Advice on calorie intake needed!

[bennettsleg]

Please can anyone advise me if I need to worry greatly about the calorie intake? I've recently started usign FitDay to clock what I eat and plan my day which means that I can be rigorous on my net carbs...but I also keep an eye on my calories too. My logic being that I could (theoretically!) eat butter all day as it's low carb but the resulting 6000k calorie intake would mean putting on weight as I'm not that active. Am I right? Or going wrong? My understanding was that fat is burned through more easily than carbs thus one could eat more fats, however, there must be a limit!

Sorry, it's a very basic beginner's question but I'd value a point in the right direction. For reference, FitDay says I burn c.3100C a day and I try to make sure my calorie intake does not breach 2200 a day.

Any advice gratefully received!

[chinadoll]

Re: Advice on calorie intake needed!

You are right about needing to be mindful of the calories if your intake tends to be on the high side. Usually this means you are not eating when hungry but for other reasons--boredom, stress relief, etc. If you make a conscious choice to eat when physically hungry and become more aware of your habitual eating, you may find that you will no longer need to watch your calorie intake--it will have dropped.

[liv]

Re: Advice on calorie intake needed!

No you do not need to worry about calories. The only time I would consider checking them is if I needed to troubleshoot. So just worry about your carbs and let the rest fall in place.

You can only theoretically eat butter all day. Fat would just fill you up and you would automatically have to stop. This is one of the reasons we do eat plenty of fat. Another is that fat does not cause blood sugar issues like carbs do. The important issue is to eat sensible, have meals and listen to your body. This is the skill you will have to develop to make you good at keeping off weight.

And drink water and start moving around.

[Georgiana]

Re: Advice on calorie intake needed!

My logic being that I could (theoretically!) eat butter all day as it's low carb but the resulting 6000k calorie intake would mean putting on weight as I'm not that active. Am I right?

Jackie Eberstein had a patient who each night was "snacking" on a stick of butter sprinkled with cinnamon. This patient was wondering why she's not losing weight, even though her sticks were showing that she was in ketosis.

[brandywine1241]

Re: Advice on calorie intake needed!

Jackie Eberstein had a patient who each night was "snacking" on a stick of butter sprinkled with cinnamon. This patient was wondering why she's not losing weight, even though her sticks were showing that she was in ketosis

My guess is that she was not following the paramount rule, as chinadoll says, of eating because she was hungry.

[liv]

Re: Advice on calorie intake needed!

Maybe she had another issue. I need to see the full menu
Just kidding

[Aways2Go]

Re: Advice on calorie intake needed!

Hey Bennett - I am pretty close to your current weight. I don't pay a LOT of attention to my calorie levels on a daily basis, but I do notice when they are particularly high or low and try to adjust some if so.

For me, I tend to fall somewhere between 1600 and 2100 dang near every day without any effort at all. Occasionally (a few times a month maybe) it will shoot up to 2500 or more, or be really low like 1300. On the days it is low, I add something to get it up a few more hundred, not wanting to risk any "starvation mode" responses, LOL! If I notice it heading towards the mid to upper 2k level, I try to cut myself off and think that's a sufficient amount of food. It often means I have eaten more than it took to just make me full, too - overate something just because it tasted good. Usually only happens if I eat something like big portions of fried hamburger for a couple of meals in the same day or something like that, plus nuts and mayo (I'm in OWL, includes some nuts) and/or butter that day too.

As I said though, 90 percent of the time, it falls within my usual range and I am full and satisfied and I made no effort to adjust my calorie level, just glance at it in passing.

I wouldn't obsess over it too much, but if it tends to fall way high or way low, look at your menu and see if you can't make one or two slightly different choices to bring it into range.

You will see differing ideas on here about how many calories you "should" be eating, but you will need to decide for yourself what seems to work well for you, keeps you full, provides for your nutrition and lets you continue to lose weight. I don't encourage trying to go too low (starvation mode kicking in) for sure. I also don't agree with some calculations that tell me I need to eat more calories than necessary to stay full just to get up to some magical figure... seems like bad training to keep eating when you aren't hungry just to reach a number once you are past the potential "starvation mode" area.