Should people on Low calorie diet exercise?

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tohyidrive
tohyidrive Posts: 14 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
If I am on a low calorie diet (1200), should I be exercising? How do I know whether exercising will help me prevent muscles loss, or will exercising cause my existing muscles to be used for energy burn (thus decreasing my BMR)?
-- Confused

Replies

  • jhanleybrown
    jhanleybrown Posts: 240 Member
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    kshama2001 wrote: »
    MFP uses the NEAT method (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis), and as such this system is designed for exercise calories to be eaten back. However, many consider the burns given by MFP to be inflated for them and only eat a percentage, such as 50%, back. Others, however, are able to lose weight while eating 100% of their exercise calories.

    I eat back 100% of exercise cals.

    But, I've found MFP to significantly over estimate cals used for my main forms of exercise.

    But those also had generally accepted formulas for more accurate estimates. Once i fixed that and used those (you can just overwright the calories when you input the exercise), everything worked great. So, point is eat back your cals, but I'd caution you that MFP is more accurate on food calories than exercise. In my case it was often off 50-100% for main forms of exercise. It sucked to be counting plus exercising and not losing.

    I also strongly agree with previous poster, its 5x harder for me to reach goal on days I don't exercise. I'm typically burning 600-700/day so that's like an extra meal.
  • Katmary71
    Katmary71 Posts: 6,629 Member
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    Exercise will help with muscles as long as you're eating some calories back. I was at 1200 not eating exercise calories back and didn't realize how weak I was until I started eating some. My workouts are a lot better now too with the extra fuel. I do feel my exercise calories are overblown so I don't eat more than half back.
  • fitnessguy266
    fitnessguy266 Posts: 150 Member
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    Highly individualized based on many factors (height, weight, age, TDEE, BMR) there is no "universal" calorie mark. I have personally dieted utilizing a 1200 calorie, high protein diet....I retained a surprising amount lean mass while dieting to 7%.
  • NovusDies
    NovusDies Posts: 8,940 Member
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    tohyidrive wrote: »
    If I am on a low calorie diet (1200), should I be exercising? How do I know whether exercising will help me prevent muscles loss, or will exercising cause my existing muscles to be used for energy burn (thus decreasing my BMR)?
    -- Confused


    Did someone put you on a 1200 calorie diet? If so, who?
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,342 Member
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    Yes of course - then not only will you improve your fitness, you get some more calories to eat back.
  • nighthawk584
    nighthawk584 Posts: 2,003 Member
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    jhanleybrown wrote: »
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    MFP uses the NEAT method (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis), and as such this system is designed for exercise calories to be eaten back. However, many consider the burns given by MFP to be inflated for them and only eat a percentage, such as 50%, back. Others, however, are able to lose weight while eating 100% of their exercise calories.

    I eat back 100% of exercise cals.

    But, I've found MFP to significantly over estimate cals used for my main forms of exercise.

    But those also had generally accepted formulas for more accurate estimates. Once i fixed that and used those (you can just overwright the calories when you input the exercise), everything worked great. So, point is eat back your cals, but I'd caution you that MFP is more accurate on food calories than exercise. In my case it was often off 50-100% for main forms of exercise. It sucked to be counting plus exercising and not losing.

    I also strongly agree with previous poster, its 5x harder for me to reach goal on days I don't exercise. I'm typically burning 600-700/day so that's like an extra meal.

    For me, MFP is pretty accurate with exercise calories, give or take 50-100 calories. I actually find strength training under cardio to be UNDER in calorie estimates. I have experimented with eating no exercise calories back, 1/2 and all back. I am eating MOST of the calories back if I am hungry (which is usually always the case) and still losing weight as I should.
  • Luke_rabbit
    Luke_rabbit Posts: 1,031 Member
    edited November 2019
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    NorthCascades wrote: »
    Yes. Find a type of exercise you enjoy, not just something you tolerate but something you look forward to. And then eat more because of it. Win/win.

    This assumes there exists an exercise that one would enjoy. Obviously that isn't always true. Some of us have to find the exercise we dislike the least! 😀
  • Theoldguy1
    Theoldguy1 Posts: 2,473 Member
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    NorthCascades wrote: »
    Yes. Find a type of exercise you enjoy, not just something you tolerate but something you look forward to. And then eat more because of it. Win/win.

    This 1000%. Everyone should exercise.

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