New to MFP- Question

josephine101570

Hi, Im new to this site and was just wondering the way it works is eat your calorie intake desinged fo ryou and exercise ? Sorry to ask a dumb question but wanted ot besure Im not missing anything

Erica0718

well.. that is a deep debate here. Use the "Search" and search "should I eat my exercise calories" and you will get tons of results. To sum it up it is different for everybody and you have to try both to see what works for you. Good luck!

kearyespeer

The goal is to not go over your calories! The workouts are just a bonus. If you don't want to work out, watch what you eat. If you do work out, you can eat more but if you do you won't lose weight as quickly! But you have to make sure you are eating more than 1,000 a day or else you might not lose at all due to your body thinking it is starving. GOOD LUCK!

erickirb

As an example say MFP gives you 1450 calories to lose 1 lb/week, and you plan on exercising 5x/week for an average of 400 cals per workout. well MFP will tell you to eat 1450 on the days you don't workout and 1850 on the days you do whereas a "professional" may tell you to eat 1750 everyday regardless if you workout.

So for the week MFP will have you eat 12,150 (1450*2+1850*5) whereas doing it the other way will have you eat 12,250 (1750*7) almost the same number of cals for the week. The issue in not following MFP is if you don't workout the full 5 days or burn more or less than planned. If that is the case you may lose more or less than your goal, whereas MFP will have you lose your goal amount regardless how much you actually workout.

What many MFP do is take the low 1450 and not eat back exercise calories which is wrong, if you are not eating them back then your daily activity level should reflect the higher burn with would be covered in the 1750/day above.

So yes eat them back, or change your activity level to active or very active and don't log the exercise. and since you only have 10ish lbs to lose eating them back is even more important as you don't have the fat stores to draw energy from, so if you don't eat enough your body will burn lean muscle, not just fat, to use as fuel.

halsandmr

Yes, try to eat the calories designed for you based on your weight and goal. Exercising causes most people to feel extra hungry, especially while your body is adjusting. Also, sticking to your calorie goal can be hard at first until you can really change how you are eating. For me it took a while to find the foods I like to eat that would fill me up and stay in my calorie "window." Be patient with yourself while you make that adjustment. You may not be able to start out always in your window, but that is your goal. Hope that helps. :-)