which is better?

jamiek917

what i have been doing is setting my cals to 1500, working out hard 5-6x a week (450-800 cal burn usually) and eating 100-200 of my workout cals daily (frequently the case). more often than not, i end the day in the 1600s

if MFP sets my calorie intake, it puts me at 1310. is it better to go off that, and eat around 1310 on days i dont work out, but eat most of my workout cals on days that i do? (i cant imagine eating an additional 700-800 cals and still lose weight, but if i get a good workout, i could imagine id need an extra 400 or so).

thoughts?

erickirb

what i have been doing is setting my cals to 1500, working out hard 5-6x a week (450-800 cal burn usually) and eating 100-200 of my workout cals daily (frequently the case). more often than not, i end the day in the 1600s

if MFP sets my calorie intake, it puts me at 1310. is it better to go off that, and eat around 1310 on days i dont work out, but eat most of my workout cals on days that i do? (i cant imagine eating an additional 700-800 cals and still lose weight, but if i get a good workout, i could imagine id need an extra 400 or so).

thoughts?

Either way will get you to almost the same place. Look at it this way:

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.

So in your case if you eat 1600 on days you workout and 1500 on days you don't lets say you workout 4xweek that would give you a total caloric intake of 10, 900(1600*4+1500*3), but is you eat MFP's 1310 and 400 cals back on days you workout for the week you would eat 10,770 (1310*3+1710*4), almost the same amount, so it really doesn't matter which method you use, just don't try mixing and matching (eating 1310 and not eating exercise cals, this is where you may get into trouble, and what a lot of MFPers do, or eating 1600 plus all your exercise calories, which would be too much)