Really scared to eat exercise calories

ohlookabear
ohlookabear Posts: 28
in Health and Weight Loss
Maybe i'm not the only one who has the same struggle.. my goal is to lose 7 lbs.. and i eat between 1300-1600.. I burn 1000-1500 through running per day.. I AM SCARED TO EAT MY EXERCISE CALORIES BACK! MFP says I can eat 2800 per day with exercise but I can't do that.. I feel that I will gain/not lose..

Replies

  • YorriaRaine
    YorriaRaine Posts: 370 Member
    So wait, you eat 1300 but you burn a 1000? Your net calories for the day is 300, this is really bad in the long term.

    How are you determining exercise calories burned, through mfp or a hrm?

    At-least try to eat 50% of your exercise calories back, you may gain at first because of water retention and whatnot, but it will go away. However, it is not healthy to eat at so few net calories.

    ----

    small edit: hrm stand for heart rate monitor, it is a fairly good way to determine gross calories burned, then you just have to do a small calculation to figure out net calories burned. MFP can overestimate, and sometimes underestimate calories. HRM is a good tool for cardio so you will know how to many calories to eat back.
  • ohlookabear
    ohlookabear Posts: 28
    So wait, you eat 1300 but you burn a 1000? Your net calories for the day is 300, this is really bad in the long term.

    How are you determining exercise calories burned, through mfp or a hrm?

    At-least try to eat 50% of your exercise calories back, you may gain at first because of water retention and whatnot, but it will go away. However, it is not healthy to eat at so few net calories.

    MFP. Once with HRM and it was the same.. as MFP said.. (Yes, I am training for a marathon also and I run like 100-120 minutes per day)
  • 4legsRbetterthan2
    4legsRbetterthan2 Posts: 19,590 MFP Moderator
    Sounds like you run alot, if I were you I would be alot more concerned with maintaining my muscles and my fitness level then losing fast. If you only have 7 lbs to lose you should have your weekly loss set to 1/2 lb/week which would probably give you a goal of more than 1300 cals to begin with and yes, you need to eat at least some of your exercise back. You are going to hurt your body like this.
  • Tagwild12345
    Tagwild12345 Posts: 19 Member
    Hi make sure your eating enough so you feel full and not hungry so you have headache or go dizzy. You do well to burn that a day. I'd be treating myself to a big slice of cake a day. If your burning that much I'd say you could get a way with eating what you wanted x
  • darrensurrey
    darrensurrey Posts: 3,942 Member
    There's another way of using MFP - you eat a fixed but higher amount eg 1700 and do whatever training but don't eat cals back. That's how I use MFP. As to whether 1700 is too much or not enough, you'll only really know in a month's time after a trend has been established. You also need to make sure you don't flit from exercise routine to exercise routine. Regularity of eating and exercise is key.

Categories