Using My Fitness Pal

Squash97

I'm a bit confused based on what I'm reading. I've lost twenty five pounds and hit a plateau. Then I started doing cardio 20-40 minutes 7 days a week and my weight started going up. I started using MFP in order to make sure that I was getting enough calories in order to lose the wieght. People keep referring to your "exercise calories" and "not eating them". When I enter exercies into MFP, it gives me additional calories I can consume that day. Should I not be eating those? I want to make sure that I'm eating enough to lose additional wieght. I'm getting close to my goal, so I know it'll be slower. I just want to make sure that I'm doing it healthily and correctly. Thanks for helping!

Eve23

Yes do eat your calories you recieve for exercising. It sounds like you are doing excellent.
:drinker:

Mindful_Trent

Short Answer: Yes, you are supposed to eat most of your exercise calories, assuming you setup your goal to lose weight. (If you're not sure, go to the "Goals" screen on the home page.) The reason for this is that MFP builds in your deficit to lose the selected weight loss goal without taking any exercise into consideration. The exercise calories are extra, and you are supposed to eat most of these back. I aim to eat 50-75% of them back.

Long Answer: read one (or both) of these two posts. They're the best "eat your exercise calorie" explanations I've seen on this site, posted by a very respected member.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/108362-eating-to-fuel-your-body-very-long

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/10589-for-those-confused-or-questioning-eating-your-exercise-calo

MzBug

Net calories consumed should stay above 1200. If you have your goal set to the 1200 and you burn 400 while exercising you need to eat that 400 to keep your NET calories at 1200. If you have your goal set at 1500 and burn 400 while exercising you need to only eat 100 of those back to maintain the 1200 (1500 - 400 = 1100... + 100 = 1200) you don't have to eat them all, but you can if you want to. Many use the exercise calories as a bonus, or do a bunch of exercising if they know they will be getting into a situation where there will be lots of food or beverages... goal set at 1500, exercise 500 then you can go up to 2000 and still meet your goal for the day. Some even use the exercise cals to balance out an "oops" during the day. They ate a little too much at a buisness lunch and they need to burn off the extra 200 calories so they go for a walk.

Make sense?

Squash97

Thanks so much to all of you for your help! I really appreciate it!