Exercise and calories question

BlueLilOwl

Ok so I have myself set at 1200 on calories a day here on MFP and I am able to stay within that range. I am reintroducing cardio this week. Do I need to eat back the calories I burn, or is it ok to just eat the 1200 as usual? Sorry if it's a dumb question. I am rather new at this so please be gentle.

kwedman488

Eat back at least half the calories. 1200 calories is the minimum amount of calories your body needs to function on a daily basis just lying around ad keepin you alive. So I would say eat back only half. Then if you do and you still feel hungry, you'll know to eat back more of those calories burned. But 50% is a good basis to start with and you can tweak from there.

BlueLilOwl

Thanks that really helped!

tndejong

I have experimented with the scale to see what worked. For two weeks I somewhat tried to follow what mfp hade set at and did not eat back any of the exercise calories. I lost maybe a pound. For another week I ate over that whenever I felt hungry. Some days even went over that. I lost two pounds right away and today another pound. So when people say to eat them back I think it works. I don't know what kind of cardio you plan to add. I usually do the elliptical or a treadmill with the incline up. It's hard to know exactly how many calories you burn unless you have a heart monitor. Every machine will say something different. I have an elliptical at home and two gym memberships. All 3 of the machines say something different. And also mfp will give you another figure. So you have to play with numbers and see what your comfortable with.

BlueLilOwl

Yeah that's a goodpoint too tngejomg. I'll just see what works for me and go with that