calories in vs calories out

cesereda

Hello, I am wondering about this topic. If I am on a 1200 calorie a day diet am I supposed to be exercising away 1200 calories a day too. I have been walking two times a day. In the morning I walk my dogs 2 miles at a moderate pace and later in the day I walk 2 miles, by myself, at a brisk pace. Again later in the day I am starting to bring a workout into my plan. I was only able to do 15 minutes yesterday and my goal is to get the full 30 minutes of that workout in. With all of these I am not burning 1200 calories yet. Need help.
Thank you.:ohwell:

Hendrix7

no your body is expending energy/calories just by being alive, breathing, walking around, sleeping etc not just from exercise.

this + any exercise is your TDEE, total daily energy expenditure

You are not meant to be burning/using the same amount of calories you eat.

ladyraven68

Hello, I am wondering about this topic. If I am on a 1200 calorie a day diet am I supposed to be exercising away 1200 calories a day too. I have been walking two times a day. In the morning I walk my dogs 2 miles at a moderate pace and later in the day I walk 2 miles, by myself, at a brisk pace. Again later in the day I am starting to bring a workout into my plan. I was only able to do 15 minutes yesterday and my goal is to get the full 30 minutes of that workout in. With all of these I am not burning 1200 calories yet. Need help.
Thank you.:ohwell:

Why are you supposed to be exercising away 1200 calories a day?

you are forgeting about your Non-exrcise calories that your body uses every day whether you exercise or not.
Even if you stayed in bed all day you will burn more than 1200 calories through the day.

Investigate your BMR and TDEE.

drgndancer

That would be... bad. Extremely bad. In fact you're supposed to add exercise calories to your total available calories when you exercise. Your body burns calories all the time, whether you're sitting on the couch watching TV, staring into space, or even sleeping. In the final analysis it burns quite a few calories doing noting at all (you're never doing nothing, your heart beats, you breath, you blink, your blood vessels contract, etc). Most people burn between 1500 and 2000 calories a day on every day activities, even if they're sedentary. So 1200 calories puts you at a deficit from those calories. Burning 1200 more calories a day, then not consuming any extra would quickly have you starving yourself.

FullOfWin

You want to eat 10-20% under the entirety of what you burn in a day. (TDEE minus 10-20%)

cesereda

Thank you all. I will do it right now. I just did not understand calorie deficit. So now I understand, I start out with 1200 calories to eat and my exercise will increase that number. Thanks again, I am new to that type of computations.

cesereda

I will figure out my TDEE

drgndancer

I will figure out my TDEE

While it's great if you want to do that, it's not really necessary. When you signed up for MFP it asked you a lot of questions: How tall are you? how much do you currently weight? how active are you? how much do you want to lose per week? From there it did a pretty good estimation of your TDEE (it got that from your height, weight, and activity level), and then subtracted the calories you need to lose the amount of weight you want weekly. The number it came up with should be pretty close to right.

Like everything about weight loss, it's an estimate, not an exact science, but as long as you keep within the calories you get from MFP you should lose roughly as much weight as you asked for every week. When you add exercise to your journal, it should give you some "extra" calories. Feel free to eat those too, but unless you work out a lot you probably don't *have* to eat the extras. If after a few weeks you find that you're not losing weight, not losing weight as fast as you like, or losing it too fast (yes it is possible to lose it too fast, unless you're very overweight, more than a pound or two a week is too fast) you can adjust.

cesereda

I will figure out my TDEE

While it's great if you want to do that, it's not really necessary. When you signed up for MFP it asked you a lot of questions: How tall are you? how much do you currently weight? how active are you? how much do you want to lose per week? From there it did a pretty good estimation of your TDEE (it got that from your height, weight, and activity level), and then subtracted the calories you need to lose the amount of weight you want weekly. The number it came up with should be pretty close to right.

Like everything about weight loss, it's an estimate, not an exact science, but as long as you keep within the calories you get from MFP you should lose roughly as much weight as you asked for every week. When you add exercise to your journal, it should give you some "extra" calories. Feel free to eat those too, but unless you work out a lot you probably don't *have* to eat the extras. If after a few weeks you find that you're not losing weight, not losing weight as fast as you like, or losing it too fast (yes it is possible to lose it too fast, unless you're very overweight, more than a pound or two a week is too fast) you can adjust.

Thank you very much, I will do that instead. I have been eating less than what they tell me because of the extra that they give me. I think I have already lost some but I will not weigh myself often, maybe in a couple of weeks. Thank you so much for your input.