Help with calories on myfitnesspal

KJackson50

My calories burned per day is around 2750, and my net calories daily is 2260. That's a deficit of 490 right there. Maybe I've been doing this wrong but I've been making sure I stay at least 490 calories under 2260 which would bring me to 1770 daily. Am I supposed to be eating 2260 daily with 2750 being my "threshold" at which that's how many calories I need daily? If so that would explain why I've been dropping weight so fast this past month lol.

Can anyone clear that up for me?

fromaquasar

If these calories are ones you are getting out of MFP then your deficit is already built in, so you should be eating all the calories MFP allows you.

The way it works is:
- MFP calc your BMR (based on your current stats). This is your Base Metabolic Rate, what your body needs to survive if you just lay in bed all day.
- Then multiples this by an activity factor (this is when you choose you lifestyle e.g lightly active etc). This gives you your TDEE which is basically how many calories you burn day to day
- Then it applies a deficit to these calories, based on the rate that you want to lose weight at.
- When you exercise these calories get added back in as available for you to eat as the deficit has already been applied for you to be losing weight.

If you do not eat back your exercise cals you make this deficit bigger, thus lose weight faster - does that make sense?

KJackson50

Ok that makes perfect sense! Wow I've been short changing myself this whole time! I don't think it's all that bad though. I'm happy with the progress I'm making and losing weight quicker!

I noticed because I had a day that I 500 calories in the red, and when I went to complete my diary for that day it told me I'd "weigh this much in 5 weeks". I'm thinking it would have been higher but it was lower than my current weight. Thanks for clearing that up for me!