[alhiser]

Im checking out fit day. What is calorie restriction?

[beerab]

I thought it just meant lowering your calories enough to lose weight.

From wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie_restriction

[bargoo]

Restricting calories ! Or to put it another way, eating fewer calories ,

[mayness]

It depends on the context. They could just mean it literally - restricting calories! Putting some sort of limit on the number of calories eaten (per meal, per day, per week, whatever).

However, it could also refer to the practice of eating a VERY low calorie diet permanently (NOT just to lose weight), in hopes of living longer or having other health benefits. For example, the type of diet that the Calorie Restriction Society supports (google them if you want - I don't want to promote them). This is usually based on the fact that in many creatures, restricting food intake leads to a longer life. Whether it works in humans is still very undecided.

[dangerousfish]

I haven't been on fitday PC in a long time but I think, without context, that they might be referring to calorie balance: calories eaten - calories burned. EXAMPLE: If you need 1200 calories just to live (make new cells, breath, shuttle messages from your brain to other parts), and with your daily life burn another 700 (typing on the computer, fixing coffee, eating lunch, writing your TPA report) and then come home and burn another 300 walking the dog and lifting weights you would have a total calorie requirement of 2200. If you want to gain weight you need to eat more than 2100 calories, if you want to lose weight you need to eat less. So fitday wants to know how many calories you want to restrict from your daily total. So if you need 2200 to maintain and only eat 1700 your calorie restriction is 500.

If I'm remembering correctly fitday asks you to set a calorie restriction goal so you tell it how many fewer calories you want to eat, per day.