Exercise vs food????

1) Yes, you are supposed to add your exercise cals.

2) Are you sure it is supposed to be 2 pounds per week for you on 1200? It is 2 pounds per week with a 1000 cal deficit, but if that would take you below 1200 cal/day, the MFP calculator and most others online will put you at 1200 anyway, as a minimum. The MFP tells you your adjusted weight loss rate to expect, but it is easy to miss.

3) If you are not very overweight, 2 pounds per week is probably an unrealistic target. 1 pound per week is recommended for people already near their target weight.

4) Muscle does weigh more than fat (in the dense that it is denser than fat) but you don't build muscle quickly or (usually) without a gym and diet plan tailored to build muscle. On weight loss diets, you would usually lose some muscle and some fat, even while you are getting fitter. You should lose more fat than muscle, of course. It might be worth keeping track with a measuring tape as well as scales. If your weight is not dropping but you are losing inches, that is evidence that you are losing fat.

I've been at this for 6 months and adding my cardio calories back in. And yes, muscle is heavier than fat and the two weeks I was doing light weights I only lost 1/10th of a pound.

As you can see by my sliding scale I have made good progress... I try to do 3 things - 1.) Get cardio 5-7 days a week 2.) Try to stay under my calories for the day by several hundred after I add my calories earned via cardio 3.) Put the weights down until I am at least 5lbs below my target weight.

Lastly, any weight loss is a win! Keep up the good work and and good luck!

I second this.. I dnt intend to lift weights until I'm at least 5 lbs from my target weight, or my target weight but under it sounds good if u can do it I'll try now that I saw this ha lol. Idk about you but I'm 5ft nothing.. MFP puts me at 1200 but aims for 0.8 lbs a week even thto I put 2 lbs which goes bak to what the woman above me just said. Among for 2 lbs a week is healthy regardless as long as you need to lose weight and are not under weight.. I don't think that's unrealistic there's no rule for that last I checked I still aim to burn enough to lose 2 lbs and either way some people drop weight differently in 4 weeks 5 lbs might just go poof one week out of nowhere this is why I weigh in once a month gives me a better weight to go on without obsessing over the scale good luck!!!❤

I personally don't eat the calories back because a) I want to create a calorie deficit and b) I aim for about 1400 calories a day anyway, and I sometimes struggle to eat that many.

I was eating 1200, and I found that upping it to 1400 has meant that I've lost weight a bit faster. My calories are from healthy food though - I never go over my fat, and the most I eat of my carbs allowance is about two thirds.

I don't worry so much about weight, I'm more concerned with how many inches I'm losing and if I'm toning up. Also, I do personal training sessions twice a week, as well as gymming on my own, so I do a lot of weights work, so I have quite good muscle tone now. When people say muscle weighs more than fat, what they mean is a pound of muscle is smaller than a pound of fat. So someone really toned and slim could weigh the same as someone flabby, but obviously the toned person will look better. My PT used to be overweight, and he says now he weighs the same as he did back then, only he's about 10 inches smaller round the waist!

As for waiting until 5lbs before target weight to do weights....I don't agree with that. You can do reps with lighter weights, and the more muscle you build, the more fat you burn. Doing weights and resistance work at the start of a work out is more effective that leaving it until the end. And interval training for cardio is good.

Anyway, I would say focus on inch loss and how you feel in your clothes rather that what the scales say. I don't know about you, but I have some old pairs of trousers from 10 years ago when I was slim, so I know that when they fit me nicely, then I am where I want to be.

Ya know this drove me nuts for a while and my best advice is DO WHAT YOU THINK IS BEST! I personally don't do it, I think it's a little bit insane to put back the calories that you just burned. You're supposed to be burning more calories then you eat.

It's all a little quirky to me so just do what your gut tells you.

Your deficit is built into your daily calories. By not eating back your exercise calories you are in fact not utilizing MFP the way it was meant to be used. Nothing quirky there, just simple math.