I'm sorry but I'm still confused about this...

This confuses a lot of people too. Let me see if I can simplify it some. Even though you ate 1700 for the day, your body burned 500 of that so in the end only 1200 fed your body for the day. Does that help any?

since your burned 500 calories it basically gave you more calories to consume in that day. so if your calorie goal is 1200 and you burned 500 then you have 1700 available because the 500 gets cancelled out because you burned those off.

I have the same calorie goal too. What its trying to say is your net calories need to equal 1200. Which is your food intake minus exercise calories. So if you do eat 1700 calories and then burn 500 you will have a net calorie intake of 1200. Since you net calories equal1200 your right on track.

And you have to remember, you're only entering your workout for calories burned. You're also burning calories throughout the day that you're not recording on the tracker by walking around work and to and from your car, etc.

Ok, thanks everyone. I guess I NEED to exercise and burn at least 500 cals a day because I couldn't survive on 1200 a day. I need to burn some calories so I can eat more. But what about on rest days? Just stay at 1200 and starve?

If you have only one or two rest days a week, you can probably get away with eating the same amount. That's what I do, because I don't like starving either, and it's worked just fine. Even if it takes a little longer, you're likely to stick to this if you don't make yourself miserable. There is absolutely NO reason, in my opinion, anyone should starve. Ever.

My calorie goal is 1200. I burned 500 calories today on the elliptical today. I ate my 1200 calories PLUS I ate all my 500 exercise calories. So if my calorie goal is 1200 then how can i possibley lose weight if I ate 1700 today????:noway:

I'm so sorry! Any help would be appreciated! Thanks!

You absolutely can lose your weight this way! When you exercise you are increasing your metabolic rate, so your body begins to naturally burn calories more quickly; even when you are no longer exercising. It also helps you lose weight because the calories you are burning as you exercise are fat calories. Those are calories that are harder for the body to break down without doing anything. So by increasing your metabolism and by working your muscles, your body turns to those fat cells and break them down for energy.The reason you have to eat those extra calories back is because your body needs a certain amount of calories each day for its basic functioning. But the calories you eat back are used by your body immediately for your basic functions, so they aren't turned into fat. Check out the BMR tab in the tools section. This tells you how many calories you burn eat day by literally doing NOTHING. These are calories your body absolutely NEEDS to remain healthy. Without those necessary calories your body will begin to break down your muscle to sustain itself, because you are in fact starving of the nutrients it needs.

does this help?

To maintain your current weight your daily calorie intake is probably around 1600-1800 or maybe as high as 2000. When you started on MFP and told the computer how many pounds a week you wanted to lose and your height and weight and age, it then calculated what your NEW daily calories should be to lose that much weight a week (without any excercise). That's the 1200 calories you are counting. If you are starving try resetting your goal to less wt loss per week and it will allow you more calories daily. You'll lose wt more slowly but you won't be starving so hopefully you'll stick with it. Now, when you excercise you have two options you can either eat the additional calories burned, which keeps your daily intake of calories at 1200. 1200 calories eaten - 500 calories burned + 500 calories eaten = 1200 total so your wt loss should progress at the rate you indicated to MFP. If on the other hand you choose to eat only your 1200 calories and then burn 500 of those through excercise (that's only 800 calories total for you that day.) You should lose wt even faster. Unfortunately this isn't always the case. I excercise 5 days a week and keep my calories consistent with my wt loss goal and am still only losing 1lb a week. So it depends on age, metabolism, type of foods your eating and other things I don't understand. : ) Hope this helps....Good Luck!