Eating Excercise Calories

nick1109

I don't want my body to start storing the calories as fat. I thought that you have to consume at least 1200 net calories a day as the bottom line. Anything less than can mess badly with your metablolism. Don't know if I am write or not.

You are right. A guideline is women no lower than 1200 and men no lower than 1800. Any lower than this is setting yourself up for a fall in my opinion. Use the benedicts formula to work out your BMR ( calories required to simply lie in a bed all day breathing) and you will be suprised how many calories your body needs. So a 1200 calorie a day diet along with training is a really bad idea.

Key is to work out how many you need for maintenance and simply start by reducing this by 500 as a base point. Monitor weight loss and adjust accordingly

Hope this makes sense

erickirb

I don't want my body to start storing the calories as fat. I thought that you have to consume at least 1200 net calories a day as the bottom line. Anything less than can mess badly with your metablolism. Don't know if I am write or not.

You are right. A guideline is women no lower than 1200 and men no lower than 1800. Any lower than this is setting yourself up for a fall in my opinion. Use the benedicts formula to work out your BMR ( calories required to simply lie in a bed all day breathing) and you will be suprised how many calories your body needs. So a 1200 calorie a day diet along with training is a really bad idea.

Key is to work out how many you need for maintenance and simply start by reducing this by 500 as a base point. Monitor weight loss and adjust accordingly

Hope this makes sense

From my understanding the threshold for men is 1500 not 1800, but for a 6'4 man or taller could very well be a min of 1800. I on the otherhand am much shorter than that and my maintenance is under 2000 cals, I think if I wanted to lose weight, I would have to eat below 1800 cals.

nick1109

I don't want my body to start storing the calories as fat. I thought that you have to consume at least 1200 net calories a day as the bottom line. Anything less than can mess badly with your metablolism. Don't know if I am write or not.

You are right. A guideline is women no lower than 1200 and men no lower than 1800. Any lower than this is setting yourself up for a fall in my opinion. Use the benedicts formula to work out your BMR ( calories required to simply lie in a bed all day breathing) and you will be suprised how many calories your body needs. So a 1200 calorie a day diet along with training is a really bad idea.

Key is to work out how many you need for maintenance and simply start by reducing this by 500 as a base point. Monitor weight loss and adjust accordingly

Hope this makes sense

From my understanding the threshold for men is 1500 not 1800, but for a 6'4 man or taller could very well be a min of 1800. I on the otherhand am much shorter than that and my maintenance is under 2000 cals, I think if I wanted to lose weight, I would have to eat below 1800 cals.

Depends where you get your info from really. See the link below for mine but I have also heard the number 1500 for men.

Just need to be very careful I think as alot of people make the mistake of wanting massive results quickly thus think that eating 800kcals a day with 1 hour cardio will do the job when in fact this will only cause serious problems before long.

For myself as an example I'm 6'0 tall and weight approx 13.7 stones (189 pounds) and a BF of roughly 10%.

My BMR is 1975kcal Approx. multiply by 1.725 for activities (office job but alot of weight training and HIIT) and it works out for maintenance I need 3406 on heavy training days.

So you can see how easy it may be for somebody of my size,in-experienced and desparate to loose weight to say ' I'll eat 1500kcal a day and jog an hour a day' only to run into serious trouble early (namely have health problems or give up and eat junkand go off the rails within the first week or two)

Best to eat around 500 below maintenance, not to panic, monitor and adjust along the way when progress stalls.

Hope this helps

http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/harris-benedict-equation/

erickirb

I don't want my body to start storing the calories as fat. I thought that you have to consume at least 1200 net calories a day as the bottom line. Anything less than can mess badly with your metablolism. Don't know if I am write or not.

You are right. A guideline is women no lower than 1200 and men no lower than 1800. Any lower than this is setting yourself up for a fall in my opinion. Use the benedicts formula to work out your BMR ( calories required to simply lie in a bed all day breathing) and you will be suprised how many calories your body needs. So a 1200 calorie a day diet along with training is a really bad idea.

Key is to work out how many you need for maintenance and simply start by reducing this by 500 as a base point. Monitor weight loss and adjust accordingly

Hope this makes sense

From my understanding the threshold for men is 1500 not 1800, but for a 6'4 man or taller could very well be a min of 1800. I on the otherhand am much shorter than that and my maintenance is under 2000 cals, I think if I wanted to lose weight, I would have to eat below 1800 cals.

Depends where you get your info from really. See the link below for mine but I have also heard the number 1500 for men.

Just need to be very careful I think as alot of people make the mistake of wanting massive results quickly thus think that eating 800kcals a day with 1 hour cardio will do the job when in fact this will only cause serious problems before long.

For myself as an example I'm 6'0 tall and weight approx 13.7 stones (189 pounds) and a BF of roughly 10%.

My BMR is 1975kcal Approx. multiply by 1.725 for activities (office job but alot of weight training and HIIT) and it works out for maintenance I need 3406 on heavy training days.

So you can see how easy it may be for somebody of my size,in-experienced and desparate to loose weight to say ' I'll eat 1500kcal a day and jog an hour a day' only to run into serious trouble early (namely have health problems or give up and eat junkand go off the rails within the first week or two)

Best to eat around 500 below maintenance, not to panic, monitor and adjust along the way when progress stalls.

Hope this helps

http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/harris-benedict-equation/

When I say 1500 I mean 1500 plus any calories you burn from working out, so if you burn 800 cals then your min is now 2300 (1500+800) to lose weight.

amndaob

That did make sense. So my maintaining is 1717.74 when I said that I excercise 6-7 days, which I do, in the formula. So 500 less than that would be 1200. I am assuming that is taking in my excercise calories as well. So that means once i exercises my net calories on the myfitnesspal will say 400-800 for most days. Is that healthy?

erickirb

That did make sense. So my maintaining is 1717.74 when I said that I excercise 6-7 days, which I do, in the formula. So 500 less than that would be 1200. I am assuming that is taking in my excercise calories as well. So that means once i exercises my net calories on the myfitnesspal will say 400-800 for most days. Is that healthy?

The 1200 cals ignores exercise, 1200 is what you need to lose your goal amount of weight without working out. If you exercise you are supposed to eat those back to keep your caloric deficit intact to lose your goal amount of weight. so if you burn 400 cals you new goal is 1600 to get 1200 Net (1600-400). You should not go below 1200 Net. so 400-800Net is not healthy and you should eat more.

amndaob

Thanks so much for your help. I really appreciate it.

madamelaporte

I never eat my earnt calories just see it as a bonus that I have worked all that off

nick1109

That did make sense. So my maintaining is 1717.74 when I said that I excercise 6-7 days, which I do, in the formula. So 500 less than that would be 1200. I am assuming that is taking in my excercise calories as well. So that means once i exercises my net calories on the myfitnesspal will say 400-800 for most days. Is that healthy?

The 1200 cals ignores exercise, 1200 is what you need to lose your goal amount of weight without working out. If you exercise you are supposed to eat those back to keep your caloric deficit intact to lose your goal amount of weight. so if you burn 400 cals you new goal is 1600 to get 1200 Net (1600-400). You should not go below 1200 Net. so 400-800Net is not healthy and you should eat more.

Yes I'd say this is sound advice. In short I'd say eat your calories burned especially if you're on such a low calorie diet

nick1109

That did make sense. So my maintaining is 1717.74 when I said that I excercise 6-7 days, which I do, in the formula. So 500 less than that would be 1200. I am assuming that is taking in my excercise calories as well. So that means once i exercises my net calories on the myfitnesspal will say 400-800 for most days. Is that healthy?

I'd also bear in mind that my fitness pal estimates for calories burned are optimistic. Obviously everybody is different but I still think MFP gives calories burned values that are too high

pyro13g

calories of 400, then you ate 1600 calories a
day & eating the 400 calories wipes out the calories you burned from exercising.......So if you are going to eat the calories you
burned from exercising what is the point of exercising ???

No because the MFP calculator subtracts 500-1000 calories out based on your goal setting. So, eating back your exercise calories keeps you at a healthy deficit.


Let's put this another way, because frankly, MFP makes it confusing.

The calories you need per day =

Your Basal Metabolic Rate
Plus
Normal daily expenditure for activity before exercise
Plus
Daily expenditure for exercise.

When you eat all those calories your weight stays stable.

When you eat 500 less, it's about 1 pound per week weight loss

When you 1000 less it's 2lb per week,

There are absolute limits that men and women should not go below.


MFP subtracts the 500 or 1000 out up front and sets your intake to BMR+Normal activity before exercise less that 500-1000. This is why it adds calories earned through exercise.

ugogirl1234

When you first entered your goals into MFP, it asked you about your Activity Level. In this case, MFP would like to know what you do through out the day. I am sedentary, which means I sit all day for 8 hours. To maintain my weight I must eat around 1600 calories.MFP knows this. MFP also knows I want to lose weight so it automatically gives me my goal caloric amount for the day, which is 1200. This means I can lose weight by eating 1200 calories and NOT exercising. This is why MFP tacks on more cals after exercising because you are in essence stealing from a number that will already allow you to lose weight.

tekbro

Thanks!

amndaob

Thanks. I have a HRM and my fitnesspal was less than what my HRM says.

hpsnickers1

So I am completely frustrated. I have my calories set at 1200 per day. I also excercise using a heart rate monitor and I normally burn 400-800 calories a day.

I am eating my 1200 calories and then when I punch in my excercise calories, it says to eat those calories as well. SO I DO!

I have lost a lot of weight but would like to lose about 7 more pounds. My weight is going up rather than down with the plan of eating 1200 calories and eating my excercise calories.

Am I doing this correctly?

Don't go under 1200 for more than a couple of days. You might lose a little more but it will eventually slow down, stop and possible head in the other direction. This is a baseline number to stay out of starvation mode. You may have to re-calculate your goals. I.e. change 1lb per week to .5lb per week. I just upped my calories from 1250 to 1500 and dropped another pound this past week. You can check out the posts in my signature. There is a lot of information.

And I don't know if everyone does this or exactly how important it is but since my HRM would give me a burned calorie number just sitting there I like to subtract that out so I get the calories burned amount for the actual activity.

Take the Maintenance calories (the calories before the deficit MFP gave you) and divide that by 1440 (minutes in a day). Mine was 1480 and I divide by 1440. 1480/1440 = 1.03. I multiply 1.03 and the number of minutes of exercise (say 60) = 62 calories. I subtract that from the total calories burned. It doesn't seem like a lot but I'm anal like that.

erinjmoore1

I'm glad I saw this...and I really think this is why my weightloss has stopped. When I first started losing weight I was 230 lbs, so with all the formulas 1200-1300 calories was perfect with my excercise to lose consistently. Now, I am restarting at 166 lbs and it says I need closer to 1500-1700 calories. I was never using my exercise earned calories. I am going to try that this week and see what happens!

Matt_Wild

Never eat back calories, it doesn't make any sense. Stored as fat calories aren't dealt with in the same way as digested calories. Most people here seem to lose around 1-1.5lb a week and if they didn't eat back the 400 calories or so, the worst they'd do is burn around 1500-2000 calories back for the week - which would net around an extra pound of fat lost.

For the guys I prep I never get them to eat back calories, ever. Doesn't make any sense.

TuDominicano

Matt wild is right on the money.

erickirb

Never eat back calories, it doesn't make any sense. Stored as fat calories aren't dealt with in the same way as digested calories. Most people here seem to lose around 1-1.5lb a week and if they didn't eat back the 400 calories or so, the worst they'd do is burn around 1500-2000 calories back for the week - which would net around an extra pound of fat lost.

For the guys I prep I never get them to eat back calories, ever. Doesn't make any sense.

Not eating them is only a good idea if you set your original goal to account for exercise.