Very confused about my calorie intake

Telling me you've never eaten over 2000 calories in a day?

Just eat enough so that you're full and feel satisfied, don't starve yourself. Just try not to let yourself go over 1650.

Those are the calories you burned. Some people eat them back and some people don't. I was told by my doctor not to eat mine back. It can be confusing. Just look at the calories your eaten and dont go over your origanal calorie goal (unless you want to). Like I said some people eat them back and some people dont.

Hope that was helpful.

Thankyou! I'm new to this and all I'm trying to understand is how, even though I burned off 466 calories through exercise, eating them back is going to help me lose weight. To me that makes absolutely no sense.

You're welcome my goal is only 1360 but sometimes I eat under 1200 and it tells me I'm not getting enough nutrients and could be starving myself!! But I feel full, and never hungry and I have mostly been eating fresh foods and veges as well as lean meats and even some homemade baking!

I wouldn't take MFP too seriously when it comes to calories. You know what is good for you and what is bad, and you know when you feel full and when you're still hungry

Thanks! I appreciate it (: I've always heard the term, "don't exercise so that you can eat more," and so that's why it threw me for a loop. I guess I just wasn't sure if it helps keep the metabolism going? But to me, if you're burning off calories through exercise, then... You're burning them off... They're gone... Why put them back?

I can totally eat another 300 or so, but another 700 was overwhelming for me because I practice the habit of eating small meals and for me, 700 calories is either some pizza or a salad the size of a bucket...

I did good today so I can reward myself with frozen yogurt (:

Oh also, to keep your metabolism in tact make sure you eat breakfast, lunch and dinner with snacks in between! Sometimes I have dessert too

I want a frozen yoghurt now!!!

I agree... do not eat back all your calories. I'm with you "exercise more, eat less" and that's how you lose weight. I'm doing a weight management class through Kaiser with a dietician, and an instructor who has worked in this field for many, many years-- she says 'don't eat them back'. Of course, if you work out extra hard and NEED more fuel and more energy-- you can eat some back. But you've earned them and can make sure to not go OVER. I'm strictly of the mind set that you must BURN more than you EAT to lose weight. Just my opinion!! Good luck!

Add me

Welcome to the site lady!

Sounds like you're doing well already. Keep up the good work! Don't get discouraged by the occasional negative attitudes either... one or two crop up in just about every thread. The vast majority of MFP folks are profoundly supportive and encouraging!

Feel free to add me as a friend if you want!

Thankyou! I will! (:

It just threw me for a loop that someone decided to be rude because I've always found this site so helpful and full of kind people.

At the end of the day we're all in this together! All in the same boat! Good luck

So I have my settings set like this:

Age: 18
Height: 5'6"
Weight: 255
Working out 5x a week, 30 minutes each time
And my caloric goals are set to 1650 because of that.

HOWEVER, I worked out and burned 466 calories today. So now it's telling me that my goal for today is 2116. This makes absolutely no sense to me. Why is that? I thought it was already set to cover the workouts?

I've only eaten 1377 calories today and I can't even imagine eating 1650, how the heck do I bring myself to eat 2116? Aren't I defeating the purpose of my workout by eating 2116 calories?

Your body is an engine, it burns fuel.
If you start with a full tank, and don’t fill up, you can go for a few days without running out, but you’ll get to the point where you bonk, which is a term which means have no available fuel, and you body will slow down and you’ll feel like crap.
Your body needs a minimum of calories to survive, say 1200, which is just your body ticking over. Sleeping sitting, pumping the blood.
Moving about burns more, so you need more, say 400 more calories, that’s just food for walking about, even standing or driving.
So to keep that up long term you need 1600 a day.
So to lose weight you need only eat 1200 calories and you body will scavenge the remaining needs from fat, and still have enough to fuel and repair the body
Add in to the mix exercise 400 a day and you’re up to 2000 calories of demand, but if you are only eating 1200 calories your body will struggle to fuel and repair you body. Eventually it will start to seek fuel from easy sources, as converting fat takes a lot of energy, so the body try and save precious energy by picking a fuel source that does not take as much energy to convert and that is muscle, and the muscle of choice for the body to break down for fuel, well that would be the heart.

So I have my settings set like this:

Age: 18
Height: 5'6"
Weight: 255
Working out 5x a week, 30 minutes each time
And my caloric goals are set to 1650 because of that.

HOWEVER, I worked out and burned 466 calories today. So now it's telling me that my goal for today is 2116. This makes absolutely no sense to me. Why is that? I thought it was already set to cover the workouts?

I've only eaten 1377 calories today and I can't even imagine eating 1650, how the heck do I bring myself to eat 2116? Aren't I defeating the purpose of my workout by eating 2116 calories?

This is why there the difference: Your BMR is how many calories you'll burn in a day if you lay in bed. Although this doesn't make much sense....if you exercise 5 times a week and the formulas use exercise to mean an 800 calorie burn - you're BMR would increase. So these formulas are used to calculate the BMR - not the actual extra caloric burn you have. So you need to add this in later. Remember these are just estimates.

Does that help?

Good question....I registered on this site a year ago as you can see but some emergency situations have taken place, I have now been back on here faithfully for over a month and was wondering the same as you. Thanks for the post and all the replies, helps put things in perspective for me as well Good luck!

Hi

I was really confused about this when I first started too. It seemed to be to be misleading to suggest that I should eat all the calories I've burned - surely I'm supposed to be burning them?!

I just made sure I stuck to my initial calorie target of 1590. If you're finding it easy enough to keep within your initial target then just focus on that.

Good luck!