Net Calories

mandie919

My net calories is 1200 for the day.
If I eat 1200 calories for the day but burn 400 in exercise, does that mean I need to eat more?
I know sometimes it says, I am eating too few calories and then I just eat more, but it seems like that only looks purely at calories and not exercise. I am so confused! I feel like eating more is defeating the point of exercise!

Pebble321

Yes!

Lots of great info here: www.shouldieatmyexercisecalories.com

SONIA820

Bump for later! Thanks for the great post!

Gr8ChangesAhead

I was just sitting here contemplating same thing just as confused

momma924

Great question! Yep! If I plan to burn 300 calories from the elliptical and treadmill.... I will eat at least
1500 calories so that after I burn it off my body will still get 1200. There was a time when I was barely eating
1000 and working out 400-500 calories burning every day and that was bad! My body wasn't getting enough calories.

mandie919

Thanks for the input but I feel as if that is defeating the whole point of exercise. I guess if you look at it from the point of view that you don't even need to exercise to lose weight, then it does make sense.

Should you eat back ALL the calories you burned or just enough to make sure you are getting 1200 calories a day.

Zichu

You might think it's pointless not exercising and just eating 1200 calories a day, but it really isn't. Exercising and strength training will burn the calories needed to lose weight, but it will also build muscle making weight loss easier and you will definitely be a lot more happier with the way you look and feel about yourself if you have muscle rather than being skinny fat.

I'm 19 years old, male, 5' 5" and weigh about 121lb. I've still got fat on me and that's because I am skinny fat. The only way to get rid of it is to increase my muscle mass all over, burn off calories, but also eat them back to give me back the energy I lost during my workouts.

You really should eat close to all your calories for the day, even when you exercise. So you say you have 1200 calories to eat for a day. You do a workout that burns 300 calories for that day. Your calorie goal is now 1500 calories. If you then still only eat 1200 calories, you really have only eaten 900 calories in that day, because those 300 calories that was used up for your workout was taken out of your already eaten calories. Now 900 calories isn't a lot to survive on if you were to do it daily.

It's like driving 300 miles in a car, but only having enough petrol for 200 miles.

kari574

Search Button Fail....

Give the new people a break! There would be hardly any discussions if people could only post something new!

TeaBea

Thanks for the input but I feel as if that is defeating the whole point of exercise. I guess if you look at it from the point of view that you don't even need to exercise to lose weight, then it does make sense.

Should you eat back ALL the calories you burned or just enough to make sure you are getting 1200 calories a day.

Some people eat back a percentage of their calories .... machine readings & MFP can be over stated. You will have to experiment a little to see how you feel. If you are dragging .... eat more. If you plateau .... eat more.

It's not defeating the purpose because .... those 1200 calories are already "spoken for." Your body needs those for everyday bodily functions. Think of the exercise calories as FUEL. You want to burn fat, not muscle. Without fuel you maybe burning muscle.

Meaganandcheese

It seems a little counter-intuitive, and it's taken me awhile to wrap my head around it too. In the end, it's about properly fueling your body to be a weightloss machine. In my experience, it's not just about MORE calories, but making sure they are good calories too. Use them for extra protein, healthy fats, and fruit/veggies - extra sources of nutrition, not just extra quantity.

abnerner

I personally do not eat ALL of my exercise calories back, but if I am hungry on my exercise days, especially when I burn a lot, I eat some more food.

Think about it this way....MFP sets it up so you are at a caloric deficient so you will loose weight. Even if you eat back all of your exercise calories, you are still at your caloric deficient at the end of the day.