EATING CALORIES THAT YOU HAVE BURNED...GENERAL QUESTION

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123lgoldie
123lgoldie Posts: 9
in Health and Weight Loss
Hey -

I understand you should always eat back the calories that you burn off as obvoiusly you don't want to put your body in starvation mode and MFP setting your target to less than what you should be eating should help you lose weight anyways.

I know that you burn calories constantly during the day and even when you are sleeping so you are burning calories that you are not recording.

My question is that I'm just confused as; to lose weight you need to burn off more calories than you consume so should we really eat back our calories?

My calories are 1200 per day and say if i burn 600 through excercise which i record on MFP it will tell me to eat 600 more calories. I'm sure I DO NOT BURN 1200 calories AFTER excercise per day.

It prob will be a simple answer I'm sure but then that's all I need to understand.

Many thanks :-)

Replies

  • Emma1903
    Emma1903 Posts: 195
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    If you eat 1200 cals a day then MVP has you at a defect of 4-500 cals a day, if you then burn off 600 of those cals, you will only have eating 600 cals so your body will go into starvation mode, you need to eat at lease 1200 cals just to live imagine sitting on the sofa all day doing nothing , your body will burn 1200 cals just working your organs keeping you alve, so you need to eat 1200 cals. Does that make any sense?
  • Kirsty_UK
    Kirsty_UK Posts: 964 Member
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    I'm sure I DO NOT BURN 1200 calories AFTER excercise per day.

    yes, you do, and more

    you're at a calorie deficit on 1200, even without exercise

    not eating back what you burn through exercise just makes the deficit larger - which means you either lose weight too quickly, or it puts your metabolism on a go-slow so you dont lose at all
  • abbie017
    abbie017 Posts: 410
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    Look up your BMR...it's a formula that will tell you how many calories your body burns by doing nothing (they use the example of...how many calories you'd burn if you sat in bed all day and did absolutely nothing). I'm sure MFP has put you at a deficit compared to this number...but you definitely need, at minimum, 1200 calories to function.
  • talysshade
    talysshade Posts: 273 Member
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    Use the tools to check your BMR. that's the amount of calories you burn if you'd sit on the couch all day not doing a damn thing. I promise you, it's higher than 1200.
  • LorinaLynn
    LorinaLynn Posts: 13,247 Member
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    Look on your goals page. Under "Your Diet Profile" there will be a listing for "Calories Burned From Normal Daily Activity." Mine is 1,760 calories/day, so eating 1500 calories a day, I'm burning 260 more than the amount I eat each day, for a projected weight loss of a half pound a week.

    Your body is constantly burning calories. While you're sitting, standing, sleeping. Constantly. Mine burns about 73 calories an hour, just living.

    If I exercised and burned 500 extra calories and didn't eat them back, I could, in theory, lose 1.5 pounds a week. But at this point, I'm close to my goal and doubt that would happen every week even if I tried. Plus, burning 500 extra would put my net calories at 1000, and I don't have the energy to keep things up at that low a calorie consumption.
  • Losingitin2011
    Losingitin2011 Posts: 572 Member
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    As far as I can tell, this website is set up so that you're at a deficit even if you do no exercise. That being said, if you exercise, you might want to try eating at least some of those calories back. For example, my allotment is around 1600 per day. Say I exercise and burn 600, I will eat those back, but I still don't hit that maximum number. I like to keep mine between 1300 and 1500 per day. Still a deficit, but not more than I can handle.

    When I was on 1200 per day I was constantly hungry. It just didn't work for me.
  • Kirsty_UK
    Kirsty_UK Posts: 964 Member
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    For example, my BMR is 1634 calories per day (I'm tall). That means even if I do NOTHING, and sit on my fat backside all day long, I'll burn that much just breathing etc.
  • Cccaroline
    Cccaroline Posts: 196 Member
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    mfp asks you, when you set it up, how active you are. Eg desk job, fairly active, very active etc. If you say you are mainly inactive, then I can see when you do exercise you should eat those calories back.

    Surely if during set up you say you are fairly / very active mfp will be taking a fair amount of activity into account. If you then add something on your day off for example, you are possibly not doing any more than mfp expects, so you either should not record them, or not eat them back.
    what do you think?
  • 123lgoldie
    123lgoldie Posts: 9
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    Thanks very much guys!

    Totally never knew about this BMR thing OR that it is under TOOLS! Been using this site for about a year for general stuff and not actually knowing everything. I knew it would be something simple! Thanks very much x

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