Exercising adding on available food calories

ktriplett92

when you incorporate exercise into your available food calories it gives you the same amount you burned into your goal for the day...how are you supposed to lose weight while eating back all that you have earned. That doesn't make sense to mel

Angierae75

Because the calories it gives you originally already has your deficit built in. If you ate every calorie MFP gives you, you'd lose weigh. If you exercise, you "earn" more to eat.

marcolbmp

when you input your data in the beginning and tell MFP how aggressive you want your weight loss to be, it calculates your daily caloric needs and the number shown to you includes a calorie deficit, could be as much as 500 calories less then your needs to maintain.
The idea is that it makes it foolproof, just eat the calories the app says and you'll lose weight.
Of course, everyone's metabolic rate is different, so if you're not seeing losses, you could be either still eating too many calories, or might not be eating enough.
exercise buys you calories back to maintain the deficit you start with.

juggernaut1974

If you used MFP's numbers to calculate your initial goal, that number already has a calorie deficit built in which would achieve your chosen weight loss if you do ZERO exercise. So adding on exercise, would increase your deficit, potentially into unsafe territory. So most people recommend eating a portion of those calories back.

pplastics

The main reason I exercise is to be able to eat more calories!!!

Lost almost 50 pounds doing just that with MFP. I don't use the calorie amounts MFP gives though...too high.