I am trying to figure out how much 1 "normal sized" chicken drumstick is. I've been looking on fitday, dailyplate, and other places and have a range of 112-300 calories. I'm trying to narrow it down. Any ideas? These are raw drumsticks that I plan on baking.

Second question is this - I'm using DailyPlate to track my calories and exercise. When I put my exercise in it said I had additional calories that I may eat that day. Should I eat those calories to make sure I don't go under my calorie goal? My calorie goal is based on losing 2.5 lbs/week so I'm mildly cautious about going under.

As far as the drumstick goes, it depends on the weight. Are these boneless thighs, or the leg with bone? It might be easier to just weigh the meat that comes off and look up dark meat for an accurate count.

And as for eating back the exercise calories. I don't - I just note that I burned them, since the idea of a calorie deficit is to lose weight. Only if I burn a lot of extra calories (over 500 in a given day) will I eat a little something.

I use TDP also and I've never eaten back my exercise calories. My target varied from 1200-1550 during weight loss, 1750 for maintenance. I consumed up to those calories, still logged the exercise calories, didn't have a problem. I lost more than I wanted a couple of weeks, but didn't lose any on some other weeks so it balanced out.

I did add more protein in when I added weight training, but it didn't increase the calories too much overall, I trimmed other places.

Do you have a food scale to weigh your drumsticks? I had the same problem with apples & bananas, so now I weigh them. I never seem to get one that is 'average size' based on weight.

I could weigh them but that's more commitment than I'm ready for at this point. Was looking for an average I suppose. Like with bananas I found several different average numbers for 8" bananas but they were all so close it didn't matter to me. With chicken legs the range was so wide it was confusing.

My favorite place to look up calorie info is calorieking.com
It's quick and easy and has lots of portion options.
It gives you options like roasted, fried, baked, skin, no skin, etc.

Hi - 1 drumstick baked, bone removed (52 grams) = 112 calories

I use DietPower and they have a drumsticks listed based on (oz edible)

The 112 calories that bandit2 noted above is for a drumstick, roasted with skin (1.8oz edible)

It is only 75 calories for a drumstick, roasted without skin (1.6oz edible)

It is 116 calories for drumstick, stewed with skin (2.0oz edible). The same stewed drumstick without skin (1.6oz edible) is 77 calories.

This information is straight from the FDA.

When I first started I did not eat back my exercise calories. But as I get closer to goal and my exercise intensity has increased, I desparately need those calories. I still don't eat them all back.

I prefer to be more intuitive about the whole calorie thing and pay attention to what my body says it needs.

I have actually increased my calories rather then decrease as I get closer to goal and it is working for me.

Thanks for all the help.

Tonight I'm sitting at 1300 calories consumed which is only about 70% of my calorie goal. I'm not hungry and I'd like to just do whatever is best for my weight loss. Logic tells me don't eat, listen to your body. But I've read quite a bit about how it's important to not eat too few calories. Oh and that's total calories, my net is slightly lower from walking earlier.

To maximize weight loss is it ok to stay low or will this slow weight loss down because it's too low. I'm still trying to get a handle on understanding going under my calorie goal. I'm hypothyroid so I definitely don't want to slow my metabolism any worse than it already is.

Hope this makes sense - it's probably been asked a million times, lol.

EDIT: I just read the "Cal's in VS. Cal's out.." thread and that helped a fair bit. I'm still trying to figure out what the line is. Maybe I just have to experiment to figure it out for myself?

Hmm I just realized I haven't read the stickys in this forum - I've read them in the other two forums I frequent - so let me put my last question on hold until I read the FAQ!

EDIT: I read the FAQ, it was helpful but I'm still trying to figure out "how low is too low" for me. Any thoughts appreciated!