New and Confused!

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fatsygirl1
fatsygirl1 Posts: 7 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I just started this program. How many of your exercise calories are safe to eat. I have been trying to
only eat about half. The system always says I will lose weight but I am confused. Any help would be appreciated.

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  • mrsdean87
    mrsdean87 Posts: 21 Member
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    mfp expects you to eat all of your exercise cals back but i dont i eat some bk if im still hungry or none if im not because when mfp calculates how many cals u have burned it is just an estimate a heartrate monitor is best for accurate results so my advice would be eat them if your still hungry and dont if your not :) x
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,395 MFP Moderator
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    If MFP is estimating, 50% is a good amount. If it's a heart rate monitor, then 80%. But that should also assume you are only aiming for 1 lb per week since you have 20 lbs to lose.
  • Queenofthezoo
    Queenofthezoo Posts: 69 Member
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    I don't log exercise calories any more, unless they are above and beyond my typical day. But instead of just going by MFP settings, I figured out my BMR and I try to not go lower than that. I also figured out my TDEE, and I try not to go above that.

    If you are doing MFP settings and have your calories set to lose 2 lbs a week, I think it is really important to eat your calories back. Because MFP has already accounted for a major caloric deficit without exercising it makes the deficit too large when you don't eat back any. When I made the deficit too large, I found myself more sluggish, tired, and headaches, so I didn't do as much. When you don't move as much, you aren't burning as many calories. So now I can eat 1500 calories and I am losing the same as when I was eating 1200 calories, but I have more energy, less headaches, etc.

    A lot of people that have heart monitors have found that MFP overestimates calories burned, so you might want to not trust the accuracy completely and eat all of them, but if you have a low calorie amount to begin with, then I would definitely recommend eating some (if not all) of them.

    But I am not an expert by any means, that is just what I have learned from my own trial and error, and reading on here.

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