Burning more than consumed ??????

you have a resting calorific rate - i.e.: the number of calories your body would burn if you were to lie still on a bed and not move or do anything. That's how many calories your body needs just to run its essential functions.

You would have to burn that much if you LITERALLY did nothing all day (which is nearly impossible), but since you may burn about 2000 just from normal activity (walking upstairs in your home, heading to the rest room, reaching for things, breathing, etc) you would not need to burn an additional 1300 calories.

It's a common statement, and quite true. But it's a bit vague and people don't always use it in the right way.

You do have to burn more than you consume, but exercise is not the only form of burning cals. With this statement, you have to consider ALL of the calories you burn, not just what you burn through purposeful exercise.

Your total energy expenditure (what you burn each day) includes BMR + activity level + purposeful exercise. BMR is what you burn just existing, as if in a coma. Activity level accounts for normal daily activity like work, watching tv, cooking dinner, brushing teeth, etc. Then you have purposeful exercise.

MFP is designed differently than other counters/plans. Other plans use your exercise to create the deficit, keeping your daily cal goal static. With them, you would not eat back exercise calories.

MFP is different. It was designed with the idea that many people can't exercise regularly, or at all, due to physical limitations or time. They also recognized that most people set up an exercise plan, but as we all know, that's not necessarily what actually happens every day. So they built the site to allow for weight loss with or without exercise.

MFP creates a BUILT IN CALORIE DEFICIT, based on your loss per week goal, regardless of exercise. So when you log exercise, cals are added back in to keep that deficit stable. If you don't replace those cals, you've made your deficit larger than you (presumably) intended. A larger deficit does not necessarily mean faster/more weight loss; it is usually unhealthy and unsustainable and most often backfires. It is important to fuel the body properly, or it may begin to slow metabolism and burn muscle as fuel.

May also help to read this:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/186814-some-mfp-basics

You burn calories just by being alive! You burn calories while you sleep, watch tv, or sit at a desk. Of course you burn more calories the more active you are. For me, I average about 2050 calories a day doing my normal routine things. I want to lose about a pound a week, so I subtract 500 calories from my 2050 and get 1550. If I exercise more than usual, I burn more calories, but to maintain that 500 calorie reduction, I eat more (you have to feed those muscles).

I replied to you in the other thread as well. Copying it here:

You burn a few thousand calories just from being alive and doing your daily activities. Just as a random example, a 30 yr old woman, who is 5'5", 140 lbs and lightly active, burn appx 1868 calories per day. (this is per http://www.webmd.com/diet/healthtool-metabolism-calculator; other online calculators may vary, but they should be in the same ballpark).

Now suppose she exercises and burns 300 more calories today.

1868 + 300 = 2168 total calories burned that day

So, on this day, if she eats less than 2168 calories, she will have burned more than she ate. Tada.

If she was shooting for 1 lb lost per week, that should be a 500 calories per day deficit. 2168 - 500 = 1668. Assuming the 300 calories is typical, this fictional woman should be eating 1668 calories per day to lose a lb per week.

See this link for a more in depth explanation.
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/61706-guide-to-calorie-deficits

your body needs a mimimum number of calories to keep you alive & breathing - this is called your BMR = Basal Metabolic Rate
so if you stayed in bed and didn't move all day your body would still burn this number of calories.

So I am 5ft 4 and weigh about 199 - so my BMR = 1635

the number of calories you need is based on this figure but it does depend on how active you are normally

so if you sit in an office all day i.e a seditary life style you multiply your BMR figure by 1.2

so for me = 1962 calories per day - if i did no more exercise and just ate this number of calories I wouldn't loose weight, but I wouldn't gain anymore either.

but to loose weight you need to lower your calorie intake to less than this figure.

1lb of fat = 3500 calories so if you lower your calories intake by 500 calories per day at the end of 7 days you should have lost 1lb.

Depending on how much you have to loose will reflect a realistic target of weight loss. if you have 30lbs or more then loosing 2lb a week should be doable, if you only have 10b to loose then 0.5-1lb a week should be target.

so if i take my 1962 - 500 = 1460 calories per day - based on my seditary lifestyle.

But if I then start doing more exercise this will use up more calories than I counted orgionally so I get to eat more to balance the equation

Calories in - calories burnt in exercise = Total Net Calories eaten

Couple of examples

Eat 1462 calories - Burn 140 calories power walking for 20 minutes = total Net calories eaten 1322

so I could if I wish eat the "extra" calories from my walk.

The important thing to remember is for women the minimum NET calories should be at least 1200 for men 1500

you will find lots of differing opnions on if you should eat back exercises calories or not, it is something you should read up on and then make your own choice on what suits your body.

hope i have made it clearer