"Eating back" Exercise Calories - Simple breakdown

jls341

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eeshhtel

Thats a little bit more clearer to my understanding lol. Im at 1400 right now.. and im just confused by the term "deficit" and how I need to have 300-500 deficit per day.. will you help me out on that? Lol cus to my understanding, I MUST meet 400 and burn at least400-500 calories through exercise and so at the end of the day my calories should be at 1000 because I gave it a deficit.

Am I wrong?

pavrg

"Interesting. It's strange how 3rd world poverty stricken countries don't have higher obesity rates with this logic. Wouldn't you agree?"

I don't think you can compare the two. The people in those countries that suffer from impoverishment are, more than likely, consistently lacking proper nourishment. Also, these people aren't eating like you and I in that they aren't ending the day with 1,500 calorie deficiency; they're barely getting any quality food at all. This is why bulimics and anorexics can lose so much weight in such a brief amount of time. However, neither the folks suffering from intentional eating disorders or the people you referenced in third world countries (who are impoverished) are healthy.

You can compare the two.

A lot of people have a misunderstanding of what BMR is. BMR is simply the energy your body will expend if you sat in bed all day. BMR is essentially TDEE for a person who almost never moves around. If you are a couch potato and eat at BMR, you'll maintain weight. If you're a couch potato and eat under BMR, you'll lose weight.

This is what BMR is NOT: a magic number that puts your body into 'starvation mode' that causes you to retain body mass despite the fact you are expending more energy throughout the day than your body needs. If you are a person who works a desk job and does no other physical activity throughout the week, it is likely that your TDEE-500 or TDEE-20% (whichever method you prefer) would go under your BMR. That is completely okay as long as your body gets the nutrients it needs to survive, which is surprisingly little. In fact, BMR has very little relevance when it comes to weightloss if you are using the TDEE method.

There's really no reason to even think about BMR. It's just another term for the same thing -- the energy you expend throughout the day. It's only relevance is saying 'huh, that's cool, if I did nothing all day I'd use up XXXX calories to just exist." But you don't just do nothing all day, do you?

Put another way: If you take two people, one who is extremely sedentary and one who is active, both at 20% bf. Let's say the sedentary person's TDEE is BMR + 100 = 1600 cal, and the active person's TDEE is BMR + 800 = 2500 cal. Both of those numbers represent the amount of energy those people will expend in a day. If person A eats 1100 cal/day (or even 1280 under the 20% formula) and person B eats 2100 cal/day to lose 1 lb/week, it is the same net effect on their bodies -- their bodies need to break down stored energy to make up a 500 cal deficit. Person A's body will not go into 'starvation mode' while person B loses a pound a week; the body has no calorie counter. It only knows if it has enough, too much, or too little and either uses excess energy stores for deficits or stores excess energy in surplus. It doesn't know if 'enough' is 1100, 1200, 1600, or 2100 calories. It just knows whether or not it needs more energy, and if it does there is a hierarchy of compounds it looks to get that energy from via various negative feedback mechanisms.

Now, with 1100 (or 1280) calories it's likely that person A will have to pay much closer attention to his/her nutrition intake and possibly take a multi-vitamin, whereas it will be much easier for person B to get all of their required nutrients, vitamins, and minerals from food.

So there you have it. There is no magic number for starvation mode. The studies conducted had people eat nothing or next to nothing but water for 6 months or more at a time. This was long enough for their bodies to utilize all of their stored fat as a result of severe calorie deficits. So the people in third world countries that look emaciated have starved to the point that their fat stores were used up. THAT is starvation mode. If you're 20, 30, 40% body fat, you've got quite a while before you hit that point.

erin1276

I barely moved for two months- exercising and eating the calories. I was at around 1500 calories and I would eat up to 300 of my exercise calories. It was So frustrating. I wound up giving up- AGAIN. So now I'm at 1200 per day and I'm doing walking for now to start. I only go up to 50 calories over the 1200. I will see what happens now.

Michele81287

I'm confused about activity levels. Sure cardio burns x amount of calories, but if I lift heavy weights for 45 minutes 3 days but then I'm sedentary the rest of the day would I be considered sedentary because weightlifting hardly burns any calories?

Mimelishous

Lmfo. That's was funny

GenoPrice

So there you have it. There is no magic number for starvation mode. The studies conducted had people eat nothing or next to nothing but water for 6 months or more at a time. This was long enough for their bodies to utilize all of their stored fat as a result of severe calorie deficits. So the people in third world countries that look emaciated have starved to the point that their fat stores were used up. THAT is starvation mode. If you're 20, 30, 40% body fat, you've got quite a while before you hit that point.

Agree with this ^^^^^

apeandjazz

Thank You this message here I understood haha. I guess cuz mine is 1490. I know it was long time ago but I was researching. So if I leave 300 cal left over at bedtime is that bad or good? cuz im breastfeeding a 10 month old (300) cal per day, so I can eat a big healthy breakfast then I log my brestfeeding and boom im in minus lol so I find it really hard to eat all those calories plus I do lead a sedentary life but walk 2 hours a day and play at the park ,clean ect... So if I log those calories burned too I would really not be eating enough ? So I think that's why im gaining still and not loseing.153 now and want to be 110 but will settle for 120 for now. im 5'2 and 22 yrs young lol I need help figuring this all out, hope you are still on here

marc8686

Wow this was a long time ago. I'm still getting PMs from it glad it's helping things make sense for some people. I'm a perfect example of knowing what to do isn't a magic pill. I Still haven't applied it all consistently enough in my life to get to my goals. #discipline

JeromeBarry1

You just bumped yourself.

candoitkaren

OMG.....I have been doing weight watchers program for 6 months and have not lost but 3-5 pounds. Some of my friends said that I need to eat more due to my exercise requirements therefore I have been double logging in both WW and MFP. To think about increasing my caloric intake scares the crap out of me but so does going on and on not losing weight. I keep thinking something is wrong with me and maybe I am not exercising enough or eating too much although the "program" says I am..........