Calories in/out query

failteromhat
failteromhat Posts: 33 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Ok, so I am on a 1200 a day diet and exercising daily- approx 1 hour a day. On track so far. My query is this: if I exercise am I "entitled" to eat more calories? Or do I have to stick to 1200 to get the deficit of 500 cals per day? Bit confused about it.
Can I eat 1700 cals and hae my deficit if I do enough exercise to burn off the additional 500 cals on top of my 1200? Please keep it simple, find it all rather confusing.

Replies

  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
    Yes, MFP is designed for you to eat back your earned exercise calories and still lose weight.

    With the caveat that this assumes no medical issues that might affect your metabolism and that you are accurately tracking your food and getting an accurate estimate for your calories burned. MFP and gym machines have a tendency to overestimate calories burned, which is why many here recommend only eating 50-75% of your earned exercise calories.
  • Annie_01
    Annie_01 Posts: 3,096 Member
    Ok, so I am on a 1200 a day diet and exercising daily- approx 1 hour a day. On track so far. My query is this: if I exercise am I "entitled" to eat more calories? Or do I have to stick to 1200 to get the deficit of 500 cals per day? Bit confused about it.
    Can I eat 1700 cals and hae my deficit if I do enough exercise to burn off the additional 500 cals on top of my 1200? Please keep it simple, find it all rather confusing.

    Yes...if you are using the MFP method you can eat back your exercise calories. Just be careful however...most calorie burns are over estimated and that is why the general rule of thumb is to eat about 50% of them back.

    If you burn 500 eat maybe 250 of them back...unless you have an HRM (even then the estimate can be high) then you might be able to eat a few more of them back.

    Hope I kept it simple and that it helps.
  • sjaykay13
    sjaykay13 Posts: 74
    Exactly what diannethegeek said. MFP calculates your TDEE based on no exercise, so if you exercise, you should eat back those calories to keep your targeted calorie deficit. That being said, machines and MFP logging OVERESTIMATES calories burned by at least 50%. I like logging the time I spent working out and then only eating back 50% of those calories. Especially on such a low calorie diet, your body is going to watch a bit more energy when you work out.

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