Leftover calories

Chakottay
Chakottay Posts: 20 Member
edited November 20 in Health and Weight Loss
Hi. I am a bit confused. My calorie intake goal is set on 1500. I thought that ideal to lose weight is eat as close to 1500 kcal a day or more if you exercise (and I do most days) and that any leftover calories from exercise (goal-food+exercise) is good and meant you should be losing weight.
My friend told me now that I am wrong and that I should eat all my calories, even the earned leftover ones?
I am confused, can anybody help?
Thank you.

Replies

  • Blitzia
    Blitzia Posts: 205 Member
    Your MFP calorie goal is your net calorie goal. So you can eat 1500 calories worth of food with zero exercise, or eat 1700 calories of food and burn 200 calories with exercise (or eat 1600 calories and burn 100 exercise calories, etc.)

    If you net 1500 calories, you will lose weight. Yes, if you start burning more calories with exercise and don't eat them back, you will lose weight faster. The problem is that faster is not always better. To lose weight in a healthy way, try to stick to your MFP goal, which means eating back exercise calories.

    (The one caveat to that is how you determine how many calories you burn with exercise. A lot of calorie estimates can be inaccurate, so you may want to try only eating back 50% of your exercise calories and seeing how that affects your weight loss.)

    I'm not totally sure I understood your question though, is that what you were asking?
  • Chakottay
    Chakottay Posts: 20 Member
    @Blitzia thank you. This is clear enough. Have a good day x
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