eat the calories I just burned..... I don't get it

i am a little confused on that as well, i have my allotted calories per day...and i exercised this morning and now it shows the calories i burned added to my allotted calories for the day?! HUH? that makes no sense to me what so ever?! I plan on just eating the allotted number of calories and not adding the calories i burned in to it.

Because MFP already puts you at a deficit for the day. You could lose without exercising but when you do you create too large of a deficit.

^^^ This.

I want to also point out that the reason why you exercise is to build mucsle and tone your body. The cardio is also to burn extra calories if you eat a sweet or something that day. Its all bout how you balance it out. But if you create to largeof a deficit your body will think its starving.

Mmm I still don't get it?

What you mean you are at a deficit?

When you input all of your information into MFP, it calculates the number of calories your body burns a day (your TDEE) without factoring in any exercise you do. It then subtracts the number of calories it needs to for you to lose weight (500/day to lose 1 pounds a week) putting you at a deficit.

If your activity level is set to sedentary or lightly active, exercise increases that deficit, and for many people it puts us at too large a deficit for our bodies to sustain. Thus we eat back our earned exercise calories to fuel our bodies and keep it from decimating our lean muscle mass.

Because MFP already puts you at a deficit for the day. You could lose without exercising but when you do you create too large of a deficit.

While this is generally true, it depends on how people setup MFP, so I would be hesitant to make such a blanket statement.

When you signed up, you entered how much you currently weigh, how much weight you want to lose, and also at what rate (ie. 1 lb per week). MFP calculates your allotted calories based on this information.

When you exercise, you're burning calories, therefore, you can either eat more to maintain the rate of weight loss you originally chose, or you can just stay in deficit. Choosing to stay in deficit will help you lose weight faster, but you may also be more hungry because of the working out. You can always go back and fine tune the rate of your weight loss, which will affect how many calories MFP calculates for your daily allowance.

My "exercise calories" have little to nothing to do with my calorie intake which obviously is working for me.

what "deficit" means is that MFP has calculated the amount of calories that you need to operate your body daily (based on current size, activity level, etc...) and it subtracted calories from that amount based on how quicky you wanted to lose. For instance, it takes 2050 calories for my body to operate daily but I want to lose 1 pound per week so my alloted calories are calculated at 1550. Now when I exercise, I would be burning more calories than that 500 cal deficit so it adds those calories back into my allotted amount so that I am still losing 1 lb a week. Whether you eat back your exercise calories is a personal choice but you want to make sure that you eat enough to support your body throughout the day.

Hope this helps.

MFP calculates a deficit for you. Everyday. No additional exercise needed. Because of this, it intends for you to eat your exercise calories.

Think of it this way- MFP calculates how much you burn everyday- base activity plus exercise. Then it subtracts 500 calories from that, to have you eat enough so that you will lose 1lb per week.

Unless you factor your exercise into your activity level, which some people do.

I don't get the deficit part.

If you eat more calories than your body needs, what happens to them? They get stored, and you gain weight. This is eating at a surplus.

If you eat less than your body needs, what happens? I breaks down fat and muscle to make up the difference, and you lose weight. This is eating at a deficit.

Mmm I still don't get it?

What you mean you are at a deficit?

It means that MFP creates your goals based on eating less calories than you burn daily.

Say your TDEE (what your total daily burn is) is 2000 calories on a normal day. You'd eat that amount daily to maintain where you are now. If you want to loose a pound a week, you eat 500 calories less a day. So, you'd eat 1500 calories. Now, say you exercise and you've now burned 500 extra calories for that day (2500 calories total). If you only ate that 1500 calories, you'd be under 1000 calories from your TDEE, which is a much larger deficit than recommended. To maintain a 500 calorie a day deficit with the added exercise, you'd have to eat more food.

Make sense?

When you set up your profile for MFP, you said you were active, sedentary, whatever, and then you said you want to lose X amount of weight per week. MFP took the weight you said you are, your age, and all the other information you included and determined that you need XXXX calories per day to stay at the weight you want. Then, it deducts 500-1000 calories from that number and that is the big Green number you see every time you log in.

For example: MFP takes the information you provide and calculates that 2500 calories a day will keep you exactly where you are right now. IF you were to stay in bed and eat 2500 calories, you will not gain or lose anything. (this is also known as eating at maintenance).

You told MFP you want to lose 2 lbs per weeks. Since 3500 calories = 1 lb and 7000 calories = 2 lbs. 1000 calories per day for 7 days = 7000 calories which = 2 lbs per week

SO....2500 - 1000 calories per day = 1500 Calories and this is the big green number you are now going to live by.

You wake up in the morning and log into MFP and you see the BIG GREEN 1500. You eat breakfast and log it, now you have 1210. You go to the gym and talk a walk on the treadmill and that says you burned 300 calories. You log your exercise and MFP says you now have 1510. Wait?? What??? I now have MORE than I started with...what happened??

Well, the thing is, at 1500 calories, you're already at 1000 calories less than you "need" for a day to remain the way you are, and therefore already set to lose about 2 lbs per week. And 2 lbs per week is considered the healthy way to lose weight so you shouldn't eat less than 1000 calories of your maintenance per day. When you exercised and burned that extra 300 calories, you took that 1000 calories less per day and made it 1300 calories less. MFP adds that exercise calories back into your day so it will always be just 1000 calories less a day. Anything more than that is considered by many as unhealthy weight loss.

All of the math and figuring and using your fingers and toes to keep up with things is already done by MFP. Now the only thing you have "worry" about is eating all of your green numbers without going too much in the red. Going in the red is not always a bad thing, just not something you want to do every single day. If you're starving, you need to either change your settings on MFP because you put something in wrong and are way more active than you said you were OR you're eating a bunch of junk that doesn't keep you full long enough.

Sometimes, you have to tweak the settings here and there and go up a few calories or down a few calories for things to work for you, and if you do that, give it a couple of weeks before you make another change to see what's going to happen.

Mmm I still don't get it?

What you mean you are at a deficit?

Your body needs a certain number of calories every day just to function. It gets called a lot of things, I usually use BMR. Either way, for everyone it's different based on height, weight, and fat vs muscle composition. When you want to LOSE weight, you want to eat about 500 calories below your BMR. That is, instead of just feeding your body what it needs to function, you're feeding it a little less. You're kind of making your body say "Hey, I don't have enough food to keep all of our important things AND all of this fat running...okay, burn off some of that fat and we can function the best!"

If you eat too little, you're throwing your body into starvation mode, it's not good for your metabolism, etc. When you excercise, you're increasing the deficit.

For example, as a 5'4" 19 year old female weighing in at 150.1lbs, I eat 1450 calories a day. On my work out days, I can burn up to around 700 calories (horse back riding, running 3-4 miles, and weight training). If I burn that much, I'll have only consumed a net 750 calories in that day. That is, maybe I ate 1450, but I went and burned off almost half of what I ate! That's the equivalent of only eating 750 calories a day, and that is NO WHERE near enough for my body to survive on, especially one like mine (horseback riding for 7 years gives me a looooot more muscle mass than a lot of 19 year old girls). So in addition to my 1450, I'll eat back most of what I burned off. I'm STILL feeding my body less than what it would need to keep so much fat on my body, but I'm feeding my body /enough/ to remain healthy, strong, and comfortable enough to not get "scared" and start storing extra fat.

I tried to word that in a way that makes it more easy to understand, but I don't usually reply to these things. ^^' Best of wishes to all of you

So what do you say to a person who has their calories set to 1400 a day, actually eats 950 - 1000 and exercises off 900? I have seen this and it makes me wonder what the heck to think?