Eating exercise calories?

Rhyssa6

I've been doing a lot of research on here this morning and I've read a lot of posts that say I should be eating my exercise calories. Up until now I haven't been doing this, I eat approximately 1200 calories per day and exercise about 400 or 500. I've been losing 1/2 pound per day for the last week, until today when I gained 1/2 pound even though I ate less and exercised more yesterday.

My goal is to lose 2 pounds per week so ideally I want to lose 10 pounds in 5 weeks

I did some playing around with my diary and it says if I eat my exercise calories, or don't exercise and eat my 1200, then in 5 weeks I'll have lost 6 pounds. BUT if I don't eat the exercise calories then it says in 5 weeks I'll have lost 11 pounds. So doesn't that indicate that I shouldn't eat the exercise calories?

I'm so confused

.

sonjavon

You have to remember that the message that you get telling you what you'll weight in 5 weeks is purely based on math. Our bodies work on a combination of math and science. Eating your exercise calories back (or at least half of them) will give your body the fuel it needs to continue burning and tells your body that there is no shortage of food coming it's way... so go ahead and burn the fat that's already there.

Losing 10 pounds in 5 weeks may or may not be possible depending on your body, how much you have to lose, etc. But if you eat all of your calories (including exercise calories) and you drink all of your water and exercise - you'll look better, feel better and your scale WILL go down!

Good luck!

mzmoonlight

I dont pay too much attention to what it says in the settings because it told me I would lost 1.5 pounds in a week and I lost 5lbs! And I was eating more and exercising less than it said...

Sparksfly

I think you should try eating half of your exercise calories along with your base of 1200 and see if you have bigger losses. All of this is trial and error to see what works with YOUR body.

I am still playing around with my base because my weight loss plateaued after only eating 1200 a day and half of my exercise calories.

if you are eating 1200 a day and working off 400 calories a day, that's a NET of 800 calories a day. Wayyyyy to low for your body to function properly.

jennylynn84

First of all the button is just a rough estimate, take it with a grain of salt.

Are you set for 2 lbs a week? Because if you are and you're eating the calories it recommended for you the button should still be saying 2lbs a week (even though, as I said, the button cannot be trusted, it's just following a mathematical formula).

UNLESS you cannot actually lose 2 lbs a week. Check out your goals when it calculates them and tells you how many calories you should eat it should tell you you can lose X pounds a week like this. If you are close to your goal, it's probably not possible. I'm 11 pounds from healthy weight and I can no longer lose 2 lbs a week. Only 1.5. You might simply be expecting too much of your body.

Make sure you have your goals set to lose the appropriate amount. If you calculate it an eating a minimum of 1200 you can't lose 2 lbs, re-evaluate. I set my goals to 1.5 instead of 2, started eating more and started losing faster.

Good luck!