Help please! Calorie intake and calories burned stuff?

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blmurphy37
blmurphy37 Posts: 55 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Im looking to loose around 50 lbs. and tone! I've been tracking my calories since jan. but im still confused about how mfp calculates your calorie intake and such.
It tells me to eat 1200 calories a day, which im fine with i do pretty good with it. but when i exercise am i suppose to eat back those calories? some days i only burn as little as 200 and others like tonight i burned 1200 calories.
Thats alot to eat back but i dont want to mess up my weight loss and exercise if i eat the calories back?
will it be bad if i just do my 1200 calories and whenever i do workout not eat back the calories?
Thanks!

Replies

  • herblackwings39
    herblackwings39 Posts: 3,930 Member
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    MFP calculates your goal with your vital statistics. You enter age, height, weight, gender, your job activity, and how much you hope to lose per week. It gives you a number based on all of that which has your weight loss cut already built in so for .5 lbs it's 250 calories off, 1 lb is 500 calories off, and 2 lbs is 1000 calories off. If you got 1200 calories as your goal and said you wanted to lose 2 lbs a week your original number would have been around 2200 calories to maintain your weight. You eat back your exercise calories to keep your original deficit intact so you don't end up with one so large you don't lose weight at all.
  • LexiAtel
    LexiAtel Posts: 228 Member
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    This has me confused too. I see some people just tend to eat 50-60% of it though.

    I just let my body tell me what it wants. Since I have upped my protein, I have not felt hungry at all! Before, I was going nuts with "hunger" pains, and I was eating the same amount as I am now!

    Ah... protein does wonders....**dreamy look*
  • blmurphy37
    blmurphy37 Posts: 55 Member
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    herblackwings: okay! thank you tons! so it could be hurting my weight loss if i have too much of a calorie deficit? Ill try to eat at least half my workout calories back at the least from now on!

    lexiatel: i love protein too! lol we have protein shake stuff that tastes like strawberry milkshake and one thats chocolate milkshake i love them!

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