How many calories am I supposed to eat

healthykat71

Im not sure what my calorie intake should be. Should I aim for my net target? Or should I keep it 500 less than that to lose one pound a week? What does it mean to eat back calories burned?

yarwell

your target is calculated to achieve the weight loss rate you told it you wanted. The deficit for weight loss is built in.

On MFP if you log exercise calories it increases your food target to maintain the original deficit. If you eat the extra calories you are "eating back your exercise calories".

grimendale

If you are using the MFP default settings, you should be trying to get as close to your goal as you can. A deficit is already built into the number that MFP gives you based on the information you fed it. MFP calculates that number based on an average activity level (you likely selected either sedentary or lightly active), which for most people, does not include any exercise burns. Therefore, if you do not "eat your calories back", you end up with a net calorie intake significantly less than what you should be eating (you eat 1200 and burn 800, which puts you at a net of 400 calories for the day, which is significantly less than the 1200 goal set). Eating too far below your goal for too long encourages your body to burn muscle and lean body mass rather than fat since fat requires fewer calories to maintain than muscle, so you may continue to lose weight at a large deficit, but a significant portion of the weight lost will be muscle, not fat. In addition, eating too low for an extended period of time (typically several weeks) can cause metabolic damage that takes significant time to repair.

Short version: eat everything MFP tells you. Enter the calories burned, then eat that many extra calories. Many people (myself included) only eat about 80% of calories burned to account for innacuracies in calorie estimates.