Net calories/day?

boopbabs

I read that for someone overweight like me, to lose weight, my goal should be 1200 calories/day. Is this what I should be eating no matter what or should I am up my daily caloric intake based on exercise regime (how many calories I am going to burn exercising)?

I usually do the treadmill at the minimum which at 30 minutes for my age, weight and HR burns 309-350 calories. Does this mean I should then be consuming at least 1500 calories per day?

I'm really confused and would appreciate some advise.

heybales

I read that for someone overweight like me, to lose weight, my goal should be 1200 calories/day. Is this what I should be eating no matter what or should I am up my daily caloric intake based on exercise regime (how many calories I am going to burn exercising)?

I usually do the treadmill at the minimum which at 30 minutes for my age, weight and HR burns 309-350 calories. Does this mean I should then be consuming at least 1500 calories per day?

I'm really confused and would appreciate some advise.

There's a reason why you are given extra to eat when you log exercise calories.

You already have a deficit for your goal of 2 lb weekly. To keep that hopefully realistic goal in place, on days you burn more with exercise, you eat more. The deficit is still in place.

Since you are the one that selected the activity level, and you may be more than sedentary actually, you'll probably lose more anyway.

And yes, the treadmill calorie burn is very accurate if you input weight.

MFP will be accurate if you really did the speed indicated exactly, and level incline. So go by treadmill.

1200 calories is the minimum recommended amount to allow getting your nutrients in, for a sedentary person.
Much like minimum building codes, it's for safety reasons, not for performance, longevity, or aesthetics.

If you want those things in your home, you build to better than minimum safety codes.

If you want those things for your body, you do better than minimum for safety reasons.

Janey142

Increase your calories, if you exercise.

MFP takes into consideration normal daily movement, anything extra gains you extra calories! So if you earn 150 cals, you can have 1350 that day! It's actually unhealthy and counter productive to not eat the extra calories from exercise so nom those cals!

Duck_Puddle

Put your info in mfp-it'll give you a net calorie goal for the day based on your info/settings. Each day it'll tell you how many calories you have remaining (should be the net calorie number to start). Log your food and the calories remaining goes down. Log your exercise and the calories remaining goes up. When the calories remaining is 0 or negative, stop eating.

cedarghost

The number of calories you should eat is not a flat number (1200) for obese people. It is based on several factors like height, weight and age.

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