Calories on here

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RCMILLER2
RCMILLER2 Posts: 38
in Introduce Yourself
I was wondering if you were supposed to use all of the calories that they give you, even the additional ones that you get from exercising. I'm not seeing any changes and I was wondering if it was because I doing something wrong.

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  • dls06
    dls06 Posts: 6,774 Member
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    Yes, they want you to eat your calories and they want you to eat your exercise cals. too. If you are exercising you might be gaining muscle weight. I don't know what you have your goals set to, so check and if it's at 1/2 lb a week maybe change it to 1 lb. and see what that does.
  • bethrs
    bethrs Posts: 664 Member
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    Oh boy- huge debate on this one. Huge.

    There are three ways people say to do it- eat all the exercise calories back, eat 1/2 and then some say don't eat your exercise calories.

    I have lost nearly 50 lbs (over a very long period of time) but my advice is if you are truly exercising and you have your activity level set properly, you need to net at least 1200 calories a day. NET. That means that if you take all your food and subtract your exercise, you hit 1200. On top of that, I eat all my calories with 100 a day. I've always eaten my exercise calories back. I'm a runner so I know I'm getting the exercise and I need that fuel for my body. Plus I'm hungry. So I eat what I am allowed to.

    Just my 2 cents.

    ** Plus- under your photo it says Joined May 2011. That was 5 days ago. Patience grasshopper. It takes at least a week on this program to see a change.

    HTH.
  • Onesnap
    Onesnap Posts: 2,819 Member
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    YES. Lots of posts on here about this, helpful guidance to help you understand the science behind the program. It's the same as weight watchers!
  • bjclaywell
    bjclaywell Posts: 165 Member
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    I'm still pretty new, so I'm by no means any sort of authority on this - and as a previous poster said, there is a lot of debate on this.

    Here is what I have learned over the last month plus - for me personally (I have about 80 pounds to lose, give or take a few), when I ate ONLY up to 1200 calories (never over, almost always under by at least 100), ignoring my workout calories, in the first week or two, I dropped ALOT. However, that was also due to stopping soda, completely changing my diet, etc. In week three, things slowed up dramatically. I started hovering around the same weight, or even going up some (also not abnormal - I'm talking less than 3 pound fluctuation) - and it stayed that way for a week and a half.

    Since then, and for the last two weeks, I have eaten into my exercise calories - trying to get within 50-100 of my net. And I started losing again. Some days it is harder than others, but I do think that, at least for me, and this is, of course, an opinion, and everyone is different, I DO need to eat into those calories and get as close to my net calorie intake as possible.

    And as the other poster indicated, give it a week or two at least...you WILL see results if you are following the MFP program...it's the only program I've ever done that has made sense, been workable, and actually worked!!!

    **Edited for spelling errors
  • RCMILLER2
    RCMILLER2 Posts: 38
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    So if my daily allowed calories are 1,200 but I burn 650 from exercising I can then eat 1,850 calories for the day?
  • dls06
    dls06 Posts: 6,774 Member
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    Yep! That's what they say.

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