Calorie Intake with exercise

Im sure someone else will answer better but, MFP already has you at a calorie deficit, meaning if you don't eat them back you will send your body into starvation mode..I go by my TDEE - 200 calories so that when I over eat Im still good..

Heres a quick article from a site.. dont remember which but i had it saved to my hard drive...

You’ve just finished one of your best workouts. Do you know what—and when—you need to eat in order to maximize your results? We’ve got the answers right here.

With our earlier article focusing entirely on what to eat before exercising, we’d be remiss to not explain what you should be eating after your workout. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do today.

We’ve traveled across the internet and called upon many of the same experts who explained what, when, and why to eat before a workout. We’ve broken things down into a few different sections: first, a quick run-down of the science behind eating for recovery, then a word about fluids.

Finally, we get into the timing of your post workout eating, the types of foods that work the best, and some of the guiding principles to keep in mind. Let’s go!

WHAT’S THE POINT OF EATING AFTER EXERCISE?

It’s all about two things: recovery and storage. You need to recover the losses you undertook during the exercise, and your body is simply better at storing that recovery fuel right after your workout. Sure, you can eat later—but the benefits won’t be as good.

The sports medicine pros at ESPN explain it: “athletes need carbohydrate and fluid to replace glycogen and water losses during the exercise. The muscles store more glycogen immediately after exercise than they do later.” Simple, no?

We’ll talk about what to eat shortly, but generally you want to stick to carbs and protein. Why, exactly? Well says about.com —protein “provides the amino acids necessary to rebuild muscle tissue that is damaged during intense, prolonged exercise. It can also increase the absorption of water from the intestines and improve muscle hydration. The amino acids in protein can also stimulate the immune system, making you more resistant to colds and other infections.”

While you might find some advice that suggests carbs will serve you fine on their own, we noticed “one study found that athletes who refueled with carbohydrate and protein had 100 percent greater muscle glycogen stores than those who only ate carbohydrate. Insulin was also highest in those who consumed a carbohydrate and protein drink.” The magic ratio seems to be 4:1—for every four grams of carbs, you should have one gram of protein.

There was one more piece of advice that we found interesting. Apparently, eating post-workout is most important for those who workout nearly every day—and if you’re following a lot of the routines on the site right now, that’s you.

But if you’re the kind of person who only “works out 2 -3 times per week, you need not worry as much about post-exercise foods because your body will have enough time between workouts to recover,” says Columbia University. Notice that if you’re a lighter exerciser you need not worry as much—but if you want to follow the advice anyway—do it!

Any weight loss program will tell you eat what you burn, as you have already lowered your intake of calories. If your body thinks it is starving it goes after muscle and stores the fat. So you want to make sure you eat enough to keep your body going. Also one think people seem to think is that fat weighs less then muscle, a pound is a pound so do mesurements as well as the scale, becuase if your working out a lot it sometime shows more in our measurements before the scale.

Not saying you have to eat all that you earn, I know I can't if I workout too much in one day, but you should try and eat most of it. Good luck

Your 1330 calories is where you want to be at with any exercise adjustments. So if you do zero exercise for a day, you only eat 1330. If you do 600 calories worth of exercise, you now eat 1930. Just make sure you have a plan to spread those calories throughout the day vice in one sitting. You also need a high accuracy of calorie count, or it don't work and you'll either run out of steam or not lose weight.

Best way to obtain calories burned by cardio: Heart Rate Monitor. I use a Polar FT4 which takes into account my stats. This HRM is also very cheap (Amazon). The calories it calculates is very close to the calories counted on machines I use - so I believe it's accuracy is very good.

Great information - Thanks!

when your deficit is too big, the body wont lose well
when your deficit is too small, the body won't lose much

use online calorie calculators as a starting point, what you want to figure out is how to eat enough calories a day to lose about 1 lbs per week.

that might very well mean not eating all your exercise calories back, maybe just half of them.

You are just going to have to trial and error your daily calorie intake for several weeks.

the best thing you can do for your eating plan is to use a food scale to weigh out food portions, i believe that is the best ingredient for weight loss, well that and being consistent

1. Why do I eat my exercise calories? Isn't that basic mechanics of weight loss, more out than in? I understand that you body needs sufficient amount of energy to maintain physical activity, but if you eat everything you burn it seems to me you will maintain.
2. How do I know how much more calories to eat based upon my exercise routine?

The idea is that your calorie deficit is based on your "normal" daily routine, so any exercise means both extra calories burned and extra calories eaten. Personally, due to the difficulty in getting accurate calorie burn estimates, I think most people would be better of NOT eating back their exercise calories to start with. Then if they start to feel tired or draggy, it's an indication they are under-eating for the activity level, and they can add back 100 calories at a time until they feel "right" again.

2. Well there's the rub. For certain activities - cycling, running, swimming - the estimates are pretty good if the person tracks how far they actually went. For many other activities, the estimates are...challenging. Hence my suggestion above - the only way to really figure it out is trial and error. Workouts like Zumba, Body Shred etc are notoriously over-estimating calorie burn, so beware.

A simple explanation of eating exercise calories. First, understand what TDEE is:

Total Daily Energy Expenditure is the amount of energy in the form of calories your body burns to maintain weight based on activity. Your body burns energy through four primary functions:
1)Resting Metabolic Rate - minimal caloric intake required for basic physiological function while at rest and awake.
2)Thermic Effect of Food - amount of calories needed to process food consumed (approximately 10% of TDEE).
3)Non-exercise Activity Thermogenesis - calories burned doing mundane, everyday activities not considered exercise.
4)Exercise Activity Thermogenesis - calories burned during exercise.

MFP's formula, although based on using a TDEE method, does not include exercise activity.

Example:
My TDEE is about 2800 calories. Of which:
My RMR is about 1900 calories.
My TEF is about 280 calories.
My NEAT is about 280 calories.
My EAT is about 340 calories.

Consider that MFP does not include EAT in its equation. Thus, as an exerciser, I start out with a deficit of -340 calories before I even chose a weekly fat loss goal. Thus, MFP only takes into account 2460 calories of the 2800 to maintain my weight. I must then keep in mind this -340 calorie default deficit when considering how much to eat.

If I were to choose a 0.5 lb per week fat loss goal, it establishes a -250 calorie deficit. But since MFP does not include EAT, I need to take into account those -340 calories (340+250=590 calorie total deficit). Thus, by not eating my exercise calories, I am then actually adhering to a 590 calorie daily deficit which is a 1.2 lb weekly fat loss goal instead of the desired 0.5 lb fat loss goal.

If the scale is not moving by eating back all your calories or some of them, eat less of your workout calories. Either you are overestimating your burned calories or food eaten. To lose weight, sometimes you need to create a bigger deficit than what MFP has calculated....just keep this in mind.