Confused - Eat Deficit or not?

fairestthings

I have a goal to lose 40ish pounds. Preferably by the end of this year. Although it’s not a hard and fast goal date because I want this to stick!

That said, it’s been a while since I’ve lost weight and I’ve forgotten the rules per se.

MFP (and several online calculators) say I need to exercise daily and eat 1600 cals a day to reach my GW.

If I exercise and burn, say, 400 calories, do I eat 1600 and let the 400 be my deficit OR do I burn 400 and only eat 1500 to leave a food deficit (so at that point it would be 900 deficit).

I’m not currently losing at a regular deficit and trying to figure which way to journey on the calorie scale.

Thanks for advice!

janejellyroll

If you told MFP you wanted to lose weight and they gave you a goal of 1,600, the deficit is already figured into that. If you decide to exercise, you can eat those calories back because your goal is to hit that *original* deficit and exercise has made it larger.

Now if you're not losing weight, then you're going to want to figure out what is going on. A common issue is that people underestimate the amount of calories they're eating. Are you using a food scale to measure your food?

Whatever the issue is, if you're not losing weight over a long enough period of time, it means you aren't in a deficit.

debtay123

Yes mfp calculates the deficit in so if you eat the amount givenyoushouldlose weight- if not- check your logging- use a food scale- also you could have it set to lose an agressive amount of weight(like 2 pounds a week) might need to lower it- that way it will give you more calories to eat--- I found that I would eat food that i hadn't logged when i sat down and reworked all i had to eat- a handful of nuts here, a few cookies there, or even tasting food as i cooked- sometimes it adds up big!- good luck

kshama2001

When you set up your goals here https://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/my_goals the exercise part is merely aspirational - it is not factored into your calorie goal. (Activity level is factored in.) MFP intends for you to eat back the calories you earned from exercise.

There are a variety of reason why you may not be losing weight. Here are the common ones:

fairestthings

Thanks on the insight for MFP calculating the deficit already into the calories it gives.