Exercise/Calories question

Danie122

HI All! I am new to the forum.

Just wondering how people approach calories burned during a workout? For example, I ran for 50 mintues today buring roughly 300, and now the site shows that I get 300 extra calories to eat for the day. I feel like that will make it impossible for me to lose weight if I am eating the extra calories my workout burns off.

rileysowner

You will lose weight with MFP even if you don't exercise. I eat the calories I burn as that is what MFP expects you to do.

crtrautman360

Our trainer told us to disregard that it adds calories and to remain within the original calorie limit.

wyants

I am new on here and was trying to figure that out my self. It says to eat more but i want to lose weight so eating what I burned doesnt make sense to me.

Tobi1013

Our trainer told us to disregard that it adds calories and to remain within the original calorie limit.

It is very likely that your trainer did not realize that your daily calorie goal already has a deficit BUILT IN that will allow you to lose your goal weight per week even without exercising.

By choosing not to eat your exercise calories, you are increasing that deficit which could have detrimental effects. There is a TON of good information available in the forums about calorie deficits and why you should eat your exercise calories and I encourage you to read the posts linked in the one below:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/23912-links-in-mfp-you-want-to-read-again-and-again

ivy2009

It is a "numbers game." Do the math and then decide how much extra to eat each day. One pound = 3500 calories. So if you eat about 500 calories less per day than you burn up, in one week,you will lose one pound. (500 calorie deficit per day X 7 days/week = 3500 calories = 1 pound.)

Set your MFP profile up so that on a typical day and typical week of exeercise, you should be at the weekly deficit you want to reach your goal. Some days you will exercise more and some less, but it should average out about right at the end of the week.

Example: I run and train for marathons. Once a week, I do a long run between 10 and 20 miles. That means I burn an extra 1000 to 2000 calories that day from running. You bet I will eat up some of my exercise calories that day!!!

Example: If I did NOT exercise, I might burn 1700 calories a day and not gain or lose weight. If I wan to stay with a 500 calorie defict per day to lose 1 pound per week, I would shoot for about 1200 calories NET. On the day I ran 20 miles, I would burn about 1700 calories plus 2000 calories from running, for a total of 3,700 calories buned that day. If I only ate 1200 calories, I would pass out. So I will eat more that day and leave behind 500 calories (or maybe a little more) so I can hit the target of 1 pound a week.

Set your profile appropriately for your goal and make sure your goal is realistic, which for most people is 1 to 2 pounds per week. Then you should be eating some of your extra calories earned by exercise. Remember, if you are starving all the time, you will be miserable and you will fall off track and binge. Bad idea. It's a life time of health and slow and steady wins the race. Also, too few calories will put your body in starvation mood and your metabolism will slow to a crawl. That is the only reason some people in Nazi death camps survived. They had barely any food, but their body's metabolism slowed to allow some of them to survive.