I'm rather confused as to which is really the thing to avoid in terms of intake. I'm trying to lose body fat, but I feel energy deprived and I'm eating close to what I should be eating as far as calories go. My question is, is it okay to consume more calories than I'm suppose to if it doesn't have a high fat content? Or is the only way to lose body fat, no matter how much or little fat is in the food, you have to burn more calories than you consume.

you can eat pretty much what you want so long as you stay within your calories. In fact i encourage you to make sure you throw in a few of your 'old' foods to keep you sane once in a while (not ALL the time either).
It will teach you moderation more than anything and learning to cope with eating them the way they should be more than anything else.

These are great questions.

You need to remember not all fats are alike. I eat fats like olive, flax, and grape seed oils. Fats are important for hair,nails,your nervous, skin,and other things.

I follow a thing called BMR/ TDEE
Take your time and figure out what yours is.



Go to this site and this will give you your calories you burn at rest


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Then you multiply by the activity level at the bottom and that will give you your TDEE. Decrease by ~500-750 Remember 3500 cal burned is a pound so eat less than what you come up with just don't go crazy and starve yourself.


sedentary activity total daily energy expenditure TDEE
1.2 x BMR - television or office work

light activity total daily energy expenditure TDEE
1.375 x BMR - exercise workout or sports 1-3 days per week

moderate activity total daily energy expenditure TDEE
1.55 x BMR - exercise workout or sports 3-5 days per week

high activity total daily energy expenditure TDEE
1.725 x BMR - exercise workout or sports 6-7 days per week

extreme activity total daily energy expenditure TDEE
1.9 x BMR- exercise workout or sports two times per day



I do 15% fat, 50% carbs, 35% protien of my cal. There is a great book called food counts and it gives you this info on food. And you can carry the book with you and I also recommend writting down what you eat if don't already.

I really hope this helps

/I agree...

the way I've been doing that is just ignoring my activity level and then add on the calories I burn on the treadmill, then try and get under that by about 300 calories everyday

for example I have a BMR of 1890, yesterday I did 800 calories on the treadmill, so my intake was about 2200.

I feel a little energy deprived and I would pig out today if I could.. so I was wondering if I eat maybe 700 calories more than I should today if it's okay as long as it's not high in fat

I would not assume the activity level. Are you active at work? Do you walk to work? do you chase kids? And The treadmill may be off. I would defidnetly figure in your activity level. And go from there. Also I would recommend you cycle your calories. So if today you want a high fat food go a head as long as tomorrow you can get back on the program. Today is my cheat day. I have eaten lots of junk. But this works for me to keep me sane.

Sometimes if I have a really hard work out and fell like you are describing I take a tsp baking soda- working out causes your body to release a lot of acid and baking soda is alkalining. Or I take a product called Stamina. It helps with your electrolytes. Gatorade has too much sugar for me. Now on my cheat day with eating all the bad foods it can make you feel bad so be careful you might make yourself feel worse.

eating bad foods doesn't make me feel so good, but what your saying is if I have a cheat day, I should bebale to flush it out the next day no problem?

and right now in the winter I'm very inactive, my typical day is walking around school/studying, reading, and some weightlifting. I don't go by the calorie count on my treadmill, I calculate it based on my weight and the speed I went at with time.

I know I burn more than what the BMI if i ignore what I've done on the treadmill, but I figure it gives me a good safety factor if I ignore my other activities.

You should try and eat some slow release energy foods, like bananas and oats to keep you satisfied longer.
A calorie is a calorie is a calorie so upping calories wont help you lose unless you up excercise also, it's just finding ways to use the calories to your advantage so you don't feel the need to have 700 more one day, which by the way once in a while is ok in my books.

I am not sure what you meant by flush it out the next day. I was saying that for me I have a cheat day so I don't platue and also helps me stay sain. But sometimes it makes me bad about half way through the day and sometimes on sunday (day after) I also feel tired.

But I would try to stick with your Tdee and that should help. I recommend carring around a book and write things down that you eat. Find foods that are more satisfying like egg white pancakes they have oatmeal in them. Eat protein every 3 hours and eat carbs too. Just a few suggestions

Hmm. I'm no pro, but the way I would personally do it, is watch caloric intake while watching the type and amount of bad fats consumed. I am on no particular diet, but I am trying to do low cal and low fat. Someone mentioned the olive oil and flax etc.

I had an amazing wake up call at Target Supercenter a few weeks back. I was in a rush and was trying to decide between a steak or chicken pre packaged meal that you just throw in the oven. The Fat content was 68g for the steak and 6g for the Chicken. That was definitely an easy choice for me!