If you're moderately active - really active how many calorie

2009nlt

I currently eat 1500 calories a day (give or take a few) I exercise almost every day, and it's always intense cardio (30 + minutes of cardio) and strength training (lifting, flutter kicks, stuff like that) So I'll use a few days ago as an example to fully explain what I am asking.
A few days ago I consumed 1,448 calories, I exercised twice that day and burned (according to the machines which I've read are questionable) 801 calories. Now I have a few friends, and sometime's my boyfriend who keep harping on me that I am "starving" myself because since I burned 801 calories that day, I should eat 801 extra calories of food so I can still make my 1500 calorie goal. She said, in reality, I only ate 674 calories since I exercised.
Now is this true?? Should I add the calories I burned to my total calorie intake for that day? To me that seems pointless, the whole point of trying to lose weight is to burn calories right? If I would have ate my regular 1,500 goal for that day plus 800 more that would have been 2,300 calories I consumed that day.
I really don't see how they keep saying I'm technically starving myself because I just eat when I'm hungry, and it's all very, very healthy foods. If I'm not hungry, why would I force myself to eat more? My boyfriend even wants me to see a nutritiousness ! he doesn't think I know what I'm talking about, but I feel like I know exactly what I'm talking about. Any help here?

I am 5 foot 5. And I work 12 hour shifts, so my schedule is very strange, it will be like 3 days on, 3 days off, 2 days on, 2 days off. So my rest days are usually the days that I work (I never go more than 2 days without workout out though) But on the days that I don't work, I try and workout twice a day, on the days I do work, I'll try and get in at least a little bit of cardio.

Helloitsdan

A rule of thumb...
If you are a person that is 5'3" and working out 3-5 times a week you should be consuming 1600-2200 calories daily for optimal fat loss and muscle retention.
Problem lies on what you see as proper cardio, resistance training and rest days.

WheyStrong

I like your drive for working out, but I also think your calories are bit low if you're working out that much.

For example, I'm 5'9 165lbs 25 yrs old and my BMR is 1580 calories. That's how many calories I would burn if I did absolutely nothing and laid in bed all day.

http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/

If I factor in my daily activities and my workouts as well, my calories needed to maintain would be 2674 calories.

http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm

Losing weight comes down to calories in vs calories burned. 3500 calories in a pound of fat, so eat whatever you need below your maintenance to reach your goal. Most nutritionist don't advise going more than 1000 calories less a day than your maintenance due to health issues.

Pebble321

It's true - if you're exercising more you should eat more! It really is a win-win situation because you feel and look great from building all those muscles, and you get to eat more!

Although it seems as though you would be just cancelling out the calories burnt from exercise, you really aren't.
If you want to lose weight, you need to create a calorie deficit (which basically means "burn more than you eat"). Generally, people work on 3500 cals equals 1 pound, so to lose 1 pound a week, you need a deficit of 500 cals per day.
You can create that calorie deficit either from food (eating less) or from exercise (moving more) or from a bit of both.

1. Eating less:
The way MFP calculates your calories is to take all of your calorie deficit from your food. That means that if you want a 500 cal/day deficit to let you lose 1 pound a week, MFP takes 500 cals off your maintenance calories.
For example, if your maintenance calories are 2000 and you take away 500 calories (to make a deficit) you get to eat 1500 cals each day and you should lose 1 pound per week.
This calculation assumes you aren't doing any extra exercise.

2. Moving more:
If you exercise and burn 800 cals (for example), lets look at the numbers.
The calories you need to maintain your weight on that particular day is 2000 (your basic maintenance calories) plus the 800 you burn from exercise. If you want to lose 1 pound a week, you take away 500 calories. Which means that you get to eat
2000 +800 (the calories your body needs to stay the same weight) - 500 (deficit) = 2300.
You still have the 500 cal deficit and you should still lose 1 pound per week.

If you don't eat any extra on the days you exercise, you are creating a much larger calorie deficit (1300 in this example). This means that you really aren't giving your body much energy to work on, which in the longer term is not likely to be very healthy.
And it's just not necessary in order to lose weight.

It's your call really - are you desperate to lose weight quickly and you don't care about your long term health? In that case, eat very little, exercise a lot and you should get skinnier. Whether you get healthier is debatable but I would guess, probably not.

Or, are you wanting to build a healthier, fitter body that you can maintain for the long term? Eating at a moderate calorie deficit and building in exercise seems to be a great way to meet this goal.

Its your choice!

JBorg039

First off 1200 calories is the bare minimum everyone should eat so don't ever go below that number. Second of all I was in the same exact situation you were before & have done the impossible. All I did was learn the basics of how our bodies work & implemented on myself. What I found really useful is a calorie calculator(I use the one on http://www.fatcuda.com) since I didn't have to calculate how many calories I should be eating every time my stats changed.