Exercise v calorie intake

gemmathehut

If I want to loose weight should I stick to the 1200 calorie count even if I exercise?

PaytraB

As long as your calories in are lower than your calories burned, you'll lose weight. The trick is to find a healty, sustainable way of making this happen.
My advice would be to consider:

- setting a realistic goal of weight loss for about 1lb/week. This will set your daily calorie goal to a sustainable level.
- adding your exercise and realize that the calories shown are probably high.
- eating your daily calorie goal + 1/2 of your exercise calories
- monitoring your progress for 4 weeks. Adjust as necessary.

You'll lose the weight if your logging is accurate. Weigh your food; its the most accurate way of seeing what you eat.

cwolfman13

1200 calories is generally the most aggressive approach (2 Lbs per week) for sedentary...sooooo....if you're working out, you're no longer sedentary....

alejandro_08

I am one who is more concerned about weekly caloric intake than daily. 1200 is low, and studies been shown that people gain weight even on a 800 calorie plan!! Let's say you ate 1200 calories for 5 days and then on the weekend you ate 2000 and 2500 calories the average comes out to 1500 calories a day! Kind of defeats the purpose of eating very little, And that's being modest with the splurging. My approach is weighting myself one day and then eating "normal" for about 3 days. No working out just daily activities. Then weight myself on the 4th day, hopefully I should still weight the same if not a couple pounds under or over. That's my maitance calories. Mine is 1800 calories. So every 2 weeks I cut off 100 calories or so and increase my work output. I feel its safer and more efficient that way then just cutting yourself off on food!

malibu927

alejandro_08 wrote: »

I am one who is more concerned about weekly caloric intake than daily. 1200 is low, and studies been shown that people gain weight even on a 800 calorie plan!! Let's say you ate 1200 calories for 5 days and then on the weekend you ate 2000 and 2500 calories the average comes out to 1500 calories a day! Kind of defeats the purpose of eating very little, And that's being modest with the splurging. My approach is weighting myself one day and then eating "normal" for about 3 days. No working out just daily activities. Then weight myself on the 4th day, hopefully I should still weight the same if not a couple pounds under or over. That's my maitance calories. Mine is 1800 calories. So every 2 weeks I cut off 100 calories or so and increase my work output. I feel its safer and more efficient that way then just cutting yourself off on food!

How would a healthy adult gain weight on 800 calories?

If you don't eat your exercise calories back, OP, your weight loss and health may start to suffer depending on how low your net is. You should be aiming for 1200 net, but those burns are often overestimated.

3dogsrunning

alejandro_08 wrote: »

I am one who is more concerned about weekly caloric intake than daily. 1200 is low, and studies been shown that people gain weight even on a 800 calorie plan!! Let's say you ate 1200 calories for 5 days and then on the weekend you ate 2000 and 2500 calories the average comes out to 1500 calories a day! Kind of defeats the purpose of eating very little, And that's being modest with the splurging. My approach is weighting myself one day and then eating "normal" for about 3 days. No working out just daily activities. Then weight myself on the 4th day, hopefully I should still weight the same if not a couple pounds under or over. That's my maitance calories. Mine is 1800 calories. So every 2 weeks I cut off 100 calories or so and increase my work output. I feel its safer and more efficient that way then just cutting yourself off on food!

@alejandro_08 - what studies? That is total BS.

OP - your question is impossible to answer without knowing how much you weight, how tall you are, how active you are, what exercise you do, how much you have to lose and age.
Chances are, you likely should be eating at a portion of your exercise calories back. 1200 calories is too low for the majority of people, especially active people.

LaurenAOK

PaytraB wrote: »

As long as your calories in are lower than your calories burned, you'll lose weight. The trick is to find a healty, sustainable way of making this happen.
My advice would be to consider:

- setting a realistic goal of weight loss for about 1lb/week. This will set your daily calorie goal to a sustainable level.
- adding your exercise and realize that the calories shown are probably high.
- eating your daily calorie goal + 1/2 of your exercise calories
- monitoring your progress for 4 weeks. Adjust as necessary.

You'll lose the weight if your logging is accurate. Weigh your food; its the most accurate way of seeing what you eat.

This! Though I would recommend eating back closer to 3/4 of your exercise calories. A lot of people say MFP and machines overestimate your burn, but I have found those to be right on track with what my heart rate monitor says. It varies person to person.

1200 calories (plus eating back exercise calories) is absolutely minimum. In order to sustainably lose weight, most people choose to eat a bit more than that. When I'm losing weight I usually go with about 1400-1600, plus exercise calories. It's all about individual factors, so like the person above said, it's good to take a look at your progress after a few weeks and then re-evaluate and adjust calories up or down as necessary.

BWBTrish

alejandro_08 wrote: »

I am one who is more concerned about weekly caloric intake than daily. 1200 is low, and studies been shown that people gain weight even on a 800 calorie plan!! Let's say you ate 1200 calories for 5 days and then on the weekend you ate 2000 and 2500 calories the average comes out to 1500 calories a day! Kind of defeats the purpose of eating very little, And that's being modest with the splurging. My approach is weighting myself one day and then eating "normal" for about 3 days. No working out just daily activities. Then weight myself on the 4th day, hopefully I should still weight the same if not a couple pounds under or over. That's my maitance calories. Mine is 1800 calories. So every 2 weeks I cut off 100 calories or so and increase my work output. I feel its safer and more efficient that way then just cutting yourself off on food!

Show us the studies.

People who gain weight eat Surplus calories
Nothing magical to it. People who think they ate 800 calories a day and gained weight...well they at a lot more than they said/logged/wrote down. Without knowing or being dishonest about it.
But the body is the perfect counter for us. WE can lie/cheat/forget or think we calculate it all right...our body knows exactly what we took in and will act accordingly by gaining, maintaining or losing weight.

sorry for bursting a bubble of magic but that is how it is.

The only influances there are is medical issues what can make your weight loss slow down, water fluctuations ( which you lose very quickly again) your age, and how tall you are, your sex etc etc. But that is all.

For people who dont lose weight...most of them dont use a food scale to weigh ALL their food.
Or they use a food scale and other things like cups and serving sizes which can be very inaccurate too.

But nobody...nobody gain weight on 800 calories...if so we would have solved the world hunger. Isnt it?

alejandro_08

The following is an extract from "Total Nutrition: The Only Guide you'll Ever Need. From the Mount Sinai School of Medicine"

Chapter 17: Weight Control under the topic "Things to avoid: Fad diets and Repeated Crash Dieting"

recent studies suggest that a yo-yo pattern of going on a very low calorie diet less than 1200 calories a day for men 1000 calories for women then resuming former eating patterns and repeat dieting may actually result in an upward spiral of ever increasing weight. during a period of semi starvation which is what a very low calorie diet represents the body responds by lowering its metabolic rate this is actually a survival mechanism because someone who requires fewer calories to survive during a famine or other extreme food shortage is likely to live longer. when a dieter resumed his or her usual eating habits the metabolism does not return to its former level as a result the dieter will gain weight even more quickly than before even if the food intake would normally maintain the desired weight instead of providing excess calories. each successive crash diet may result in decreased metabolic needs studies have found that some people who engage in repeated bouts of crash dieting reach a point where they gain weight if they eat more than 800 or 900 calories a day.
in addition to resetting the BMR at lower levels crash dieting can result in serious nutritional imbalance excessive loss of lean muscle tissue including heart muscle and with some regimens chemical imbalances in short any weight loss diet requires reduce food intake but it should provide enough variety and calories for the individual to maintain nutritional status while gradually losing weight

My point was having a low caloric intake when for that individual isnt normal will most likely hinder their health. The "Set point theory" has a lot to with it. Which is why the individual should find their respective calorie needs and gradually decrease them. Great points on age, genetics, life style etc having a lot to do it.

Hope that helps!

BWBTrish

alejandro_08 wrote: »

The following is an extract from "Total Nutrition: The Only Guide you'll Ever Need. From the Mount Sinai School of Medicine"

Chapter 17: Weight Control under the topic "Things to avoid: Fad diets and Repeated Crash Dieting"

recent studies suggest that a yo-yo pattern of going on a very low calorie diet less than 1200 calories a day for men 1000 calories for women then resuming former eating patterns and repeat dieting may actually result in an upward spiral of ever increasing weight. during a period of semi starvation which is what a very low calorie diet represents the body responds by lowering its metabolic rate this is actually a survival mechanism because someone who requires fewer calories to survive during a famine or other extreme food shortage is likely to live longer. when a dieter resumed his or her usual eating habits the metabolism does not return to its former level as a result the dieter will gain weight even more quickly than before even if the food intake would normally maintain the desired weight instead of providing excess calories. each successive crash diet may result in decreased metabolic needs studies have found that some people who engage in repeated bouts of crash dieting reach a point where they gain weight if they eat more than 800 or 900 calories a day.
in addition to resetting the BMR at lower levels crash dieting can result in serious nutritional imbalance excessive loss of lean muscle tissue including heart muscle and with some regimens chemical imbalances in short any weight loss diet requires reduce food intake but it should provide enough variety and calories for the individual to maintain nutritional status while gradually losing weight

Hope that helps!

Total nutrition is a commercial company lol
They want to sell you stuff and is certainly NOT a company to believe any studies from.



So no this does not prove anything at all.

Other studies... Like official ones?

heybales

But that's just it - they were not gaining while eating 800.

Attempting to be Eating the 800 caused them to fail and eat much more, and with a lowered metabolism - they didn't have to eat as much more to start gaining fat.

But they did NOT gain fat eating 800.

But there are plenty of studies where the folks are locked away and only eat 800 - and do just fine being measured out the whazoo for any health issues - and of course only being allowed in the study because they were healthy and usually no weight changes in prior 6-9 months.

Edit to add - and seen several on MFP after the study ended in 6 months but they still had weight to lose - and they were indeed in a bad way on their own.

BWBTrish

But we are drifting off

OP eat some of your exercise back Your body needs it.
Most people here do around 50% ( this because the burns are mostly over estimated)

heybales

gemmathehut wrote: »

If I want to loose weight should I stick to the 1200 calorie count even if I exercise?

So you are trusting their eating goal given to you for your non-exercise days?

And you perhaps have no idea why it ended up at 1200.

Why in the world then wouldn't you follow the program and method MFP uses and trust them that when you do exercise, and do indeed burn more that day, that you can eat more and still have the same deficit?

Don't be fooled by the fact your only experience with calorie levels may be tabloids spouting 1200 calorie diets.

alejandro_08

No that's just the name of the book. There was no adds in their, and my point being if you start straight off the bat at 1,200 calories I mean how much lower can you go?

BWBTrish

First of all, most people dont have to go lower at all. And aim higher even. You can be very petit so a deficit on 1200 doesnt even have to be that high for some people

Second you dont know anything about the OP

Third it can be a must ( for medical reasons) like me. to start with 1200 calories

And the OP was asking if she should eat her exercise calories back that was her question Not to be judge about how much calories she takes in daily.

alejandro_08

Okay thank you all for your time and input

gemmathehut

Thank you it's I will go on 50 % of the exercise input

yarwell

alejandro_08 wrote: »

No that's just the name of the book. There was no adds in their, and my point being if you start straight off the bat at 1,200 calories I mean how much lower can you go?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Total-Nutrition-Guide-School-Medicine/dp/0312113862

PAV8888

alejandro_08 wrote: »

I am one who is more concerned about weekly caloric intake than daily. 1200 is low, and studies been shown that people gain weight even on a 800 calorie plan!! Let's say you ate 1200 calories for 5 days and then on the weekend you ate 2000 and 2500 calories the average comes out to 1500 calories a day! Kind of defeats the purpose of eating very little, And that's being modest with the splurging. My approach is weighting myself one day and then eating "normal" for about 3 days. No working out just daily activities. Then weight myself on the 4th day, hopefully I should still weight the same if not a couple pounds under or over. That's my maitance calories. Mine is 1800 calories. So every 2 weeks I cut off 100 calories or so and increase my work output. I feel its safer and more efficient that way then just cutting yourself off on food!

=Yes, 1200 is too low for many people.
=No they don't gain on an 800 calorie plan.
=Yes, planning to have "cheat" days is not a great idea. The occasional "over" day will happen anyway.
=No, you can't figure out your maintenance calories on the basis of 4 days of logging. You might as well take the figure given to you by MFP, scooby, or IIFYM because it is probably a BETTER guess than the result of four random days of logging. 4 weeks of logging? Now you're starting to talk!

OP: if you have a lot to lose you can afford to be more aggressive. 1200 + 50%. If you have less than 20lbs to lose you may want to start at 75% eat back. In both cases, you may want to reconsider the 1200 unless you're very short! Doesn't leave you with a lot of room to drop!

Log for a few weeks and evaluate if you should be increasing, or decreasing your eat back.