Do you burn off excess cals you consume?

pandaapo · April 2020

say your goal is 1200 but you eat 1500

do you burn the excess 300 off? and does it work to loose weight this way?

I am new to cal counting ! so would love some help thanks

janejellyroll · April 2020

I don't do more exercise than I initially planned in order to burn more calories, no.

It would work to lose weight (assuming this behavior puts you into a deficit), but I think many people would find long-term disadvantages to living this way. First, burning 300 calories is a substantial investment of time with most exercises. So regularly eating 300 extra calories and then doing more activity on the spur of the moment is unlikely to be a sustainable habit for many people. Second, I'm assuming that many people doing this are doing it on *top* of their regular fitness activities, which raises the risk of injury. Doing multiple workouts a day is something that people do, but they usually work up to it and it's to drive specific fitness goals (not just to burn calories).

I would use caution with this, as this type of plan is sometimes associated with disordered eating. In its extreme form, it's referred to as "exercise bulimia."

AnnPT77 · April 2020

+1 to what Jane said above.

Also:

If you eat more calories than you planned on eating, just let it go. Figure out why it happened, decide if something different would work better in similar circumstances in the future, learn from it, then let it go. Improve your plan, and continue. It's a blip, in the big picture.

Over time, improve your plan so it happens less often, in smaller amounts. That approach tends to lead to success.

If you eat 300 extra calories, you may still lose weight. If you set your goal to lose a pound a week, a 1200 calorie goal assumes you would maintain at 1700 calories per day. If you ate 1500, you'll still lose, just a little slower. If you ate 1700, you'd lose nothing that day, delaying reaching goal weight by one day. If you eat 2200, you'll delay reaching goal by 2 days, and so forth.

If your goal is different than a pound a week, then the exact arithmetic is different, but the same idea applies: Eat less than your maintenance calories, lose weight. Eat exactly your maintenance calories, neither gain nor lose. Eat more than your maintenance calories, you don't lose that day, and maybe wipe out losses of some other days, partly or fully. It's useful to know what your current maintenance calories are, so you can decide when it is/isn't worth it to you to eat an unusual amount.

All of the above assumes that whatever gave you your calorie estimate is accurate. It may or may not be, because it's an estimate. Keep good data for a month or two, and you can use math to get an inkling.

If your goal really is 1200, and you're female, you've been given the minimum goal that MFP will ever give a woman. MFP thinks that if you eat less than 1200, you risk malnourishment/underfueling, and they don't want to be responsible for that. If you're smart, you don't want that, either. For many women (not all), getting a 1200 calorie goal means that they've selected a target weight loss rate that's too aggressive, and it may create unnecessarily higher health risk. You really, really wouldn't want that, right?

If 1200 really is your goal, I'd suggest reading this link below, and thinking things over.

https://www.aworkoutroutine.com/1200-calorie-diet/

That was more advice than you asked for, or even wanted, I'll bet. Unfortunately, I'm just the kind of anxious internet granny type that will do that sort of thing.

Best wishes for much success! :flowerforyou:

pandaapo · April 2020

Thank you so much!!!!!!

Do you burn off excess cals you consume?

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