CICO

TavistockToad wrote: »

If your calorie goal is 1500 and you burn 1500 then that's like eating 0 calories?

No; it’s like eating 1500. Your body burns calories all day, even when you sleep. It takes a certain number just to maintain the body you currently have, and if you eat exactly that number you won’t gain or lose weight.

HeyJudii wrote: »

Question(s):

If my daily calorie goal is say, 1500 calories/day
and
by the end of the day I burn 1500 calories/day

theoretically, will I be able to maintain my current weight?

Or,

If my daily calorie goal is say, 1500 calories/day
and
by the end of the day I burn 2250 calories/day

theoretically, will I be able to lose weight?

This is correct, assuming that your numbers are all correct and that you're counting calories burned doing everyday activities, keeping your body alive, etc. along with the calories burned with exercise. Sometimes people forget about the BMR and NEAT calories and mean just calories burned through exercise when they talk about calories burned.

As an example, my TDEE is around 2200 calories/day. The calorie calculators put it a little lower, but I've adjusted my numbers based on my experience after tracking so that I can see the real world numbers for myself. If I eat around 2200 calories per day my weight stays steady (keeping in mind that body weight fluctuates due to water retention all the time, but these are just noise we have to filter out). Eating around 1700 calories/day I lose five pounds a month almost like clockwork.