Question about exercise vs. calorie intake

kimmarsh1978
kimmarsh1978 Posts: 5
in Health and Weight Loss
Ok so this might be an easy answer for some but I am a little conflicted. I will see if I can explain it right. Ok, when you eat you exercise you burn calories. You put what you did and how many calories you burned in the app/MFP and it tells you how many calories you still have to eat for the day. Following... now if you exercise a lot that day the more calories you still have left over, meaning, say you start with 1200 for the day. At breakfast you eat about 400, then at lunch you eat another 400 so you have 400 left over. But if you exercise and burn say 300 calories, MFP says you still have 700 calories for the rest of the day. I understand how this works but but my question is, if you eat what you burned already isnt that defeating the purpose? I don't want to eat the amount of calories I have burned. I want to stay with my 1200 original calories I am supposed to be staying with daily, instead of eating the 1200 and burning off 300 and then eating 300 more. I hope this is not too confusing.

Replies

  • JessHealthKick
    JessHealthKick Posts: 800 Member
    you burn energy when breathing, writing this post, using the toilet. The 1200 is the basic necessity to survive the day with no exercise/strenuous exercise. So if you DO do exercise, you need to eat that back otherwise you are just under-eating too much.

    The 1200 is /meant/ to be a deficit, though it depends on the person. I personally have a pretty slow metabolism and can live off 1200 without seeing much change in my weight. I'm currently burning 1000+ cals a day snowboarding, so am doing my best to eat a lot back but it is hard!
  • tomhrvy
    tomhrvy Posts: 13 Member
    if you eat what you burned already isnt that defeating the purpose?

    I wrestled with the same problem when i started out. Short answer is no, you need to eat those calories back otherwise you aren't giving your body enough to go on. Especially if your only eating 1,200 a day

    As an example if you only eat 1200 cals a day and also burning 300 in the gym this means your body only has 900 to play with and it's not enough. As a general rule it's best not to not regularly eat less than 1200 cal a day as this will starve your body which will then respond by storing more of that energy as fat. This loss of energy will make you tired and the loss in nutrients will make you ill. Any weight lost this way isn't good and will come back when you start eating normally again. Frustratingly you may even gain weight from eating less!

    Here's what I've learned about calorie intake/expenditure that's really helped me along the way... Please correct me if i'm wrong anyone!!

    It's important to know how many calories you need in a day to maintain the same weight (TDEE, Total Daily Energy Expenditure). Once you know that it's dead easy. As there are 3500 cals in 1 lbs of lovely jubbly fat, you just eat 500 cals a day less to loose 1lb a week up to 1000 cals a day less to loose 2lb. You can make up your 500-1000 kcal defect through a mixture of diet/excersise. If you don't exercise at all then your metabolism slows down and the effects will be short lived. I started by going to the gym once a week and this was enough. After a while I actually started enjoying it and was motivated to go 3-4 times a week.

    Sooo work out your TDEE! To do that you first work out how many calories your body needs to just lay down and do nothing (BMR). Then you add to that the calories you burn doing everything else in your day (Estimated with an Activity Factor).

    (BMR x Activity Factor) = TDEE

    BMR
    As jessica said your body burns calories just lying in bed just to keep you breathing and your organs functioning. if you were in a coma in a hospital they give you enough calories according to your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) using your age/height/weight which is roughly how many calories you need to just lay there and do nothing. MFP has a calculator you can use http://www.myfitnesspal.com/tools/bmr-calculator

    Activity Factor
    If you drive to work and sit at a desk all day and rarely exercise (like i was) then this will be a much smaller amount to someone who cycles to work and is on there feet all day. Working this out is less of a science but here's a rough guide...

    Sedentary. Little to no regular exercise.
    (factor 1.2)

    Mild activity level: Exercise 1 to 3 times per week.
    (factor 1.375)

    Moderate activity level: More intensive exercise 3 to 4 times per week. Also keeping active through the day.
    (factor 1.55)

    Heavy: Exercise 5 to 7 days per week or a very labour intensive job
    (factor 1.7)

    Extreme level: Athlete/crazy person
    (factor 1.9)

    So here's mine as an example
    BMR = 1741
    Activity Level = 1.375 (Moderate)

    (BMR x Activity Factor) = TDEE
    (1741 x 1.375) = 2394

    So my TDEE is about 2400. I choose to eat 1000 cals less (so 1400 cals) 5 days a week and the full 2400 on the remaining 2 days. With exercise I regularly loose about 1 - 2lbs a week depending how good or bad I'm being!

    Important note to remember! Once you start loosing weight or change your exercises schedule you will need to recalculate your TDEE. If you don't you may end up eating too much or not enough and weight loss will stop (Speaking from experience!). MFP will remind you when you loose 10 lbs to recalculate your BMR so this serves as a reminder but you will most likely notice the weight loss stop first.

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