To maintain your current weight and keep your energy levels up, you need to eat roughly the same number of calories that you burn each day. For most people who aren’t elite athletes, this happens naturally, without you having to consciously add more food into your day. “Your hunger hormone, ghrelin, ramps up in response to increased exercise as your body’s way of telling you to eat more,” Schroeder says.
That means that if you’re doing only moderate-intensity exercise — which, remember, burns about 280 calories per hour — a few times per week, there’s probably no need to intentionally up your calories. But if you exercise at a vigorous intensity (running, circuit training, HIIT), which burns upwards of 500 calories per hour, your ghrelin levels can actually be suppressed post-workout.
So, relying solely on your hunger cues could leave you underfueled, Schroeder says.
“Too much of a calorie deficit can cause individuals to lose muscle mass,” Buckingham says. That’s not ideal, because muscle mass is essential for your health — it enables everyday movement and also supports vital functions like circulating blood and assisting with breathing.
Plus, muscle mass actually helps your body burn more calories overall, even at rest.
If you notice over time that you’re losing weight and you don’t want to, you could try upping your calorie intake by a few hundred calories per day, Buckingham says. One hundred calories is the equivalent of roughly one medium banana or 1 tablespoon of peanut butter.
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