Trying to Understand calories burned vs intake

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blessed_mom
blessed_mom Posts: 21 Member
in Getting Started
The caculator for my suggested intakes suggests that i intake about 1230 calories to lose 2lbs per week. So on my profile where it shows you how many calories you burn should it be bigger than 1230 ?? I'm guessing not cause wow you would have to work out all day long. I have always been told thought to burn more calories than you intake to lose weight?? I suppose i'm just confused could some one please explain this to me?

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  • klkarlen
    klkarlen Posts: 4,366 Member
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    From what I understand, the MFP calculation includes your BMR, the amount of calories to just stay alive. It then takes your activity level and adds in calories, including a deficit of calories that should help you lose weight with no exercise (calories burned). If you log exercise that this above and beyond your daily activity, then you can "eat back" those calories and still lose weight.

    The key is accurate logging of everything you eat, and accurate logging of your exercise.

    So, at the end of a day, your home page would have your daily goal, food calories, minus exercise calories burned to equal the Net calories, which should be less than or equal to your goal.
  • Amanda4change
    Amanda4change Posts: 620 Member
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    Another member on here shared this site:http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/
    Which is awesome, it will walk you through figuring out what your bodies calorie needs are (to maintain your current weight) minus 500 from that to lose a pound a week.
  • Booda101
    Booda101 Posts: 161 Member
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    If you haven't already done so, read this post:

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants
  • Jesse_Hunter
    Jesse_Hunter Posts: 162 Member
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    Ah, ok, so....


    Think of it like this. You must not eat more than 1230 calories per day and you will lose an average of 2 lbs per week, right?

    Ok, so, don't even think about exercise, exercise doesn't matter here.

    You will lose 2 lbs per week, simply by eating no more than 1230 calories per day, without doing any exercise.

    Now, say you eat 1230 calories today, and you decided to go for a run and you know that during your run, you burned 250 calories. You simple subtract that 250 that you burned from what you ate (1230). Now you are left with 980 calories for the day.

    You are now even lower than your daily goal, which means you are restricting your calories even less. THIS IS TOO LOW, you are now at an unhealthy calorie intake for your body to perform optimally.

    So, if you eat 1230 calories today, and burn off 250 exercising, then you need to go home and eat that 250 back. This may sound counter productive to someone new to weight loss, but you already have your calories restricted as low as is reccommended daily. Another way of looking at this is, the more you exercise, the more you get to eat! ;)

    Understand now?

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