not sure how net calories work

wannabthin65

i'm starting at a gym on Monday and i'm not sure about net calories. it seems if u are allowed 1200 cal/day & burn say 200 and eat that 200 in addition to the 1200 you'd be defeating your purpose. Am i way off?

zapatasbloodjv

just add the exercise under the tab, mfp will do the rest.

Rae6503

No. MFP sets a calorie deficit based on no exercise. If you exercise and then don't eat your calories you are making the calorie deficit too big.

barbiecat

the more you exercise, the more fuel you need

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there is already a calorie deficit built in to the original calorie allotment

WifeMomDVM

You've got two great answers already, but I wanted to give other some more material to read, since this question comes up quite often:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/173853-an-objective-look-at-eating-exercise-calories

and

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/231636-the-eating-when-you-re-not-hungry-dilemma

and

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/230930-starvation-mode-how-it-works

Good reading - bookmark them as I have.

dannylives

If you're allowed 1200 calories a day, and then you exercise and burn 200 calories, that means that at the end of the day.....your body only recognizes 1000 calories. But if you eat those 200 calories back, your body will recognize that you ate 1200 calories and therefore......you ATE 1200 calories because, your body doesnt care whether or not your'e proud that you burned the 200 calories. Your body is just like "Hey, where the heck are those 200 calories, Ive been robbed!" and then it will get stingy and maybe go into starvation mode and burn muscle when you're asleep or throughout the day.

wannabthin65

thanks danny! your explanation made alot of sense and helped alot..

diane