Questions about calorie allowance

I allow myself to 1200 calories a day and they usually burn about 400 calories a day that automatically added to my allowance does that mean that I can eat 1600 calories a day and still loose weight?

Replies

  • Dare2start
    Dare2start Posts: 4 Member
    Dare2start wrote: »
    I allow myself to 1200 calories a day and I usually burn about 400 calories a day that automatically added to my allowance does that mean that I can eat 1600 calories a day and still loose weight?

  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,562 Member
    Only if you're 100% sure you burned 400 calories. Because burn amounts are greatly overestimated, it's suggested to only eat back 50-75% of your exercise calories.
  • PeachyPlum
    PeachyPlum Posts: 1,243 Member
    edited April 2015
    Yes!

    MFP includes a caloric deficit in your goal so that you could still lose weight even if you didn't have time to work out.

    Eat your exercise calories - they are extra delicious because you worked so hard for them!

    Edited to add: Malibu is right, maybe only eat some of them. MFP does tend to overestimate them.
  • Liftng4Lis
    Liftng4Lis Posts: 15,151 Member
    Yes that is how MFP is designed. Most eat back only half of their burns though, to compensate for errors.
  • Merkavar
    Merkavar Posts: 3,082 Member
    Yeah, exercise burns are just as important as food eaten, accuracy wise.

    I find the exercise in mfp seems high. Maybe eat back half for a few weeks and see if you lose above/below/or at you goal weightloss.
  • Marcib4480
    Marcib4480 Posts: 7 Member
    So the long and short of it is if my daily goal is 1500 but I exercise 500 cal per day, I should be close to 2000?
  • ncboiler89
    ncboiler89 Posts: 2,408 Member
    Marcib4480 wrote: »
    So the long and short of it is if my daily goal is 1500 but I exercise 500 cal per day, I should be close to 2000?

    'ish. General consensus is to eat back only about half, maybe seventy-five percent of your calories burned via exercise so that would be about 1750.
  • rosebette
    rosebette Posts: 1,659 Member
    When people say MFP estimates are high, which exercises do they tend to be high for? I wear a step counter that counts calories, and it's very close to MFP's estimates (perhaps a little higher). However, I've worn the step counter for kickboxing class, and the step counter calories for that hour are much lower than MFP, so perhaps MFP overestimates high-impact cardio exercises. For strength training, MFP gives me only 88 calories for 1/2 an hour, which hardly seems worth it! It would seem that lifting weights would burn more than that.
  • batch2
    batch2 Posts: 6 Member
    Dare2start wrote: »
    I allow myself to 1200 calories a day and they usually burn about 400 calories a day that automatically added to my allowance does that mean that I can eat 1600 calories a day and still loose weight?

  • batch2
    batch2 Posts: 6 Member
    My weight lose doctor told me no
  • Dare2start
    Dare2start Posts: 4 Member
    Oh
  • batch2
    batch2 Posts: 6 Member
    Good luck ! I have been staying right around 1200 a little under and been stalling out quite a bit. I think I am going to have to add more calorie to see what happens . If that doesn't work then I'm going to go lower.
  • BWBTrish
    BWBTrish Posts: 2,817 Member
    Yes

    I eat back about 25% of my burned calories and i lose just fine...85 pounds in the last half year.

    Stalling means you dont eat in a deficit that's all.

    And when your weight loss doctor tells no, than i would look for another doctor. Its pretty simple that when your body needs 1200 calories by doing nothing and getting all the macros...that when you put your body put to work that it needs more nutrition.

    that people make a personal choice to not eat back...fine that's personal. But that a doctor tells you to eat a low calorie diet and than not eat back a part of your burned calories would make me lose my trust in the weight loss doctors knowledge of losing weight and feeding your body properly