Exercise calories

alp1990

Hi everyone,
According to MFP i should be eating 1200 calories per day, but after reading several posts, i'm wondering whether this is too low for me to successfully lose weight?
Also, i'm slightly confused about calories burnt through exercise. I've been sticking to my 1200 goal every day even when exercising, but I've read some posts that state that I should be eating my exercise calories? Can anyone help explain what I should be doing?

jjelizalde

1200 is probably too low and definitely eat back those exercise calories! You have to fuel those workouts!

taso42

http://shouldieatmyexercisecalories.com/

MoeNificent

also, can you adjsut your settings so that the food journal doesn't automatically add the exercise calories into your calories for the day. For those that might not want to eat the exercise calories....

MyaPapaya75

easy explanation....when u use mfp it doesnt take into account any workouts...when considering cals for weight loss....so lets say ur body needs 1700 a day to function..mfp will say eat 1200 to create a 500 calorie deficit with the food daily...times that by 7 days a week u get 3500 and thats 1 pound deficit weekly....hope that makes sense....so when u workout mfp says that loss is extra and u can eat those back because u have already created a calorie deficit by cutting calories...i dont generally eat all my workout cals because it never worked for me however i do have bad thyroid...sooooooooo u need to play with the calories from working out maybe eat only half back and make sure ur calculating workouts by using a heart rate monitor ...NOT MFP's workout database totals

infamousmk

http://shouldieatmyexercisecalories.com/

QFT

ladyraven68

Hi everyone,
According to MFP i should be eating 1200 calories per day, but after reading several posts, i'm wondering whether this is too low for me to successfully lose weight?
Also, i'm slightly confused about calories burnt through exercise. I've been sticking to my 1200 goal every day even when exercising, but I've read some posts that state that I should be eating my exercise calories? Can anyone help explain what I should be doing?

If you haven't already done so, I suggest you go to the stickied threads at the top of this forum (the ones with a stick pin) and read the threads there.

You will learn a lot and find out exactly how MFP works.

But the short answer is YES, you should be eating them to maintain the deficit you chose when you set your target on MFP.

WaterBunnie

Your required calorie deficit is already built in to your calorie allowance so to not eat back your exercise calories would mean that you are reducing that deficit even further and you risk lowering your metabolism or malnutrition.

Becky_Boodle

1200 is probably too low and definitely eat back those exercise calories! You have to fuel those workouts!

I agree!!!
I've always eaten back my exercise calories
I just upped my calories 2 weeks ago from 1200 to 1400
I've lost 3lbs and an inch off my waist

jjelizalde

1200 is probably too low and definitely eat back those exercise calories! You have to fuel those workouts!

I agree!!!
I've always eaten back my exercise calories
I just upped my calories 2 weeks ago from 1200 to 1400
I've lost 3lbs and an inch off my waist

This also worked for me. 1200 is way too low even eating back my calories so I upped them to 1350. I was stuck for a while and now the pounds are coming off again as well as the inches.

damore76

You should be eating a net of 1200 calories this can be found on your homepage. This is basically your daily 1200 plus calories you earn back from exercising. When I started in January I was not eating all of my exercise calories back and while I did lose weight the first 2 months this way I hit a plateau and stopped losing.

This is because my body was not getting enough fuel and I ended up researching to find out that my net calorie goal should be 1200. So for the past 2 or 3 weeks I have been eating them back and am gradually still losing.