Calorie totals and exercise

whatupskinnyjeans

ok I have a question about the total number of calories. My daily allowance is 1300. But if I exercise then I am supposed to eat more to make it up?

spacecase76

you earn extra calories by doing cardio. I have heard that you should try to eat at least half of what you burn off, on top of your daily allowance. Some days I do, some days I don't.

jmyers1230

If you exercise, you can eat more since you have burned some of the calories you have taken in. It's like having free calories!

spacecase76

Double post, sorry! (this is driving me nuts tonight!)

a2canadian

MFP calculates your calorie totals based on your weight loss goals... so: if you want to lose 1lb/week that is about 500kcal/day. So if you would normally be consuming 2000 net calories it will tell you to consume 1500 net calories. Net means the total input - total output so if you exercise and burn off 500 calories you need to eat back those calories... om nom nom

ladybu6205

ok I have a question about the total number of calories. My daily allowance is 1300. But if I exercise then I am supposed to eat more to make it up?

I had never noticed that before when I was using the site. I just came back this week as I am trying to get my healthy habits back and need to get back on track...

I rarely ever ate back the calories I burned working out when I hit goal 4 years ago. I did however, if I had an extra hard day at work (I work retail, in receiving, offloading trucks...everything from clothes, tools, to appliances) bump up my calories because I burned more than usual.

However, I always kept my calories within the suggested range...which for me was between 1200-1400. Non cardio days I kept it at the lower end, cardio days I kept it at the higher end.

Lisa

whatupskinnyjeans

Thanks :-) because they won't allow u to go under 1200 per day I'm not sure if I'll lose 2 pounds a week just restricting calories alone so I guess if I want to lost more weight I should exercise more but I'm not sure what is included in my metabolic rate.
I'm not majorly active but I do have 2 little kids so I'm trying to figure out when to include something as exercise ( chasing toddler in the park ) or when it's already included already ( sorry if I'm not making so much sense here!)

spacecase76

my rule of thumb: If it is something I do less than twice a month, it gets counted separately. If it is something I do on a pretty regular basis, it is already included.

In my mind, some activity level is included in your selected lifestyle that you chose for yourself (sedentary, semi-active, active)