Calorie budget questions

pbandz

Hey guys this is my first post! I just wanted to ask about the calorie budget. If my budget is 1200 and I workout and burn say 300 calories, does that mean my budget is now 1500 calories or is it still 1200? Also I recently kind of pushed my diet aside and I'm back on it. I didn't gain any weight though. So I'm wondering now that I'm eating less and about 1200 calories a day and working out daily, should I be able to lose 2 pounds in 3 weeks? Thanks

beattie1

You've got it right! If you workout and earn more calories you need to eat them, or at least half of them so as not to have too big a deficit.
Congratulations on not gaining while you weren't tracking - I'm impressed. You could well lose 2lbs in 3 weeks, though there are no guarantees, it depends on how much fat you're carrying, when TOM is due, and so on.

lukedwr

Yes, it is now 1500. Although whether or not you 'eat back' the exercise calories is a personal choice. So do, some don't.

Skrib69

Yes, it is now 1500. Although whether or not you 'eat back' the exercise calories is a personal choice. So do, some don't.

You should eat back the calories really to stay at your calorie deficit. MFP sets your calorie goal with a deficit to lose wight. If you don't eat the calories back, you are increasing that deficit and increasing the likelihood of stalling out, particularly on a 1200 calorie goal. I started on 1200 with a weekly loss target of 2lbs. I quickly changed it to 1lb/week after reading a number of posts on the subject. MFP increased my target to 1500 calories and I'm still losing at a good rate. If you do a quick forum search on 1200 diets you ill soon see all the arguments for changing your goal. You can make up your own mind as to whether you change your targets!

rschreiber

I'm glad you brought this up. About eating back cals...I read somewhere that if, say, you burn 300 doing 30 min of exercise, then you also need to consider what you would have burned had you not exercised. If you hadn't exercised and watched TV instead, you would have burned 50 cal. So you really only burned 250 cal extra. Does MFP account for this or am I just overthinking?

krhn

MFP is definitely a much friendlier place than the likes of bodybuilding.com !
I remember seeing. Similar post like this on their forums and the person asking simply got called a troll and was slagged off xD

beattie1

It gets asked so often that people get bored with answering it! (Sorry OP, I'm not having a go at you!) Then people pile in with "you MUST eat them" / "you MUSTN'T eat them" and the argument goes on and on and on.

I notice that the people saying "eat them" have normally lost a significant amount of weight & the people who say " of course you mustn't eat them, you're on a diet, doh!" haven't!

pbandz

Anyway thanks for everything guys:) I'm glad you all took the time to respond. I wasn't sure, but that's how it lays it out in the app. I feel a lot better now about the calories I've been having.