added calories

psavo34

Hi, Can someone tell me why I'm able to have more calories when I excersise. How can I ever loose weight that way?
My Fitness Pal has given me 1200 cal. a day, when I work out it gives me aprox. 300-400 additional calories.

bekah_ann13

I have the same problem! I cannot even think about eating any more than I already do and its not because I dont want to gain any weight but its more like I am sooo full! I am barely able to eat the 1200 calories!

Mkserpa

The debate about whether or not to eat up the calories you earn at the end of the day is a tiring one with no real answers.

MFP calculates the 1200 calories you can consume to lose weight based on calories you burn doing NORMAL DAY TO DAY activities like sitting watching tv, playing on the computer, working, etc. When you exercise, you've burned more calories so you should be able to consume more calories and still lose the weight.

I only eat the calories I've earned on days I'm really really hungry, otherwise I just let it be and stick to the 1200 I had to begin with.

kaydensmom12

You lose weight because eating back your exercise calories takes you to the original goal that you had for that day. My BMR is 1650 my daily goal is 1300 calories, If I exercise and burn 500 calories then I am only getting 800 calories, which isn't very much nutrition. There are debates whether or not to eat them back, but I always do or at least make sure that I am past my 1200 calories after the exercise. They give you the extra calories for energy that your body needs and eating helps raise your metabolism.

kaydensmom12

Sorry forgot to add that if your BMR is 1650 and your goal is 1200 and you reach it after your exercise then you are still having a deficit of 450 calories a day, 3150 calories a week which is almost a pound. You want to lose weight slowly.

cirellim

MFP allows you to eat into your "exercise" calories when you log them. So it will add more to your daily calories, I for one when dieting never log exercise (or at any time for that matter) just to avoid the problem completely. If you're just starting weight loss it may be beneficial because you can stop eating into your exercise calories once you hit a plataue but I always just avoided it completely.

slayerdan

I use the calories listed here as a guide as I keep the log.....I already underestimate my daily need and most days I neevr notice. On the days I do, I just let the app do its job and calculate it but i dont focus too much on the numbers. If Im allowed 1300----waaay under what I could eat, and I do 1350, I dont care. If I workout and now I am down to 600-800, as long as Im not hungry, I dont care either. But if I am, I have leeway.

KatieJane83

What you NEED to be aware of is that your daily calorie goal of 1200 already includes a deficit. In order to just maintain your current weight you'd need to eat a bit more than 1200. Depending on your age, size, gender, and lifestyle it's probably somewhere around 1600-2000 cals a day in order to just maintain your current weight. So when MFP gives you that 1200 cal/day goal, that already includes a significant calorie deficit. You can eat your exercise calories back because those are just additional calories that you are burning, in addition to the already built-in deficit.

As others have said, there is and probably always will be a raging debate over whether you should still eat those exercise cals back. In general, you probably overestimate the cals you burn and underestimate the cals you consume by a little bit, so you don't always necessarily want to eat ALL of them back, just due to the fact that really we're estimating here. If you use a heart rate monitor to track your cals burned exercising that can be a bit more accurate. However, I lost 62 lbs and PASSED my goal weight generally always eating at least 1/2 of my exercise calories back.

Hope this makes sense and is helpful!

KatieJane83

I should also add, you don't seem to have a lot of pounds to lose, only around 16 I think. The fewer the pounds you need to lose, the better it is to do at a lower calorie deficit. It won't come off super fast, but it'll be a healthy loss, and you can focus on exercising to maintain muscle mass as well, while you're losing the fat pounds. When I was down to the end of my weight loss I actually changed my MFP weight loss settings from 2 lbs/week to 1 lb/week and then 1/2 lb/week and actually accelerated my weight loss. The fewer pounds you have to lose, the more important it is to come closer to your daily net calories.

Oh, and welcome to mfp and feel free to add me if you're looking for more support/motivation/etc!

Ben2118

Your daily goal includes the deficit you initially entered when you set you goal, so if you chose to lose 1lb a week and MFP set your cals to 1200 then you need to NET 1200.

If you do 500 cals of exercise and eat 1200 cals you have a NET of 700.

Every person I know on here who has eaten the majority of their exercise cals back (always good to leave a lil buffer ) has lost more weight and lost the weight quicker.

Your body needs energy, I would eat at least half of them back and see how you get on. Everyone will have different opinions, you just need to find what works for you!