Question about calories

Whitneyernest

So i'm sure this has been asked hundreds of times, and I apologize if thats the case but i'm still a little confused about calories. More specifically, how many calories should you burn to lose weight? Say your allowed calories for the day is something like 1400 and you eat up to that, how many calories should you burn? Also, after you burn those calories do you have to eat what you've burned off? I've heard in order to lose weight you need to burn more than you consume but that doesnt seem right. Any help with this would be much appreciated.

quirkytizzy

MFP automatically creates a deficit in your calories. So if you said you'd like to lose 1 pound a week, it will take your numbers (current and goal weight) and deduct a number of calories daily to get you there. That would be your 1400, so the deficit to lose that 1 pound a week is already counted in there.

Depending on your activity setting, exercising creates a bigger deficit, so in order to keep from making TOO much of a gap in what you're eating and what your body needs, you may want to eat at least half of your exercise calories back, maybe all of them. Some members don't eat any back and that can work out, too, but you've got to make sure you are netting enough (all calories combined, both regular and exercise gained) to carry your body.

Whitneyernest

Okay great, thanks!

ladyraven68

So i'm sure this has been asked hundreds of times, and I apologize if thats the case but i'm still a little confused about calories. More specifically, how many calories should you burn to lose weight? Say your allowed calories for the day is something like 1400 and you eat up to that, how many calories should you burn? Also, after you burn those calories do you have to eat what you've burned off? I've heard in order to lose weight you need to burn more than you consume but that doesnt seem right. Any help with this would be much appreciated.

you should really be doing it the other way around - work out how many calories you use in a day, and take your defict from that, rather than pick a number to eat and then work out how much to burn.

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

Whitneyernest

Thanks Raveb i'll look at that right now!