Calories set at 1200 by mfp

Mandy72CM

So how much calories do you really eat back when exercising? Is it half of them? Or should I calculate my tdee including exercise and aim for below that?

BarbaraHelen2013

MFP is designed in a way that means you are expected to be eating back the calories you’ve burned doing any purposeful exercise.

The reason you see people say to only eat half or some other portion of those exercise calories is because it’s generally accepted that calorie burns estimated by gadgets, machines and MFPs exercise database itself are somewhat inflated.

The best way to handle this is to run a trial over the course of a few weeks. Start with eating back half of them and log what happens to your weight. If you’re losing faster than you intended, step up the proportion of the exercise calories you eat, if you’re not losing as expected, eat a few less.

sijomial

You should aim to eat back ALL of your ACTUAL exercise calories.

The exercises you do will determine the best (or at least better) way to estimate - it doesn't have to come from the database on here. Only go for eating back half if you believe your estimates are actually double reality.

Yes the TDEE method is also a perfectly valid way to manage your weight loss, it's a bit less precise as it doesn't diferentiate between types of exercise and your projected frequency/duration of exercise may not work out.
It tends to suit someone with a regular exercise schedule who also likes the simplicity of a same every day goal.



PS - MyFitnessPal didn't set your calorie goal to 1200, you did by the choices you made in your goal set up. The weekly rate of weight loss you selected has a huge impact on the daily target.