Basic question about exercising and calorie consumption

One thing has been confusing me about weight loss, not sure where to find the answer... Say my daily energy expenditure is calculated to be 1300 calories (without exercising). If I go running and burn 400 calories, should I still aim to eat 1300 calories a day or do I up that to 1700? Would it be healthier to eat an extra 400 calories if I exercised that much daily? Or is the point of exercising while dieting for weight loss that I have that deficit?

Thanks! Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this, feel stupid for still not knowing the answer six weeks into my diet.

Your total daily expenditure (TDEE) includes BMR + activity level (ie: sedentary) + exercise. You need to eat less than this to lose weight.

Your BMR = basal metabolic rate. These are the calories your body would use if you stayed in bed all day. Eating less than this on a regular basis is not a good idea.

MFP as designed gives you a calorie deficit
1. Based upon "I want to lose XX pounds per week"
2. Before any exercise whatsoever.
If MFP gave you 1300 calories......then yes you should eat some calories back. Really large calorie deficits don't support existing lean muscle mass.

I used the calculator at health-calc.com ( http://i.imgur.com/xT65cmf.png ) gave me a BMR of 1,345 and a total daily expenditure of 2,160. Now that you mention it, I probably meant total daily expenditure, but that confuses me also because the calculator I use factors in exercise.. not great with the numbers.

Should I be paying more attention to that? Because I've just been trying to match my BMR in calories daily then burn 200-400 calories on top of that. And I've been losing verrrry slowly, I was 131lb six weeks ago, and I've stayed at 127lb for the last two weeks, but I just figured that was because I'm so close to my goal weight, I'm putting on muscle, and I probably underestimate how many calories I eat.

Couple of things. First lets define terms:

BMR: Basal metabolic rate, the amount of calories you would burn if you were in a coma or zero activity
NEAT: Non-exercise activity thermogenesis. Your BMR plus your normal daily activity not due to intentional exercise. Standing up, typing at your computer, walking around the office etc.
TDEE: Total daily energy expenditure. This is your NEAT + any calories you burn from exercise. This represents the number of calories you would have to eat to exactly balance our your burn and stay at maintenance.

Generally speaking to lose weight you want to eat between your BMR and your TDEE. If you don't have much to lose you usually want to eat just under your TDEE say TDEE - 10%. If you are 127 pounds and you are eating 1300 calories while exercising you are really not eating enough. If the calc you used is accurate and your TDEE is 2160 you might want to consider eating closer to 1900 calories a day.

Secondly your body will NOT put on muscle while you are on a caloric deficit. You have gained no muscle while dieting. You may gain strength through training your CNS, you may gain muscle size and firmness through influx of water and glycogen to fuel and repair the muscle from your workouts, but you have gained no physical muscle tissue and added no muscle mass. Best you can hope for is to maintain your current muscle mass which will be hard to do if your deficit is to large or if you aren't lifting weights.

Going from 131 to 127 in 4 weeks is actually quite fast, perhaps faster than would be best for you if you are close to your goal. That said it is hard to tell over short periods of time how much of that is fat loss and how much of that is changes in water retention.

Here's what I did, and it worked. Go to fat2fitradio'com. Calculate your b.m.r, using you actual weight as your current and goal weight. See what it tells you your b.m.r is. Eat 100/200 calories over that and exercise calories.. you should be ok.

Can I ask a question too? I'm also pretty new at this. Female, 43 years old, 5'5 and currently 162lbs, hoping to lose at least 20 lbs. I used the above calculator you recommended and it said 2088 for me (I'm also bad, I mean really bad with math, lol). I also burn about 400 calories in a day through exercising. I've been mostly eating those calories back on top of the 1200 daily calorie goal. So I'm confused about how many calories a day I should eat. I classified myself at the moderate activity level because I'm now working out an hour a day for 5-6 days a week. I had been thinking about not eating back the exercise calories now I'm not sure if that's a bad idea or not. Again, I hope you don't mind answering my question too, thanks!

Do you mind if I use a different calculator? This is the go-to calculator for most people who use this site that I've seen.

http://scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/

Here is what I entered for you:

Female, 43, 65 inches, 3-5 hours a week of moderate exercise (I'm assuming that 400 cal burn is accurate and you do that regularly)

I get that your BMR is 1394, TDEE would be 2160 and if you went TDEE - 20% you would want to eat 1729 calories a day (lets just call it 1800 because -20% is pretty aggressive.

Keep in mind these calculators are estimates based on some assumptions and general population averages. Really they are just a place to start. Next step would be to follow this consistently and after two months evaluate your progress and adjust based on that.

Alternatively you could plug in that you are sedentary which gives a TDEE of 1673 then just add 400 to that which brings it to 2073 which is pretty close. That would assume that you burn 400 calories EVERY DAY on exercise though. If you only exercise say 3 days a week just take 400 multiplied by (3/7) and add that to 1673.

Here's what I did, and it worked. Go to fat2fitradio'com. Calculate your b.m.r, using you actual weight as your current and goal weight. See what it tells you your b.m.r is. Eat 100/200 calories over that and exercise calories.. you should be ok.

Can I ask a question too? I'm also pretty new at this. Female, 43 years old, 5'5 and currently 162lbs, hoping to lose at least 20 lbs. I used the above calculator you recommended and it said 2088 for me (I'm also bad, I mean really bad with math, lol). I also burn about 400 calories in a day through exercising. I've been mostly eating those calories back on top of the 1200 daily calorie goal. So I'm confused about how many calories a day I should eat. I classified myself at the moderate activity level because I'm now working out an hour a day for 5-6 days a week. I had been thinking about not eating back the exercise calories now I'm not sure if that's a bad idea or not. Again, I hope you don't mind answering my question too, thanks!

Do you mind if I use a different calculator? This is the go-to calculator for most people who use this site that I've seen.

http://scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/

Here is what I entered for you:

Female, 43, 65 inches, 3-5 hours a week of moderate exercise (I'm assuming that 400 cal burn is accurate and you do that regularly)

I get that your BMR is 1394, TDEE would be 2160 and if you went TDEE - 20% you would want to eat 1729 calories a day (lets just call it 1800 because -20% is pretty aggressive.

Keep in mind these calculators are estimates based on some assumptions and general population averages. Really they are just a place to start. Next step would be to follow this consistently and after two months evaluate your progress and adjust based on that.

Alternatively you could plug in that you are sedentary which gives a TDEE of 1673 then just add 400 to that which brings it to 2073 which is pretty close. That would assume that you burn 400 calories EVERY DAY on exercise though. If you only exercise say 3 days a week just take 400 multiplied by (3/7) and add that to 1673.

Thank you! I'm embarrassed at how bad my math is, I've been really struggling to understand this and I've tried the calculators! :laugh: So it sounds like I should be aiming for 1800 calories and adjust after a month or two. I'll give it a try, thanks!