calorie/exercise question

mamabanana

I am still very new to this so I need some more clarification: I have my A)calorie goal, minus my B)exercise goal(which give additional calories) then the C)net . In order to lose lbs does the balance need to be zero. A minus B equals C C being the net.

DemoraFairy

Pretty much what you said. If your goal is 1200, and you burn off 500 calories at the gym, you need to eat 1700 calories in total, which is 1200 net.

Though if you're using the calorie estimation from gym machines, or using estimates from the MFP database, then a lot of people eat a fraction back, usually 50-90%, as they tend to overestimate. If you've got a heart rate monitor though then that's a lot more accurate and you can probably trust it. Just to make things more complicated for you :P

Jollyin14

I fear that I have not been doing this correctly. I started at the beginning of January and have been eating a 1200 calorie diet. I workout almost everyday and try not to eat back the calories that I have burned. Can this be why I have only lost 12lbs? Another thing is that i work out later in the day as I am a stay at home mom and have to wait for my husband to come home before I can head out. So I burn roughly around 600+ calories/day and can not eat that back nor do I feel like eating much at 9:30pm at night. Help!!

AmyRhubarb

Especially at 1200 you should be eating them back.

Your daily goal at MFP already has you at a deficit - meaning you could eat all of your calories every day, do zero exercise, and you'll lose weight. Burning off more cals through exercise leaves you with a much larger deficit - too large - and can cause you all sorts of problem over time. This is why the exercise cals are added back into your goal - you are supposed to eat them back, bringing your daily NET cals up to, or at least very near, your daily goal.

Kita328

I fear that I have not been doing this correctly. I started at the beginning of January and have been eating a 1200 calorie diet. I workout almost everyday and try not to eat back the calories that I have burned. Can this be why I have only lost 12lbs? Another thing is that i work out later in the day as I am a stay at home mom and have to wait for my husband to come home before I can head out. So I burn roughly around 600+ calories/day and can not eat that back nor do I feel like eating much at 9:30pm at night. Help!!

After working out for a while you will figure out how much you will burn each time you work out (a rough estimate) so basically add a snack sometime during the day to accomodate for that and that way at the end of the day you wont have to eat back all the cals before bed. Plan for your day...

I know my snacks should be between100-250 cals and average workouts for me are around 500 cals so thats 2 snacks...simple as that. Not hard to fit in the day as long as you plan for it.