calories and burning them

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yprice
yprice Posts: 5
in Health and Weight Loss
If we are on a 1500 calorie/day diet, is that all we can eat or does exercise add calories? Someone told me that with every calorie burned, it added another I could eat as long as they add/subtract to under the 1500. Someone else said no, it doesn't matter how much you exercise, do not eat over 1500 calories. I have tried both but just doing the 1500 makes me cheat more, whereas with adding the exercise it made me work more so that I could add stuff in. Neither seemed to work weight loss wise so I can't even tell which worked better. :- /

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  • dwayne0502
    dwayne0502 Posts: 1
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    You can eat more, if you do cardiovascular excercises. That is actually what I like about the program. I wouldn't use all of my extra calories but good strenuous excercise does allow for you to eat a little more of a decent meal in the evenings. I am actually 16 calories over in today's count as I type this but I am off to the gym to get some rowing machine, eliptical and calestenics in the Sauna, possibly even a little treadmill. That combination will likely get my calorie intake number up to about 600 tonight for dinner where I plan to eat 2 Tuna Sandwiches and a glass of naturally flavored strawberry water. (I drop fresh strawberries in my water). Keep going you can make it!!!
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
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    MFP is set up for you to eat back exercise calories...it is the way the program is designed and already includes a weight loss deficit in your GOAL that is net of exercise. Other calculators are different...but this is the way MFP is set up though...you NET to your calorie goal.
  • Briargrey
    Briargrey Posts: 498 Member
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    It depends on how you set it up. If you input your data and let MFP come up with a calorie goal for you, then it is designed for you to eat back any exercise calories you burned, so that you NET your goal. Some people take MFP and input not just their own data but their own stats for calories, and those stats include averaged out calorie-burning from exercise, so they don't eat back exercise calories. Either method is fine. The latter method you'll hear talked about as 'calculating your TDEE and reducing it by 20%' or something similar.

    The latter method does seem to be a bit better, but everyone is different. The key, imo, is to get yourself a nice balance of nutrition and eat at a deficit.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/654536-in-place-of-a-road-map-2-0-revised-7-2-12 has a great breakdown of how to calculate TDEE and what it means, etc. I broke it down and came up with about a 1750 per day calorie intake. Whereas MFP has me at 1360 but when I add back in exercise calories, most days it comes close to that 1750, so either way I do it, right now they wind up about the same :)
  • yprice
    yprice Posts: 5
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    Thanks guys! I really like that it works that way. :-) I also liked that link a lot!!!

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