1200 cal + cal worked off = daily allowance. Wrong?

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Austinetc
Austinetc Posts: 74 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
MFP lets us add the calories we burn to our daily calorie allowance. So if my normal allowance is 1200 and I burn 300 at the gyum, I can consume 1500 calories. But I"ve been told by several people that I should ignore claories burned and limit myself to 1200 calories.

My specific problem is that I don't normally burn just 300 calories during my daily exercises. Today, for example, it'll be more like 1,100 calories burned. Tomorrow I may burn over 2000 (50 mile bike ride).

It seems to me that both pieces of advice is off the mark. Any suggestions?

Replies

  • Colossus882
    Colossus882 Posts: 22 Member
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    I can't see your height or weight stats, but for a start, a 1200 calorie diet for a male is absurd, unless you are like 4 foot tall. You will find that most people on here who only eat 1200 calories are small women, and even then that is a lower limit for what is considered a healthy limit. If you are only eating 1200 calories a day, and burning more than that (significantly more by your post) your body is going to crash and burn, and not in a good way. Your body needs calories to be able to perform its basic needs.
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
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    If you have a lot of weight to lose, 1200 net is just fine.

    If you're going to burn 2000 calories on a bike ride, you're going to have to eat the bulk of those calories back, or you're going to have a miserable time the next time you try and ride.
  • aluethi1
    aluethi1 Posts: 97 Member
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    I would think that you'd be good as long as you stayed a little under the Calories Alotted + Caloried Burned.
  • rileysowner
    rileysowner Posts: 8,191 Member
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    I can't see your height or weight stats, but for a start, a 1200 calorie diet for a male is absurd, unless you are like 4 foot tall. You will find that most people on here who only eat 1200 calories are small women, and even then that is a lower limit for what is considered a healthy limit. If you are only eating 1200 calories a day, and burning more than that (significantly more by your post) your body is going to crash and burn, and not in a good way. Your body needs calories to be able to perform its basic needs.

    ^^^^^^
    THIS

    As a man you may not see it right away, but you will lose a lot of muscle mass. This is not to mention that the lack of nutrients and calories at 1200 for a man, especially one burning that much in exercise, will lead to a host of other health issues that will make your miserable.
  • Serah87
    Serah87 Posts: 5,481 Member
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    OP, for man you need to be eating more than 1800 calories and eating back most of your exercise calories!!!
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    I'm a cyclist too and feel that the MFP way works better than a TDEE minus percentage way of dieting for people whose calorie expenditure varies enormously from day to day.

    But it works by varying your intake to match your output so eat the exercise calories back. As cycling is steady state cardio a HRM should give a reasonable estimate as well as being a very useful training tool.

    I'm a bit shocked that you have chosen 1200 as your net goal though unless you are 4' tall.
    An active man can eat a whole lot more than that, feel less deprived, get better nutrition, wider food choices, better sports performance and still lose weight successfully.

    I urge you to reconsider. My personaly experience is that by losing weight slowly I've not felt deprived, learned good eating habits and the transition to maintenance has been a breeze.
  • wild_wild_life
    wild_wild_life Posts: 1,334 Member
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    So, the way the website is set up is that MFP gives you a calorie goal based on your height, weight, age, daily activity level (not counting exercise) and how fast you tell it you want to lose weight (the faster you say you want to lose, the lower your goal).

    So the calorie goal includes your daily deficit up front. Then when you exercise and burn more calories, if you don't eat more to compensate, you are increasing your deficit. Assuming your deficit was already set correctly by MFP, there is no benefit to increasing it, because a larger deficit isn't necessarily better, and too big a deficit (which, if you are only eating 1200 cals, you may already have) is not good. So you should eat more if you burn a lot of calories through exercise.

    On the other hand MFP tends to overestimate calories burned, so a lot of people will eat back half or three quarters of their estimated calories burned, or whatever seems reasonable.

    Hope that helps.
  • rileysowner
    rileysowner Posts: 8,191 Member
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    I'm a cyclist too and feel that the MFP way works better than a TDEE minus percentage way of dieting for people whose calorie expenditure varies enormously from day to day.

    But it works by varying your intake to match your output so eat the exercise calories back. As cycling is steady state cardio a HRM should give a reasonable estimate as well as being a very useful training tool.

    I'm a bit shocked that you have chosen 1200 as your net goal though unless you are 4' tall.
    An active man can eat a whole lot more than that, feel less deprived, get better nutrition, wider food choices, better sports performance and still lose weight successfully.

    I urge you to reconsider. My personaly experience is that by losing weight slowly I've not felt deprived, learned good eating habits and the transition to maintenance has been a breeze.

    I do a lot of cycling in the summer as well, however, the MFP approach did not really work for me. I much prefer the TDEE approach. Now that it is winter, unless I get new X-country skis which is my winter activity of choice but my old skis and boots have worn out, my long steady state cardio is on my trainer. Rarely do I ride as long on it as I do when I am out on the roads.
  • robathealthsidekick
    robathealthsidekick Posts: 20
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    Go to healthsidekick and start logging your food. It will give you an exact equation based on what you are eating and the exercise you are doing. It takes a few weeks but the good thing is you wont have to ask this question ever again and it dynamically updates so as you change it will constantly update it for you
  • WalkingAlong
    WalkingAlong Posts: 4,926 Member
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    MFP lets us add the calories we burn to our daily calorie allowance. So if my normal allowance is 1200 and I burn 300 at the gyum, I can consume 1500 calories. But I"ve been told by several people that I should ignore claories burned and limit myself to 1200 calories.

    My specific problem is that I don't normally burn just 300 calories during my daily exercises. Today, for example, it'll be more like 1,100 calories burned. Tomorrow I may burn over 2000 (50 mile bike ride).

    It seems to me that both pieces of advice is off the mark. Any suggestions?
    I think the reason it sounds wrong is it sounds like you think that if you eat 1200 plus your 'exercise calories' that's eating all you burned that day, which wouldn't be the case. You probably burn at least 2000-2500 without any exercise, so there's an 800-1300 calorie deficit right there.

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