume only 1300 calories by the days end, try and add 700 more calories before the end of the day to be at least at 1000. If you are too far negative then you will adjust your bodies system/metabolism/fat-burner/everything to run slower and horde fat. It isn't so much that you go into "Danger Zone" as it is keeping your body used to burning calories. The better trained your body is at burning calories the easier it is to lose weight. Eatting too little causes your body to stop burning calories because you are not taking in any calories.

This is why some people who only eat 600 or so calories a day can gain 3 pounds over night because of a single moment of cheating and a person who has trained their body to burn 2500 calories a day can cheat and not even notice it unless they start cheating day after day.

I hope this helps clear somethings up.

Alright i guess that helps, thanks. Its just the net calories term that confused me because they at times were sooo much lower than the amount i ate and it was like i had to eat twice as much to do a little excersize that didnt seem like that much of a deal on my body to do but i didnt find it out untill after the fact. So i guess im right that its probably better to add to each meal or too for the presumed or planned amount of activity before it is done. Too much times i tried to make up for having my net calories in like 1,000 or 500 and trying to knock it up at the end of the day with junk food thinking my metabolism was going to slow. Danger zone wasnt exactly what i meant to say, because i do know your body can survive without food for a long time but i just meant i didnt want to go to the slow metabolism rate just because i didnt eat more food to compensate for the exercise or the fact i ran out of time in the day to eat my meals and had to go to bed.

isnt there a amount of time your not supposed to eat before bed?

I would like to know, how to know, how much sugar, salt etc. on a food label is healthy for me to eat it? Thanks.

*Ignore. Posting To Save.

I'm so confused.

My calorie goal is 1,600 to lose 2lbs per week.
So should I eat 1,600 cals then work out burn 750ish cals?

Should my net cals be 1,600 or should my consumption be 1,600?

Is it bad to be in the negatives for my net?

Should I eat 1,600 cals every day even if I'm only awake for half of the day or if I'm not hungry?

Thanks!

In my personal opinion I would eat the recommended calories of 1600 daily, then if your body sends you a signal to eat then eat.
You can always set your lifestyle to sedatary and track calories burned daily to get a better idea of what you need personally to maintain or loose daily.
Best of luck!

Please ensure your net calories are at the very least 1200/day. If you are netting negative calories that is a red flag that you are not eating enough.

For a healthy life style to need to eat properly.

oh, ok, thank you for your help. =]

According to the daily plate, I need 1092 calories a day. For the past month, I have been following what is called the "cheating diet". According to this diet, you diet during the week and eat whatever you want (without binging) on the weekend. This diet helps prevent plateus, or it is supposed to prevent this.

I must add that during the week, I never intake the required 1092 calories. I also workout 30-40 minutes 2-3x a week.

My question is, am I hurting my body by not eating enough calories during the week or does it even itself out? Help me!!