Really confused about the calories count! Somone help??

petithamu

Hi, I've been using MFP for little bit over a week now and been logging my food and exercise. To be honest, I don't really quite understand how the whole calorie count works! I've read several posts and I'm so sorry to say, I am still so sadly confused!

Can someone just explain to me as simple as possible...

My daily goal is 1200 calories. After I log in my exercise and such, the daily goal amount goes up. For instance, today I started at 1200. After logging breakfast/lunch/snack and my exercises, it says I've earned an extra 762kcal from exercise today which leaves me a remain of 942kcal today.

So my questions now are, am I suppose to eat the remain of 942kcal?? There is no way I can eat that at dinner! I can at best eat 500 but that's not going to put me in starvation mode am I?? But then I see all these people with the status 'so and so have completed their food diary and they are under their calorie goal.' Do I want to be under my calorie goal???

I hope my questions make sense!! Feel free to throw in extra info as long as they're simple enough for me to understand! Thank you!!

Tiffany

mjheinrich

You want to be close to your calorie goal but its not critical every day. Yes, you should eat some of those extra calories that you earn from exercising but I try not to eat them all if I have earned a large amount that day. You definitely don't want to go below the 1200 and if you earn 600 from exercise than probably eating at least an extra 400 is a good goal. If you don't eat any of the extra you will find yourself hungry and you would go into that starvation mode self preservation state. A good rule of thumb is to let your body tell you. Usually I am much hungrier when I exercise so I tend to eat most of my allowance but if its to the point of stuffing it in just to eat up to the new amount, personally I wouldn't do it. You'll get a better feel for what works for you after you track for a few weeks.

maggiemay1107

When you work out, you earn extra calories to eat-since you burned them during your work out. You are right though, eating an extra 900+ calories would be a little excessive. But from what I understand, there has to be a deficit of about 500 calories/day to lose weight in a healthy, steady way. So even though you earned the extra 900+ calories, I wouldn't eat all of those-however, if you're hungry-eat, you need the fuel if you're burning all those calories!

petithamu

I actually think I got it....I haven't been really hungry after my work out...I almost have to force myself to refuel but I understand the need to not go into starvation. Thanks guys!!