getting confused

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bosanka
bosanka Posts: 336 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Hi every one..

I know this might sound so obvious to most of you but somehow it's getting me confused so i'd rather clarify .

My daily calorie goal is 1600 kcl - in order to lose about 1- 1 1/2 lbs a week.

Ok that's clear so far. What's confusing me is .. when i exercise and ' burn of some calories " let's say i burn 600 kcl in one hour of kick boxing dvd. I understand that those 600 kcls are " burned of.. for good " so why is the calculater automaticly adding them back on to my daily intake kcl's .
So i no longer have 1600 for the daily inthake, b ut 2200 kcl's .. I feel like it's bringing me back to where i started.. I burn them off- now it's telling me to eat them back again ?

Am i getting this totally wrong or what's going on.. what's the right way on doing this ?

THank you

Replies

  • SHBoss1673
    SHBoss1673 Posts: 7,161 Member
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    Hi every one..

    I know this might sound so obvious to most of you but somehow it's getting me confused so i'd rather clarify .

    My daily calorie goal is 1600 kcl - in order to lose about 1- 1 1/2 lbs a week.

    Ok that's clear so far. What's confusing me is .. when i exercise and ' burn of some calories " let's say i burn 600 kcl in one hour of kick boxing dvd. I understand that those 600 kcls are " burned of.. for good " so why is the calculater automaticly adding them back on to my daily intake kcl's .
    So i no longer have 1600 for the daily inthake, b ut 2200 kcl's .. I feel like it's bringing me back to where i started.. I burn them off- now it's telling me to eat them back again ?

    Am i getting this totally wrong or what's going on.. what's the right way on doing this ?

    THank you

    mfp sets a deficit for you, you're supposed to stick to that deficit (if you follow mfp), by exercising you're increasing the amount of calories you burned that day, if you increase your calories burn, you must also increase the calories consumed to keep the deficit the same. Don't worry, by eating those exercise calories, you're still keeping your 1.5 lbs per week goal.
  • fit4life84
    fit4life84 Posts: 9 Member
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    This was hard for me to figure out as well, but I learned that we automatically burn a certain amount of calories per day based on our height, weight, etc. I think it's called your Basal Metabolic Rate. My BMR is close to 2,000 so if I consume 1,6000 per day, (1600-2000) I have a deficit of 400 calories.

    If I exercised for an hour and burned 900 calories, I would have only consumed 700 calories instead of 1,600 which would put me below 1,2000 calories. If you continuously consume below this amount, your body goes into starvation mode, which makes it more difficult to lose weight, so that's why it is suggested you eat most or all of your exercise calories back.

    I hope I explained this well enough :)
  • albertl
    albertl Posts: 30
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    Hi Bosanka,

    One way to think about it is to view your daily calorie goal as a budget. You have 1600 calories per day that you can "spend" by eating different foods. Every food you eat has some number of calories associated with it and when you log that food in your diary we reduce your calorie budget for that day by that amount.

    Exercising is essentially a way of earning more calories to add to your budget. If you burned 600 calories than you can "afford" to consume an additional 600 calories of food that day and still stay under budget.

    Hopefully that helps to explain how our tracking works. As far as determining the right diet and exercise plan for you, I'm sure that there are a lot of community members who can help you figure out some things to try.

    Good luck!

    Albert
  • bosanka
    bosanka Posts: 336 Member
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    Thank you - it makes more sense now.. Somehow i forgot the fact that those 1600 kcl are already " with a deficit " .. and .. i know what it means to put the body in starvation mode- that's the reason i got of the plan here last time, i just didn't see any results in months.. and did so much .. so i figured out that i put my self on way to little kcls- i " wasnt' hungry " i guess cause i got used to that.. but i didn't lose weight either.. so this time i want to do it right ..


    Thank you again ..
  • lisawest
    lisawest Posts: 798 Member
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    Keep in mind, some people lose better eating all their exercise calories, some lose better eating some of their exercise calories and some people lose better eating none of their exercise calories. Depends on the person. I do some of my exercise calories. Some days I use them all, others I don't. It's working so far. If it stops working, then I'll try one of the other options.:bigsmile: Keep tweaking till you find something that's doing it for you!

    Just remember, it may not happen as fast as you'd like, it may not happen as dramatically as you'd like, but it WILL happen if you stick to it! It will NEVER happen if you give up!

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