Calorie Question

CaptainJim157

At the start of my day this site allows me to have 1300 calories,
but when I exercise it gives me more, today after I exercised I have about 1800 for my daily goal, (instead of 1300) this sounds silly, but am I eating to many calories? I've had about 1700 today, and I still have about 100-150 cal left,

1) is it ok to eat that many calories when I work out? (based on what it tells me)
2) it is ok if I still have 100-150 calories left over?
3) will I still lose weight even though I go past my daily goal of 1300? (it says that in the morning before I exercise)

sorry for all the questions, I'm just a bit confused,...
also, I drink about 7-8 cups of water a day

lisawest

There are some posts for newbies on the message boards that explain your daily allotment of calories, exercise calories, and what you need to do.

Basically, when you enterred all your info into MFP, it calculated the minimum amount of calories you need to take in if you sleep all day. Then it adds in some calories for the amount of activity you chose. It also figures the deficit you need to lose the pounds you put in (.5, 1, 1.5, 2 per week). Using these numbers, it gives you the number of calories you should take in every day to meet your goal. If you exercise, it adds these calories to your total for the day because your body will freak out and enter "starvation mode" if it isn't getting enough calories for the activity it's doing.

If you stay under the final numbers at the end of the day, or are only over by a little, you will lose the amount of weight you told it you wanted to lose per week. If you don't eat your exercise calories, your body will lose some, but not as much as you want because it's afraid it won't get enough calories. What you DO lose at this point may very well be muscle since that's more nutrient rich, so it's what your body goes after when it's starving.

Personally, I have discovered that I feel better when I at least come close to eating all of my exercise calories. There is a day every couple weeks that my activity spikes so much that I can't possibly eat all the calories. (I'm a band director and Friday night football games involve a LOT activity! Last week I missed my goal by 900, the game before I was down by 1000.) The next day when I get up I feel incredibly tired, HUNGRY, a just a little nauseaus (spelling?).

Moral is, eat as many of them as your body needs. Make sure they are healthy calories. I like nuts, peanut butter, etc.

I hope this helps! Keep it up. You'll get there!

CaptainJim157

Oh ok! Thanks a lot!