What do I do?

julianatalie

I am a bit confused with mfp. I thought the idea of diet was you needed to burn more calories than you eat!
I have seen different things on here like some people eat back half of their exercise calories where others have said you need to eat all your calories.

Do I record calories burned with exercise and stick to my 1200 a day or do I need to eat the 1200 plus exercise calories?

Help please xx

Wonderob

Calculate your BMR - that is the amount of calories you burn just by being alive. If you were in a coma, you would burn your BMR every 24 hours. This will probably be around the 1500 mark

http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/

Then calculate your TDEE. This is the amount of calories you burn just going about your day to day stuff - walking around, going upstairs etc. For a sedentary person you can use the multiple of 1.2. So BMR x 1.2 is your TDEE. TDEE = Total Daily Energy Expenditure

http://www.fitnessfrog.com/calculators/tdee-calculator.html

If you consume 1200 calories and do no exercise, you will have a calorie deficit of your TDEE (1800 ish???) - 1200
500 ish?

500 a day = 3500 a week. That is about a pound a week loss

Now exercise.
To maintain your 3500 a week deficit, all you need to do is eat back your calories. Burn off an extra 500 a day and you can eat an extra 500 a day and still lose a pound a week

Eat back half and you will lose more etc etc

julianatalie

Thank you. That makes sense to me now.

julianatalie

My tdee has worked out at 1,960.56

dpure

as long as you are eating at a deficit you will lose weight.

Wonderob

My tdee has worked out at 1,960.56

Great - just out of interest, what did you calculate this based upon? I did mine with no exercise, so any exercise I do is in addition to this.

2hobbit1

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/654536-in-place-of-a-road-map-2-0-revised-7-2-12

Great explination of BMR TDEE and how to use them properly - check it out.

julianatalie

I did this with no exercise

fayefern

i was wondering the same thing and this is one of the simplest explanations ive seen yet= thanks!

Dudagarcia

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/654536-in-place-of-a-road-map-2-0-revised-7-2-12

Great explination of BMR TDEE and how to use them properly - check it out.

^^^^ the best thing you do is go here