i dont think anyone understand my question

my fitness pals already gives you 500 calories for weight loss.
so you should eat most of the calories you burn.

lets say you eat 1200 calories..
and burn 600 running.

myfitness pal says your goal is now 1800 calories instead of 1200.

if you eat all the calories you just burned off, isnt the exervcise wasted?

it just doesnt make sense..

why not just eat 1200 and NOT work out
instead of eating 1800 and working out.

your telling me its basically the same.


at that rate i may as well not exercise if your telling me to EAT all the calories i just burned through exercise.

This is all true, but it depends how much you want to eat. Look at it this way: exercising lets you eat more. If you don't wanna exercise, and are happy eating 1200 then that's fine. Or, if you want to lose 2lbs a week, but don't want to cut 1000 cals a day, then you could cut 500 cals, burn another 500 exercising and not eat these extra cals and so create the 1000 deficit you need to burn 2lbs a week. Hope this helps!

The primary tool of weight loss is diet.

Exercise has many, many other benefits and really shouldn't be used as a tool to "buy" extra calories in your day. On my heavier exercise days, I do eat more calories than my more sedentary days, but I do not eat all of the calories "given" to me. One of the reasons for this is that the calories you burn during exercise as given by a machine or a website are hardly ever accurate. Also, just because you exercised for an hour doesn't mean you've physically added an hour to your day. You burn calories being sedentary (not many, but around 75 per hour, so if you exercise for an hour and burn 300, you've really only burned 225 above what you would have burned sitting on the sofa).

However, if you are in negative calorie territory, this is either too much exercise or not enough food.

All that being said, this isn't an exact science. Everyone is different, and every day is different. Some days I feel great at the gym, I'm able to exercise harder and I'm sure I burn more calories. Other days, I have less energy and don't work as hard. The same goes for food. Some days I'm starving and some days I have to remind myself to eat. For me, eating more has led to: feeling better, being able to exercise harder to greater benefit and dropping ten pounds I though were stuck. The less you have to lose the smaller your deficit should be.

That was a long answer, but I hope it helps.

EVERYONE RESPONDS DIFFERENTLY

Please just do what you are comfortable with without sacrificing your health.

Remember what doesn't make sense to you, makes perfect sense to someone else.

If you exercise so much that you are attaining 600+ calories burned a day, that give you the freedom to eat maybe more veggies, a bigger piece of whatever, maybe another yogurt, a treat for yourself...something.

Good luck

You dont need them to survive, you need them to make your body work more efficiently. If you eat a mimimum of 1200 calories per day you will survive. But if you are working out alot your body needs more fuel to work properly.

I think sometimes we just have to remember that this isn't an "exact science" when it comes down to each individual little calorie. We have to "ball park" it. When someone's BMR is 1400 this is a calculation that has room for error by 5/10/15 calories (who really knows "exactly") So technically their BMR could be anwhere between 1385 and 1415. With any calculation there is always room for error.

I think maybe you need to step back and stop trying to analyze it down to the 'nitty gritty'....what you need to understaned is that you have a 'rough' calorie amount that you need to eat to maintain your weight (usually for women around 1700-1900)and to lose 1 lb per week you need to reduce it by 500 (or so) calories. Exercising has benefits besides granting you extra calories.

if your telling me we exercise so our metaboism burned more calories during the day....
then you are contradicting yourself.


by your rules, i would then have to EAT the calories my metabolism is additionally burning cuz i NEED Them to survive.

These extra calories that are burned during the day are calculated into your profile when you chose what your lifestyle is.....if you are sedentry/lightly active/moderately active/very active. If you're exercising a couple hours a day or have a physical job then MFP would calculate that if you chose the moderately active lifestyle option. Again I think maybe you're trying to analyze each individual calorie too much when you say you need to eat the calories burned during the day by your metabolism. Most of these numbers are calculated for you when you set your profile.

You're right. That's just to maintain. I tried it. If i don't eat the calories i burned i lose the weight. If i eat what i burned then i stay the same, the weight stays the same.

I have always eaten my exercise calories and continue to steadily lose weight. I have lost 57 pounds & over 30 inches since the beginning of September.

SEE DISCUSSION TOPIC "For those of you who don't believe" In general discussion

Exercising builds muscle which in turn burns off calories much faster in your body.Makes your body leaner and you look and feel better.It gets your hearth pumping and blood flowing and generally keeps you much healthier....