My take on exercise calories (please read if you are new!!)

Think of it like your wage slip or paycheck.

You have your gross income (income before tax etc)

Then you have all your deductions (tax etc).

Then you have your net wage (take home pay).

So, the calories you eat are you gross income, the exercise you do are your deductions. Your net calories are the calories you've eaten (gross pay) minus the calories you've burned exercising (taxes), leaving you your net calories (take home pay)

As long as your net calories are over 1200 or close to your daily goal (whatever that may be) you should be fine.

The 1200 part is rubbing me the wrong way. for MEN 1200 is not the number, that's the floor for women based on the WHO study done in the 80's, for MEN it's 1500 as an average (although I've heard 1600 too), but each person will be a little different. Just because MFP allows you a number, doen't mean it's safe, conversly, not every woman needs 1200 to be safe, smaller, obese women (say a 4'11" woman who is obese, could probably safely eat below 1200 and still lose weight in a healthy manner) I'm just saying, please don't throw around this 1200 number to much, it's pretty much arbitrary and only should be used for women.

This is an ongoing discussion on MFP and probably on other fitness sites too. Most people think to lose weight is to restrict calories. That's it. BUT if you restrict too much it has the opposite effect. The body has this wonderful ability to adapt and adjust to changing circumstances.

Then you get to hear "anorexics lose weight by restricting calories". That is not the same thing. Anorexics aren't burning fat. Their body is burning muscle, shutting down organs and systems to conserve fuel, basically destroying their insides. But they aren't burning any fat because their body has none to spare. They are on a Starvation Diet. Starvation Mode is a biological response. Not the same thing.

What's so interesting is the ones who are saying you don't need to eat your exercise calories are the little ones - the ones already at a healthy weight yet they want to be underweight. The little ones are the ones who should be eating ALL OF THEM because their calorie deficit is already so low.

I gained almost 20 in under a year from "not eating". Coffee during the day, munching in the evening and what I wanted to eat on the weekends (I won't get into my sugar issues). Now I eat 4 meals or more a day and I have lost weight. I love burning calories because then I can eat more.

So thank you for putting this back out here. Hopefully more people will listen.

I am 5'6 right now I am at 183 pounds.I am lightly active i guess im a stay at home mom go to the park everyday with my 3 yr old,house work and such.I go to a doctor often.I was a long time meth user so I go to get my heart and other things checked out to make sure there are not side effects from the long time use sneaking up on me.
My drug use played a part in how I got fat.
Now my doctor knows the way i am eating i show no signs of malnutrition i am starting to develop muscle i am pretty healthy i have issues with copd due to smoking
Now heres what my doctor and the nutrionalist i was seeing think is going on with me.I spent 17 years (half of my life) on meth.I started using everyday around 16.I would go 3 to 4 days without eating because meth makes it really hard to eat even if you want to.Sometimes I would be able to choke down some fast food.But normaly i would go along time just drinking soda and crap.I did this for so long my doctor wonders if i have some how changed the way my body works,not alot is known about long term meth use.When I quit in 2006 I an started eating everyday I was probobly eating 1500 to 1800 calories a day.I put on wieght fast.Add in a pregnancy and bed rest and boom 230 pounds..lol
When I first started trying to take off the weight I started tracking calories to see where i was at without changing anything except i stoped drinking soda i was under 1400 just eating the way I had since quiting dope.I wasnt losing anything at 1400 so I started exercising april of last year at that time 6 days a week 2 hours a day.I never ate back the calories i burned and started losing 2 pounds a week.Now I dont exercise as much because I no longer have babysitting I workout 5 to 6 days a week now for 30 minutes to an hour.I feel great full of energy,so I really dont think my net being at 800 or 900 day to day is going to hurt me because my body got real good at makeing do at much less for so long.
Sorry for such a long post but mine are very unusal circumstances

No.... don't do it . Exercising doesn't mean you should go and eat more food. You exercised to get rid of those calories ....which results in weight loss.....why would you eat them back? It is almost impossible to determine how many calories you expend during exercise any way and your body is not processing the food you just ate as calorie burn during exercise. This is such a weightloss myth. If you watch the biggest looser you have seen this myth debunked. Those people work out like 8 hours a day.....and they don't replace those calories they still maintain a diet....that is why that have such dramatic weightlosses in a week.

This is wrong. If you didn't already have a calorie deficit built into your calorie goal, then I would agree with you. However, MFP already builds a deficit in which is what a lot of people are having trouble remembering. So, if you go back to my initial example in the original post, I already had a built-in calories deficit of 500 a day without ever exercising. That had me on track to lose one pound a week. And that is exactly what happened. Some weeks, I had bigger losses, some weeks I had smaller losses, but I was able to lose weight consistently in a healthy manner.

Comparing the vast majority of people to the Biggest Loser contestants is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. Most of us are not as obese as the contestants are. Most of us don't have trainers and doctors supervising us every day. Most us can't afford to burn 7000 calories in one workout (that's what Rulon Gardner talks about in this week's Sports Illustrated that I just got). Please don't muddle people's minds by trying to compare the average person to the Biggest Loser contestants. It is NOT apples to apples.

As far as your other post concerning the fact that our bodies naturally burn calories, no one is claiming those are weight loss calories. All I am saying is that EVERYONE'S body has a certain amount of fuel that is needed to maintain themselves. Walking to the car, breathing, playing with the dog...everything burns calories. That is why you need to eat a certain amount every day and why you need to eat your exercise calories back. Otherwise, your body doesn't get the fuel it needs to function, your metabolism can slow down and the dreaded "starvation mode" that everyone fears here can become an issue.

Go with what MFP tells you you should have as your NET calories. Again, NET = calories eaten - calories burned. They already build in a deficit for you so you WILL lose weight. This website does a very good job of showing people how to do things the RIGHT way and I am living proof that it works.

Congratulations and continued success. There is no one RIGHT WAY LOL... I have lost 11 lbs in less than a month and not only do I not eat my weight loss calories back...on some days I dont meet my net goal. I wasn't comparing people to Biggest Loser. I was making the point that you don't have to eat calories expended during exercise back in order to loose weight. It is absolutely ridiculous to me that someone who is overweight would be concerned about starvation mode. Clinically I am obese and I have plenty of fat storage for my body to use to preform its daily task. Actually I have more than enough, that is why I am considered obese. Typically I burn 220 on the elipitcal and I do weight training but have no idea how many calories I burn doing that. However, after I finish my workout I certainly don't go eat an additional 220 calories....my goal is calories out. Being already fat, and not eating that 220 calories back forces my body to use some of that stored fat instead...ie Losing weight.