If I am exercising should I still only eat 1200 calories?

nandinik1411
nandinik1411 Posts: 1 Member
edited September 29 in Health and Weight Loss
If I am exercising should I still only eat 1200 calories? I find that when I excercise for example go running for 30 minutes and burn 300 calories, I try to add on 300 more calories in food to my 1200 calorie a day plan. So that the net always totals 1200. I find that I can't work out and just eat 1200 calories. Will I still lose weight?

Replies

  • kylee_marie
    kylee_marie Posts: 299 Member
    i think this is the way to do it. you never want the net to be below 1200 because you don't want your body to think it is being starved. it will mess up your metabolism
  • sammys1girly
    sammys1girly Posts: 1,045 Member
    There's lots on this site about this and you definitely need to eat more than 1200. Once you set up your profile, it will tell you how many calories to eat a day after you work out.
  • msblueyes5
    msblueyes5 Posts: 126 Member
    The way you are doing it is right! Thats why MFP adds the calories you earned to your remaingin amount..I am pretty mush just trying to lose a few lbs and mantain my weight..but I have read a ton of post from ppl on here that have lost a awesome amount of weight doing it this way!!
  • Avalonis
    Avalonis Posts: 1,540 Member
    i think this is the way to do it. you never want the net to be below 1200 because you don't want your body to think it is being starved. it will mess up your metabolism

    Yes, right advice, except for one thing - 1200 is an arbitrary number. Its a "best guess". True starvation mode happens when you eat less than half of what your body needs to function.

    When I was trying to lose weight, I was eating back about half of my exercise calories. That way if I underestimate food or overestimate exercise, no biggie cuz I had a buffer.
  • seobstar
    seobstar Posts: 169
    if you're excercising, LOG your exercise and then eat what MFP tells you to eat! You can't eat 1200 calories AND workout, you need more calories than that!!
  • ColoradoRobin
    ColoradoRobin Posts: 510 Member
    When you log your exercise MFP adds those calories to your daily food total. 300 calories burned jogging means you can eat 1500 calories that day, keeping you at 1200 net calories. Set your activity level based on what you do at work (desk job vs something more physical), then log exercise done.
  • aghall
    aghall Posts: 25
    I always try to eat my 1200 calories and also my exercise calories, it's worked for me as far as loosing weight. Try it both ways, eat all your exercise calories with your 1200 calories one week, and the next try just eating your 1200 calories and not your exercise ones, see what works for you. Although, from what I have read, you're suppose to eat them all up! :) good luck to your on your weight loss journey :)
  • seobstar
    seobstar Posts: 169
    i think this is the way to do it. you never want the net to be below 1200 because you don't want your body to think it is being starved. it will mess up your metabolism

    Yes, right advice, except for one thing - 1200 is an arbitrary number. Its a "best guess". True starvation mode happens when you eat less than half of what your body needs to function.

    When I was trying to lose weight, I was eating back about half of my exercise calories. That way if I underestimate food or overestimate exercise, no biggie cuz I had a buffer.

    this is basically what I do....I usually end up around 1600 a day (I start at 1260, burn about 600 after excercise, MFP allows me 1900ish and I eat about 1600), I've lost 70 pounds so far, about 10 more to go!!!
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,294 Member
    Since you don't have much to lose even 1200 plus your exercise calories is probably not enough. When you have less than 15 lbs to go your goal should be 0.5 lb loss/week. this will put you in a deficit of 250 cals/day, and the closer you are to your goal weight the more important it is to eat your exercise calories. This helps prevent your body for losing muscle while trying to lose fat.

    You will lose your goal amount of weight by eating all of the calories MFP suggest (base plus exercise calories)
  • Windi38
    Windi38 Posts: 164 Member
    the net is before exercise, so any exercise you do do, you can eat that many more calories that day. It really depends on how much weight you have to lose whether or not you can cheat much on that. If you have more than 30 lbs to lose, you can get away with not eating the calories back for a while, although you will get tired after a while. But if you have less than 30 pounds to lose, your body just simply is not getting the fuel it needs.

    1200 is for survival, you really should eat more than that if you exercise regularly. Personally, I only eat more food on the days that I get an hour or more of hard exercise in. I don't really count walking my dog as exercise, you know? I know it's good for me, but I only feel like I've 'exercised' if I break a sweat and get my heart rate up for an extended period of time! :)
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,294 Member
    Yes, right advice, except for one thing - 1200 is an arbitrary number. Its a "best guess". True starvation mode happens when you eat less than half of what your body needs to function.

    I would argue against this claim as it is as general as the 1200 cal minimum. If you have a lot to lose 1/2 the amount you need may be the "starvation mode" cut off, but the closer you are to your goal the closer you will have to be to your maintenance to avoid starvation mode side effects. So if you have a low BF% and only 10 lbs to go, eating below your BMR may cause you to go into "starvation mode"
  • bcattoes
    bcattoes Posts: 17,299 Member
    I believe you will get conflicting answers, but if you follow the advice of this site the answer is yes. Personally, I'd be hungry most of the time if I only ate 1200 calories and still did Zumba for an hour a day (my exercise of choice) so the decision is easy for me. I eat when I'm hungry until I am full and it usually comes out to approx what this site says I need. But even if it didn't I'd still have to eat that many because I hate to feel hungry.
  • jeffrodgers1
    jeffrodgers1 Posts: 991 Member
    This may be an oversimplified analogy but... Think of you metabolism as a car. In your daily routine, the car uses a specific amount of fuel. Now you want to take your car on a road trip and go twice as far as normal. You would think that your car needs extra fuel for the trip wouldn't you?

    Well if you do extra work, your body needs extra fuel to get it done as well or it will break down.

    Yes, consume back some (or all) of your exercise calories... you don't want your car broken down at the side of the road do you? :happy:
  • tiffimarti
    tiffimarti Posts: 2
    @jeffrodgers1 - This is a great way of putting it an helps me to visualize what I need to do. I have always wondered the same thing. Based on that, how does the workout contribute to the weight loss?
  • fiberartist219
    fiberartist219 Posts: 1,865 Member
    I am way too hungry to not eat back my exercise calories. If I didn't eat more after working out, I would set myself up for a binge later.
  • jeffrodgers1
    jeffrodgers1 Posts: 991 Member
    @jeffrodgers1 - This is a great way of putting it an helps me to visualize what I need to do. I have always wondered the same thing. Based on that, how does the workout contribute to the weight loss?

    The workout helps to rev up your metabolism and keep you burning calories thruout the day. The number I hear is 19 hours from the time you finish a workout to the time when your metabolism returns to normal.

    Additionally it helps to create muscle... more muscle means more calorie burning in future workouts.

    It is imporatant to note that MFP automatically calculates in a calorie deficiency into your daily goals. The object is to stay within a healthy range of calories deficiency. (i.e. generally accepted is a 500 calorie\day deficiency)
  • Yooperm35
    Yooperm35 Posts: 787 Member
    I was staying around 1200 and burning about 400-600 calories when I worked out. I was at a standstill for over a month. I started eating back my calories and I broke the plateau. I know not everyone is the same - I think you have to try things to see what works for you
  • IrraCore
    IrraCore Posts: 5
    What a great discussion. I was wondering the same thing and I agree with some of the comments that it really does depend on your individual metabolism, etc. At almost 39 years young, I am having the hardest time trying to lose the weight I put on during pregnancy (and my child is 20 months old already!); so while I am tempted to eat less than 1200 calories, I think it's just going to slow down my metabolism even more.
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