need my brain to understand

For one thing, exercise increases your metabolism and improves your mood. Both good things when trying to lose weight and stay positive. Otherwise, exercising is something your body is designed to do. If you sit around all day but only eat 1200 calories, you may lose some weight, buuut you are likely to plateau faster and you won't be a fit person that weighs 10 lbs less. You will just weigh 10 lbs less. Smaller fat looks better, but less fat over muscle--that is when you look good!

One more thing, strength training builds muscle, making your body a more effective calorie burning machine. 1lb of muscle burns more calories than 1lb of fat. So...lose fat and build muscle to create a body that looks better and runs more efficiently. You are also more likely to keep it off that way (barring you don't have some emotional/disordered relationship with food--that takes extra work to deal with, I guess)...

My doctor told me no matter how much you exercise you should not exceed 1200 calories a day, period. I didnt question him on why but that is what he said. I never eat back my exercise calories. I will ask him today and let you know.

It is simple, MFP gives you a deficit to lose your goal amount of weight with no exercise. If you exercise you increase your daily deficit, so you must eat them back to have the deficit to reach your goal.

Other sites and professionals include your exercise in your base caloric intake so you don't have to eat them back, MFP sets your calories lower than they would as exercise is not included to get you back to where you should be when exercising you must eat them.

As an example say MFP gives you 1450 calories to lose 1 lb/week, and you plan on exercising 5x/week for an average of 400 cals per workout. well MFP will tell you to eat 1450 on the days you don't workout and 1850 on the days you do whereas a "professional" may tell you to eat 1700-1750 everyday regardless if you workout (as they take your 400*5days and divide by 7 to get an average).

So for the week MFP will have you eat 12,150 (1450*2+1850*5) whereas doing it the other way will have you eat 12,250 (1750*7) almost the same number of cals for the week. 12,150 vs. 12,250. The issue in not following MFP is if you don't workout the full 5 days or burn more or less than planned. If that is the case you may lose more or less than your goal, whereas MFP will have you lose your goal amount regardless how much you actually workout.

What many MFP do is take the low 1450 and not eat back exercise calories which is wrong, if you are not eating them back then your daily activity level should reflect the higher burn with would be covered in the 1750/day above.

In other words if you don't want to eat them back then change your activity level to active or very active instead of sedentary. This will account for your burn over the full week instead of on the day you actually exercise.

My doctor told me no matter how much you exercise you should not exceed 1200 calories a day, period. I didnt question him on why but that is what he said. I never eat back my exercise calories. I will ask him today and let you know.

Bad, bad, bad advise. If you burn 800 cals in a workout your body would only be getting 400 cals for regular functions (which normally take 1350-2000 calories) If you do this over a period of time you will damage your metabolism and lose a large % of lean muscle.

Doctors are not nutritional experts, take their advise with a heavy grain of salt (get a second opinion on calorie needs for someone that exercises from a dietitian or nutritionist)

You can just not-exercise but the question you need to ask yourself - do you want to just look good in your clothes? Or do you want to look good in a swim / birthday suit?

i know why we should excercise I just dont get why we would ADD a bunch of calories... and everyone I talk to doesnt get it either.

because your body needs a certain amount of calories if you don't exercise, it needs even more when you do.

Look at your car, if the tank is full and you don't move it remains full for your regular travels(too and from work, like regular daily activity). If you go on a joy ride and burn half a tank, you need to add more gas or there will not be enough left to cover your regular travels to and from work, and you will run out of gas.

Very nice job explaining that one! I will have to talk to my nutritionist using your words! She says "don't eat back the calories"