Question about calories in/calories out

This is different for everyone, but the general rule is not to eat under 1200 calories a day. Most likely, your body naturally burns about that amount each day and if you eat less than that your body will go into starvation mode and you will actually gain weight. If you are eating 1600 calories a day then would suggest burning around 400 calories a day to lose weight. I hope this helps!!!

This may seem like a silly question but my doctor told me that weight loss occurs when your calories in is less than your calories out (from exercise). Does this mean that if you eat 1600 calories a day, you have to burn over 1600 calories from excercise a day?

Thanks for you help!

No, because most likely your body burns 1800-2200, just to maintain it current weight on days you don't exercise, so eating 1600 would have you lose weight.

Not exactly.

We burn calories just for breathing - the average person burns 1600-2000 calories/day just by being alive (hence the 2000 calorie intake sugestion on most labels). So, that means in order to loss weight you need to figure out exaclty how many calories you burn a day for being alive, then cut roughly 500 calories without going below 1200 calories. So ... if you are burning through 2000cals/day regularly then you need to only take in 1500cals/day. That would created a 1lb/week loss (I believe). Based on this equation - if you exercise you should really eat back most of those calories. I know that sounds crazy - but here's the logic:
Your body is a machine and needs energy (calories) to fuel it. By working out you are burning energy, which is good, but if your energy gets too low (under 1200 for most) your body/machine will start stashing energy (cals) for future use- which results in weight gain!
So why should you even bother working out? Simple: a machine with a bigger engine (I'm stealing this from something I read somewhere so I don't claim copyrights etc etc - just cya ) uses more energy (calories). So if you have more muscle and therefore require more calories (1600 vs 2000) you will be able to maintain your goal weight better than a machine with a lighter engine (i.e. no muscle).

Bottom Line:
1) using the MFP calcuator - find out your typical daliy calorie burn and daily calorie intake (they calculate it for you - just put your info in)
2) make sure you eat those minimum calories everday no matter what!!!
3) try your hardest to eat most of your workout calories back so your body doesn't go into storage mode

Example -

I am 5' 141 lbs. My heatlhy weight per my doctor is 120-125 ish. So, in the past i attempted to starve myself into skinny-ness (eating 800-1000 cals/day with no exercise). Of course I lost a few pounds - but my body freaked and I started to gain! So, I joined MFP. Now I eat my minimum 1200 cals/day - no exceptions. I get in some-sort of workout everyday for 30 mins - and then I eat most of those cals back. So far I have lost 3 lbs in 10 days and am so full throughout the day that I never feel hungry and never feel like binging (which I used to do). Oh, and the regular exercise has put me into a lower size too! I'm a 6 now (was an 8). Wish I took measurements before I started because I am sure I'd see a serious difference there!.

So - get your body's engine going and keep it moving!

OH ... 1 more thing!

You need to keep your engine lubed too - just like a car. A great way to judge your "lube level" is by your pee color - it should be a very pale yellow - just like your engine's oil should be a dark red-brown, not black sludge!

:laugh: :laugh:

The amount of calories you burn without doing any additional exercise will vary so much by person. If you have entered your weight, age, activity levels, sex etc into your profile correctly, you can get a good read of your maintenance calories (how much you will burn naturally daily) in MFP by going to My Home then Goals. It's in the upper right section of the screen. Keep in mind though as you lose weight this will change. Generally the bigger you are the more calories you will burn just doing normal living activities...

Hope that helps.