Exercise vs adding calories

mgarcia8001600
mgarcia8001600 Posts: 3
in Fitness and Exercise
I'm a little confused. When I enter my exercise into myfitnesspal. It adds calories for my daily use. Doesn't that kind of take away from the whole, " I eat less lose more? " While my body go into starvation mode if I run 10 miles and burn 1600 calories, and only eat my daily amount of 2000 calories? I really don't want to eat 3700 and think I'm going to lose weight.

Please help???

Replies

  • Fitness_withsarah
    Fitness_withsarah Posts: 40
    It all depends on your fitness goals and current stats (weight, height etc) but if your daily goal to lose weight without exercise is 2000 cals you are probably okay to just eat those 2000 cals. It isn't that much a deficit that your body will go into starvation mode. Never eat below 1200. If you did run 10 miles and burned 3700 for the day it's probably a good idea to maybe eat a little more then the 2000 cals. Not only cause you can but it won't allow for binging later if you are hungry from the big deficit :) hope that helps

    Sarah :)
  • Cyclink
    Cyclink Posts: 517 Member
    The goal of losing weight is to create a deficit between what you eat and what you burn. I think the whole "net calorie" concept confuses people on that.

    A deficit of 500 calories per day is enough to lose a pound a week. A deficit of 1000 calories per day is enough to lose two pounds per week. A deficit of more than 1000 calories per day is enough to get your body to freak out and start shedding muscle to slow down your metabolism. Sure, you'll lose weight on the scale, but not in a way that you want to.

    Part of the reason is that your body needs the extra calories to repair, rebuild, and refuel the muscles and supporting systems for your next workout so you can get fitter. In my case, I routinely eat 3000 calories per day and I'm still losing about 1.4 pounds a week.

    There's another number to consider, and that's what I like to call the "my heart monitor exaggerates like Barney Stinson" number. Unless you are extremely fast (5:00 mile kind of fast) or extremely heavy (250 lbs+), it's highly unlikely that you are burning 1600 calories by running 10 miles.

    For a good study done on the topic (which was only 10 minutes, but you can multiply it out to get your number:
    http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/weight-loss/how-many-calories-do-you-burn/259.html
  • mgarcia8001600
    mgarcia8001600 Posts: 3
    thank you that was very helpful.

    I am trying to lose weight mostly. I am training for a marathon so I will need to keep eating to keep up my energy.

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