Eating calories burnt

kaddyn9222

Does anyone have any ideas.....
My target is 1200 calories a day to lose 2lbs a week...
If I burn 600 calories in the gym.... can I eat those 600 calories back and still lose 2lbs a week?
I hope this makes sense.. does anyone have any ideas/ experience?

Shen0303

In my experience, I've had better weight loss when I did not eat the extra calories. However, doing so does not mean you will lose less.

Holly_981

Eat 1800. Then you're still back at your goal of 1200. Otherwise you're down to 600 calories for the day and will pretty much starve and burn out

Nony_Mouse

Most people recommend only eating 50-75% of exercise calories to start with, as the burns given by MFP and various exercise machines are often inflated. Do that for 4 to 6 weeks, if you're losing less than 2lb, reduce cals, if you're losing more than 2lb, increase.

However, 2lb a week is quite aggressive unless you have a lot of weight to lose. 1200 is also the lowest calorie goal MFP will give (because it's considered the minimum required to ensure adequate nutrition), so even though you have set it to 2lb, if that would put you below 1200 cals the system won't let you and you will lose less.

Wolfger

50% is the rule of thumb I keep seeing on these forums. Which makes tracking calories a bit of a pain, since I can no longer trust at a glance the number that's showing up on my phone widget. Would be nice if MFP would allow us to set a percent of exercise to add back.

Holly_981

It really is very simple.
Work out your calorie deficit to lose weight. (e.g 1200)
Work out how many calories you're burning, preferably using a heart rate monitor to get a more accurate idea. (e.g 600)
* Eat 1800
* 1800 - 600 = 1200 (still at deficit)

Or you burn 400 calories then you would eat 1600
* 1600 - 400 = 1200 (deficit)
As long as you're always back at 1200, you're still at your deficit.

For a long time, I had my app set to 1200 calories and wouldn't eat my exercise calories. I plateaud for ages and never had any energy. I worked out that some days I would only be functioning on 700 calories or less which is just not sustainable long term.

ladyhusker39

Depending on your stats you may not be able to lose 2lbs at 1200 calories. To do that you have to burn 1000 calories more than you eat. If your settings in MFP give you an extra 1000 calories to cut before you reach 1200 (that's the lowest MFP will let you go) then yes you could lose that much.

Having said that if you burn another 600 calories that you don't eat back you will lose more than if you didn't burn any through exercise because obviously you're creating a bigger deficit.

Whether or not that's a good idea for you depends on your specific stats which we don't know because you haven't provided them.

JewelsAU

1200 calories a day to lose 2 pounds a week sounds awful and very aggressive. I am curious your age, current weight and height to get this amount of calories, possibly it gave you default minimum the way you setup your profile.

scarlett_k

Yes eat them back or you will probably crash and burn, or even become unwell from too little nourishment.