New at dieting

misstertea
misstertea Posts: 12 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I'm very new at counting calories and exercise. According to the app, it says I burned 700 calories from a combination of exercise and walking today.

The app is telling me
1200 (goal) - 1000 (food eaten today) + 700 (exercise) = 900 (calories). What does the 900 calories mean? Do I have to eat 900 more calories? If I don't, does my body go through starvation mode? I am eating 1,200 calories everyday, do I have to adjust based on lvl of activity?

Replies

  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    That would be the calories you have remaining to eat.

    Your exercise adjustment might be a bit inflated. It is usually recommended to start with eating 50% of your exercise burns and adjust up or down as needed based on your avg weekly loss over say a 4 week period. Losing faster than planned, eat more. Losing less than planned, eat less.

    That said it's also recommended:
    - 25 lbs or less = 0.5 lb per week loss
    - 25lbs to 50 lbs = 1 lb per week loss
    - 50 to 75lbs = 1.5 lb per week loss
    - 75lbs + = 2 lb per week loss

    With a calorie goal of 1200, you might actually have a smaller deficit than what you selected. MFP will NOT give women a calorie goal under 1200 (based on NIH recommendation for health). So if MFP thinks you maintain at 2000 calories, the largest deficit MFP will give you is 800 calories a day or approx 1.6 lbs per week.
  • Merkavar
    Merkavar Posts: 3,082 Member
    How far did you walk? How long did it take? What exercise did you do? Do you weigh your food?

    But yeah assuming your calories burned exercising is accurate, 900 calories is how much more you can eat and lose your goal weight.

    Well that's the theory. Reality seems to be we under estimate food calories and over estimate exercise burns. So it's normally recommended to eat 50% of your exercise calories, give it a few weeks and then adjust this % up or down based on actual results.
  • JLove115
    JLove115 Posts: 34 Member
    I try to put it all in as accurately as possible and it all balances out in the end. My fitbit also syncs with MFP automatically so I don't have to log in walking.
  • Kamikazeflutterby
    Kamikazeflutterby Posts: 770 Member
    Welcome to MFP! Where calorie counting's for weight loss and exercise is to look better naked (or for fitness, your mileage may vary). Here's the wonderful recommended beginning reading. There's at least two threads on Starvation Mode.

    Eat back at least some of your exercise calories every day. Some of the calorie estimates are laughably high, or I'd tell you to eat back all the calories.

    Use the kitchen scale for logging, and the bathroom scale as a general guideline of long term trends rather than Gospel. Weight fluctuates a lot with salt, water, whether or not you've pooped, etc. Beware people bearing fad diets, and any uses of the words detox, cleanse, and jump start.

    You'll do fine.
  • JLove115
    JLove115 Posts: 34 Member
    Thanks Kamikazeflut, good advice

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