Eating what I burn? Calorie counting question.

zs_snowflake

For my profile, I selected my activity level as sedentary because my job has me in my chair for most of the day. However, I do interval cardio training with strength training 6 days a week and a light cardio day (walking/hiking) on my "off" day. I have a heart rate monitor to track my strength training/cardio calories burned. At 5'3", 200 lbs, I am looking to lose around 60-80 lbs by losing 2lbs a week. My calorie budget is set at 1200 calories/day.

Many calorie calculators I have used have put my daily calorie goal to lose 2 lbs at 937 calories, this is in adjustment for my sedentary lifestyle, height, weight, etc; obviously not healthy. Therefore, it is recommended to increase my calories to 1200 and workout to burn the rest of the calories to create that deficit, which I am doing.

My question is this: is it better to "consume" my burned calories (i.e. what I lose from exercising) or should I simply stick to the 1200 calories a day to most effectively lose weight?

Thanks for the help!

Branstin

You should eat back at least half of your exercise calories.

grubb1019

I eat back about 100 of my exercise calories. If I go over that I don't loose. You may be different, you might be able to eat back half or all of them, just test it out and see what works for you.