Food vs exercise and calorie intake

akunkle1025
akunkle1025 Posts: 1 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I'm so confused about how the whole calorie intake works. I had always thought burn more then you eat. So why does the app allow you to eat more calories when you put in your exercise? Shouldn't I eat my daily allowance and just minus out what I lost during exercise and leave it at that?

Replies

  • Retroguy2000
    Retroguy2000 Posts: 1,945 Member
    edited June 2023
    Where do you think the energy for exercise comes from?

    If sitting idle burns 2000 per day, and then you burn 500 from exercise, the CO part of CICO is therefore 2500.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    akunkle1025 wrote: »
    I'm so confused about how the whole calorie intake works. I had always thought burn more then you eat. So why does the app allow you to eat more calories when you put in your exercise? Shouldn't I eat my daily allowance and just minus out what I lost during exercise and leave it at that?

    For most people, merely existing and nothing else is the most substantial part of their "burn". You burn a *kitten* ton of calories just being alive. Then you burn more going about your day to day. Then you burn more with exercise and movement.

    Your calorie target already has your deficit built in. Making it bigger with exercise isn't necessary and in many cases just a plain bad idea as people tend to select the steepest deficit possible for the go anyway. Overly large calorie deficits cause all kinds of nasty things over time.

    Here's a look at the math. I burn around 1800 calories give or take merely existing on this planet. That, and my daily hum drum (before deliberate exercise) gives me around 2500 calories to maintain my weight. If I tell MFP I want to lose 1 Lb per week I'll get a target of around 2000 calories as per my stats and light active activity level. If I exercise and burn 300 calories I can now eat 2300 calories to lose that same 1 Lb per week because the addition of exercise to my day will also increase my maintenance calorie needs from 2500-2800 calories and 2800-2300=500 calorie deficit still.

    I hope you aren't under the impression that if you eat 1500 calories you also need to go burn 1500 calories with exercise...that would be a very bad thing.

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