Calories and Workout

samueloscar

If you're supposed to get minimum 1200 calories a day, how does that work with working out? Lets say I eat 1400 calories but then burn 500, does that count as getting enough calories for the day or should I aim to be above 1200 with workout included?

samueloscar

^bump

AnvilHead

If you're a 21 year old guy, chances are very good that neither 1200 nor 1400 calories are a good level of intake for you. Read the first post in this thread, do the calculations and treat your body right!:

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


To answer your original question - if you're doing it through MFP's calculations, you're supposed to end up at your calorie goal by eating back your exercise calories (some eat all of them back while some prefer to eat some fraction of them back, such as 1/2 or 3/4). In other words, if you ate 1400 calories and burned 500 exercising, you'd eat 500 calories back to arrive at a "net" 1400 calories.

Personally, I prefer the method used in the thread I linked to above - figure out your daily caloric expenditure (TDEE), cut 15-20% off that and don't worry about eating exercise calories.

deksgrl

If your calorie goal on MFP is 1400 (which from the above poster who says you are a 21 year old guy, it probably is not the correct goal for you), then you exercise 500, you would eat 1400 + 500 or 1900.