I think I figured out the exercise calorie question

utes09

At least for me I think I have found an answer.

I was looking at my profile on here, I have it set to sedentary and 4 days of 45 minutes of exercise. MFP states that my calorie intake is 1570 and then calculates the deficit down to 1200 and states that I would lose .7 lbs/ week. I changed my profile to have zero exercise to see if that 1500+ number would changed and I think it went to like 1550, I then changed my profile to state I wanted to maintain my current weight. It told me then that I had 1550 calories to eat a day.

So, what I've realized is, is that if I eat 1500ish calories I shouldn't gain or lose and that my exercise calories are on top of that.

Let's say I burn 300 calories exercising. If I'm understanding this correctly I would then *technically* have 1800 calories to eat. If I wanted to lose more than .7lbs a week I would be OK still consuming 1200 calories and could even eat closer to 1300 and still have that 500 calorie deficit needed to be seen daily to lose a pound a week. Granted if I have a hard work out and burn 400-500 calories I will want to eat most of those back to fuel my body properly.

aippolito1

Yes... you can just test it and see how it works. I was set at 2 lbs/week and ate all my exercise calories and it worked for awhile. Then I started leaving a couple hundred per day (just 'cause I was lazy and didn't want to figure out how to eat them up) which made my deficit too big. I went down to 1 lb/week and if I eat all my exercise calories, I'm usually okay and will lose fairly easily. By the numbers, I'll lose 0.9 lbs/week so sometimes I leave a little extra and I'm still okay.

A lot of it depends on how much you have to lose. I only have 19 left to lose so it's harder to lose now.

animatedbecca

Ok Im more confused than ever! I set my to sedentary, exercise 60 mn a day 6 days a week and it shows me at 1200 calories a day and then what ever I burn is added to that and even though I put in 2 lbs a week it shows me to loose an estimated ;5 a week. HOW is it that you can exersize less and loose 7 lbs a week? Im jealous! LOL!

alantin

That's how it goes.
The way I see it, Instead of looking at the input calories, you should aim to keep a steady healthy deficit.
Practically, just try to get the "calories left" as close to 0 as possible every day and let the system take care of the rest.

utes09

That should say .7lbs, there's a period there. So it's less than a pound a week.

animatedbecca

WHEW!!! Ok I will stop being jealous now! Hahaha!