eat the calories I just burned..... I don't get it

jacksonpt

I don't get the deficit part.

If you eat more calories than your body needs, what happens to them? They get stored, and you gain weight. This is eating at a surplus.

If you eat less than your body needs, what happens? I breaks down fat and muscle to make up the difference, and you lose weight. This is eating at a deficit.

jacksonpt

You have to figure out what works for you.

To some extent, yes... but everyone should start with the basics. Are we all different? Sure. But we're also all the same, and thus, the science/rules applies equally to us all.

postrockandcats

Mmm I still don't get it?

What you mean you are at a deficit?

It means that MFP creates your goals based on eating less calories than you burn daily.

Say your TDEE (what your total daily burn is) is 2000 calories on a normal day. You'd eat that amount daily to maintain where you are now. If you want to loose a pound a week, you eat 500 calories less a day. So, you'd eat 1500 calories. Now, say you exercise and you've now burned 500 extra calories for that day (2500 calories total). If you only ate that 1500 calories, you'd be under 1000 calories from your TDEE, which is a much larger deficit than recommended. To maintain a 500 calorie a day deficit with the added exercise, you'd have to eat more food.

Make sense?

fishgutzy

I have never increased my intake to account for 100% of calories logged for exercise. Some days that leaves me close to 0 net for the day. That is because some days I do a lot. But I can't bring myself to eat that much. I just make sure I listen to my body. Too many days of net 100 can leave me felling hungry an hour after eating dinner.
Not eating the extra calories doesn't seem to speed up weight loss for me either. If anything, It causes a short plateau. The bodies way of protecting itself I'm told.
My base target is 1900 cal per day. That is a lot of food. Particularly when none of it is McDonald's or pizza.

cmcollins001

When you set up your profile for MFP, you said you were active, sedentary, whatever, and then you said you want to lose X amount of weight per week. MFP took the weight you said you are, your age, and all the other information you included and determined that you need XXXX calories per day to stay at the weight you want. Then, it deducts 500-1000 calories from that number and that is the big Green number you see every time you log in.

For example: MFP takes the information you provide and calculates that 2500 calories a day will keep you exactly where you are right now. IF you were to stay in bed and eat 2500 calories, you will not gain or lose anything. (this is also known as eating at maintenance).

You told MFP you want to lose 2 lbs per weeks. Since 3500 calories = 1 lb and 7000 calories = 2 lbs. 1000 calories per day for 7 days = 7000 calories which = 2 lbs per week

SO....2500 - 1000 calories per day = 1500 Calories and this is the big green number you are now going to live by.

You wake up in the morning and log into MFP and you see the BIG GREEN 1500. You eat breakfast and log it, now you have 1210. You go to the gym and talk a walk on the treadmill and that says you burned 300 calories. You log your exercise and MFP says you now have 1510. Wait?? What??? I now have MORE than I started with...what happened??

Well, the thing is, at 1500 calories, you're already at 1000 calories less than you "need" for a day to remain the way you are, and therefore already set to lose about 2 lbs per week. And 2 lbs per week is considered the healthy way to lose weight so you shouldn't eat less than 1000 calories of your maintenance per day. When you exercised and burned that extra 300 calories, you took that 1000 calories less per day and made it 1300 calories less. MFP adds that exercise calories back into your day so it will always be just 1000 calories less a day. Anything more than that is considered by many as unhealthy weight loss.

All of the math and figuring and using your fingers and toes to keep up with things is already done by MFP. Now the only thing you have "worry" about is eating all of your green numbers without going too much in the red. Going in the red is not always a bad thing, just not something you want to do every single day. If you're starving, you need to either change your settings on MFP because you put something in wrong and are way more active than you said you were OR you're eating a bunch of junk that doesn't keep you full long enough.

Sometimes, you have to tweak the settings here and there and go up a few calories or down a few calories for things to work for you, and if you do that, give it a couple of weeks before you make another change to see what's going to happen.

myfitnessnmhoy

Mmm I still don't get it?

What you mean you are at a deficit?

MyFitnessPal tries to calculate the number of calories your body burns while living the lifestyle you've set.

Next, it subtracts 500 calories from that number for every pound per week you said you wanted to lose (500 calories * 7 days = 3,500 calories = about the energy stored in one pound of fat). This is your "deficit". The result of that math is your daily caloric budget.

So let's say MFP calculates your daily energy expenditure based on your lifestyle at 2000 calories. You want to lose 1 pound a week, so MFP gives you a caloric budget of 1,500 calories. If you live that lifestyle without any additional exercise and eat good balanced nutrition at your budget, your body will have to "make up" a 500-calorie shortage by burning off stored fat and muscle. More exercise and particularly lifting, and a diet slightly higher in protein, will reduce the muscle loss and maximize the fat loss. But, overall, you should lose one pound of body weight a week on average.

Now, if you go out and spend two hours on your bicycle grinding out crunchy hills and burn off 1,000 calories, you've burned 1,000 calories over and above your lifestyle setting and budget. If you only eat your 1,500 calories for the day and make no attempt to eat any more, your body will reach the end of the day with 500 calories to play with. You'll be short on calories, so your body will need to go to reserves for 1,500 calories instead of 500. The larger the deficit, the more likely it is that the body will be short of essential nutrients and proteins which are stored in the muscles and organs and not in fat reserves, so the more likely it is that your weight loss will be in body components you really don't want to be burning off. Because once the muscles burn off, your body will burn fewer calories at rest.

For long-term health, your ideal is to lose weight slowly and engage in plenty of exercise (cardio to build cardiovascular capacity and stamina, lifting to preserve lean muscle mass during weight loss).

mmickeep

Mmm I still don't get it?

What you mean you are at a deficit?

Your body needs a certain number of calories every day just to function. It gets called a lot of things, I usually use BMR. Either way, for everyone it's different based on height, weight, and fat vs muscle composition. When you want to LOSE weight, you want to eat about 500 calories below your BMR. That is, instead of just feeding your body what it needs to function, you're feeding it a little less. You're kind of making your body say "Hey, I don't have enough food to keep all of our important things AND all of this fat running...okay, burn off some of that fat and we can function the best!"

If you eat too little, you're throwing your body into starvation mode, it's not good for your metabolism, etc. When you excercise, you're increasing the deficit.

For example, as a 5'4" 19 year old female weighing in at 150.1lbs, I eat 1450 calories a day. On my work out days, I can burn up to around 700 calories (horse back riding, running 3-4 miles, and weight training). If I burn that much, I'll have only consumed a net 750 calories in that day. That is, maybe I ate 1450, but I went and burned off almost half of what I ate! That's the equivalent of only eating 750 calories a day, and that is NO WHERE near enough for my body to survive on, especially one like mine (horseback riding for 7 years gives me a looooot more muscle mass than a lot of 19 year old girls). So in addition to my 1450, I'll eat back most of what I burned off. I'm STILL feeding my body less than what it would need to keep so much fat on my body, but I'm feeding my body /enough/ to remain healthy, strong, and comfortable enough to not get "scared" and start storing extra fat.

I tried to word that in a way that makes it more easy to understand, but I don't usually reply to these things. ^^' Best of wishes to all of you

mmickeep

Mmm I still don't get it?

What you mean you are at a deficit?

Your body needs a certain number of calories every day just to function. It gets called a lot of things, I usually use BMR. Either way, for everyone it's different based on height, weight, and fat vs muscle composition. When you want to LOSE weight, you want to eat about 500 calories below your BMR. That is, instead of just feeding your body what it needs to function, you're feeding it a little less. You're kind of making your body say "Hey, I don't have enough food to keep all of our important things AND all of this fat running...okay, burn off some of that fat and we can function the best!"

If you eat too little, you're throwing your body into starvation mode, it's not good for your metabolism, etc. When you excercise, you're increasing the deficit.

For example, as a 5'4" 19 year old female weighing in at 150.1lbs, I eat 1450 calories a day. On my work out days, I can burn up to around 700 calories (horse back riding, running 3-4 miles, and weight training). If I burn that much, I'll have only consumed a net 750 calories in that day. That is, maybe I ate 1450, but I went and burned off almost half of what I ate! That's the equivalent of only eating 750 calories a day, and that is NO WHERE near enough for my body to survive on, especially one like mine (horseback riding for 7 years gives me a looooot more muscle mass than a lot of 19 year old girls). So in addition to my 1450, I'll eat back most of what I burned off. I'm STILL feeding my body less than what it would need to keep so much fat on my body, but I'm feeding my body /enough/ to remain healthy, strong, and comfortable enough to not get "scared" and start storing extra fat.

I tried to word that in a way that makes it more easy to understand, but I don't usually reply to these things. ^^' Best of wishes to all of you

This was very clear to me- thanks

Crochetluvr

So what do you say to a person who has their calories set to 1400 a day, actually eats 950 - 1000 and exercises off 900? I have seen this and it makes me wonder what the heck to think?

kcm105

Thought I posted this but it seems to have disappeared so let me try again.

I am confused about a sedentary lifestyle versus how often you exercise in the setup. In my setup, I put that I have a sedentary lifestyle because I have an office job where I sit for most of the day. But I also put that I exercise 4x/week for 45 minutes each, which I do. So should I not be logging these workouts?

jharb2

Because your body needs a minimum amount of calories to be efficient at running. When you excercise you lower that minimum therefore your body will panic and store energy and will not be efficient. You have to have a minimum.... or its not healthy for you!

kcm105

Thought I posted this but it seems to have disappeared so let me try again.

I am confused about a sedentary lifestyle versus how often you exercise in the setup. In my setup, I put that I have a sedentary lifestyle because I have an office job where I sit for most of the day. But I also put that I exercise 4x/week for 45 minutes each, which I do. So should I not be logging these workouts?

Never mind! Just found the answer in the other thread on this topic.

runningfromzombies

So what do you say to a person who has their calories set to 1400 a day, actually eats 950 - 1000 and exercises off 900? I have seen this and it makes me wonder what the heck to think?

I would attempt to gently explain to them that they are not eating enough. If they eat 950-1000 calories and exercise off 900...they are practically netting NO calories for the day. Someone who was completely sedentary (or even comatose, really) would probably need more than that just for their body to go on breathing, brain to go on functioning, heart to go on beating--etcetera. Someone who burns 900 calories through exercise on a daily basis needs to be eating even more than I do. And they would still lose weight.

If you think that isn't healthy, you are correct. It's very dangerous for one's body and really approaches ED behavior.