Do you have to add calories if you exercise?!?

misseaves123
misseaves123 Posts: 56 Member
edited January 28 in Fitness and Exercise
I try to eat around 1200 cals a day. Every website I look at tells me that I need to increase my calories if I am running/ biking/stairs everyday to lose weight. This is frustrating! Why would I want to increase my calories when the goal is to burn them off! Its seem redundant to burn something off just to add them back into diet. Cant I just stay at 1200 cals and anything I burn just comes of that!?

Replies

  • steve1686
    steve1686 Posts: 346 Member
    1200 calories is low for you as it is, so in your case yes i would recommend it
  • misseaves123
    misseaves123 Posts: 56 Member
    Why is it too low... it still falls in the minimum healthy range for a women.. Thanks :)
  • kit_katty
    kit_katty Posts: 992 Member
    You shouldn't NET below your BMR, and because you're only eating 1200 and then you're netting less because you're working out, your body needs fuel, you can't run a car with no gas in the tank! Plus it's not healthy. Please just eat.
  • ladynocturne
    ladynocturne Posts: 865 Member
    1200 calories already has your deficit build into it, you don't need to go burn off MORE and come "under" your goal.

    The numbers MFP gives you are the numbers to eat at in order to lose weight properly, not the numbers you would maintain your weight at.

    It is very important to eat 1200 + exercise calories because this allows you to keep a healthy deficit.

    When you are losing weight, it is not recommend to eat less that your current BMR. The more you under eat, the higher the ratio of lean muscle mass you will lose, thus lowering your metabolism and forcing you to maintain on less calories than a normal person of the same height and weight. It can take a long time to repair metabolism damage. It isn't worth the scale saying you lost more weight when it's mostly muscle.
  • soehlerking
    soehlerking Posts: 589 Member
    Because your body will suffer metabolic damage if you go too long at such a low level. Your fat loss will stall, resulting in you not being able to lose any more without decreasing to even lower caloric levels. More on metabolic damage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHHzie6XRGk

    i.e. I'm 5'4 130lbs and my Total Daily Energy Expenditure without exercise (what I need to eat just to keep my body working while I go to the office, etc) is approximately 1700 calories. If I were to want to lose weight, all I'd need to do is drop down to 1500 calories with no exercise. If you're eating 1200 calories AND exercising, you could face some difficulty continuing to lose after several months--as well as difficulty increasing your calories to a "normal" range once you've hit your goal weight.

    Just my 2-cents. Best of luck!!
  • melindasuefritz
    melindasuefritz Posts: 3,509 Member
    yes ad d the exercise and 1200 is too low..........
    if u eat 1200 cal. exercise 400 off
    your net is
    800 which is dangerous................
    starvation mode
    weight gain
  • 20072013
    20072013 Posts: 35 Member
    Please do not find this question offensive, does the idea of metabolic damage apply to people who are obese and have say 50 plus pounds to loose? I can see where it would apply to people with less to lose. If I have 50 pounds that I need to lose, I eat 1400 a day, and burn 300-500 cals a day am I at risk for metabolic damage? Just curious....
  • chani8
    chani8 Posts: 946 Member
    I was just thinking about this today. I see some of you logging in 1200 calories burned on exercise, and I wonder about a couple of things. One, are you really eating all that back? That's a lot of food. Two, if you're not, then how is your body handling it? Doesn't it go into starvation mode because you're not eating enough? And three, do you really think you burned 1200 calories? Is that estimation true? If it is, you better eat.
  • amyx593
    amyx593 Posts: 211 Member
    It's because 1200 is such a low number. Your body needs a certain amount of calories to function properly.
  • amyx593
    amyx593 Posts: 211 Member
    Why is it too low... it still falls in the minimum healthy range for a women.. Thanks :)

    It falls in the minimum for a woman who doesn't move at all during the day! and that's the BARE minimum for her. I'd say make sure to eat back at least half of the calories you burn :)
  • southerndream24
    southerndream24 Posts: 303 Member
    I was just thinking about this today. I see some of you logging in 1200 calories burned on exercise, and I wonder about a couple of things. One, are you really eating all that back? That's a lot of food. Two, if you're not, then how is your body handling it? Doesn't it go into starvation mode because you're not eating enough? And three, do you really think you burned 1200 calories? Is that estimation true? If it is, you better eat.

    What I did was calculate my TDEE for my activity level which is very high. That gave me a TDEE of 2269 calories. I then took 20% off that amount which puts my calories for the day at about 1850. That is what I eat. About 2.5 weeks going on 3 following this and I'm down 3 lbs. I'm seeing the biggest changes in fat loss. Eating more is working for me.
  • contingencyplan
    contingencyplan Posts: 3,639 Member
    Your daily calorie requirements are based on your activity level. Your calorie goal should already have a deficit built in, whether you are using the MFP method or another method of calculating it. That goal is based on the minimum amount of calories needed to keep your body running and in good health, plus a little more to compensate for the fact that your metabolism is running at a faster rate based on higher intensity exercise. When you perform exercise, you are increasing those requirements. You already have a deficit built in, so just maintain that deficit. Don't make it bigger.
  • SyntonicGarden
    SyntonicGarden Posts: 944 Member
    If you exercise more, you should get more calories back, since the cals are based on net (or what you have to spend).

    I look at it this way. If you look at your body like a car, food like fuel, and driving like exercising, if you drive from NY to PA, you'll need less gas than if you were to drive from NY to CA and even more if you were going from Florida to Alaska. So the farther you drive, the more fuel you'll need.
  • Bekahmardis
    Bekahmardis Posts: 602 Member
    Hey, I'm sitting here at 5'3", 42 years old and my goal weight of 110 pounds, and *I* eat more than that. My BMR is 1205, and I average around 1600 calories total burned including exercise for the day. I have a sedentary job, but with exercise, I'm "Lightly Active." I was eating about 1300 calories per day to lose weight down to my goal weight, and now I'm maintaining on between 1450 and 1500 calories per day, depending on exercise.

    When they say "eat more" they simply mean to get a few hundred more calories in so your basic body functions are fueled. That's all. And yes, you really *can* lose more weight that way. Sounds counterintuitive, but it works.
  • mamacita721
    mamacita721 Posts: 194 Member
    I try to eat around 1200 cals a day. Every website I look at tells me that I need to increase my calories if I am running/ biking/stairs everyday to lose weight. This is frustrating! Why would I want to increase my calories when the goal is to burn them off! Its seem redundant to burn something off just to add them back into diet. Cant I just stay at 1200 cals and anything I burn just comes of that!?

    I totally feel you! It also seems so redundant to keep putting gas in my car so I can drive around town all day. I mean why do I have to keep refilling the tank each and every week??? Redundant I tell you! :laugh:
  • alpine1994
    alpine1994 Posts: 1,915 Member
    I agree with everyone's advice, and just wanted to add my personal experience. I set MFP to lose 1lb per week, which gave me a calorie goal of 1450. I ate half of my exercise calories back during the week, and on the weekends I allowed myself a bigger treat/meal/drinks so it didn't feel like I was ever depriving myself. My average weight loss over 9 months is 3.6lbs per month so it was pretty close to that 1lb per week goal that I set in MFP.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    I try to eat around 1200 cals a day. Every website I look at tells me that I need to increase my calories if I am running/ biking/stairs everyday to lose weight. This is frustrating! Why would I want to increase my calories when the goal is to burn them off! Its seem redundant to burn something off just to add them back into diet. Cant I just stay at 1200 cals and anything I burn just comes of that!?

    You need to understand the tool you are using. MFP gives you a calorie goal that includes a weight loss deficit from maintenance in it already. That's why it's a GOAL...something to be achieved. Also, MFP is a NEAT method calculator...so when you set your activity level, it's NOT supposed to include exercise..exercise is extra activity above and beyond your every day hum drum. Most other calculators include those calories in your goal...which is the TDEE method.

    Understand your method.

    With MFP it's really simple. Just eat to your GOAL
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    Please do not find this question offensive, does the idea of metabolic damage apply to people who are obese and have say 50 plus pounds to loose? I can see where it would apply to people with less to lose. If I have 50 pounds that I need to lose, I eat 1400 a day, and burn 300-500 cals a day am I at risk for metabolic damage? Just curious....

    Short term no...obese individuals have substantial fat stores and can sustain massive calorie deficits for longer. That said, if you're going very low, it should still be done under some supervision to make sure you're getting proper nutrients and such. You can get your energy from stored fat, but not nutrients (i.e. vitamins, minerals, protein, etc). This is what a lot of people don't seem to understand about "starving"..."starving" isn't necessarily about feeling hungry or whatever...it's a lock of essential nutrients...thus your body is starved of nutrients.
  • deksgrl
    deksgrl Posts: 7,237 Member
    Most people have a BMR higher than 1200. This is the amount they would feed you if you were in a coma, just to keep your organs functioning. Does it make sense to ever eat less than that? PLUS exercise? No.
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