Eating exercise calories

FrustratedWithMyWeight wrote: »

I'm new and I am trying to eat 1200 calories a day to lose weight. I do exercise. Should I be eating the exercise calories I earn? Will that stall my weight loss?

The weight loss goal does not include exercise, so yes, eat them. That being said, most trackers and the MFP site tend to overestimate exercise calories, so start with 50-75%, track it for 4-6 weeks, and then adjust up or down depending on your results. Due to scale fluctuations, shorter periods of time will not give you enough data to determine the reliability for you.

FrustratedWithMyWeight wrote: »

Thank you very much. I have done Weight Watchers for years and I was always afraid to eat my activity points. Just made the switch to MFP. Still trying to get used to it.

There are several differences the main one being that there are no "free" foods, log everything, including fruits and vegetables (I did WW many years ago). There is also a lot of great information already on here. I highly recommend reading the posts that are stickied at the top of each of the boards, in particular the most helpful posts. Here's the one from the getting started board:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10300331/most-helpful-posts-getting-started-must-reads#latest

There is one on exercise calories there. The sexypants thread is great.



And then on the General Health, Fitness, and Diet forum:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10300319/most-helpful-posts-general-health-fitness-and-diet-must-reads#latest

There are a couple on logging accurately.

Those will cover the most important information.

And of course, if you have questions, just ask.