Confused and Frustrated

OK...from what I understand, and so far works, is if you want to drop X amount...you eat this much...then if you workout, that's extra calories you could eat.

It's kind of like WW from my expierience (and I've done WW)

I've been ill for the last few days and can't workout (working out is my VERY strong suit)....so I stay within the calories they give me.

So far, so good.

Add me to friends if you want..we can talk...GOOD luck! Congrats on your journey!!!! :glasses:

The plan sets you at a calorie deficit to start. add in exercise and your body could go into starvation mode and you more than likely will stop loosing, at least long enough for you to give up and start eating again then you will gain. our bodies dont like change and most of us must force that change on them.

Dont worry about it to much as long as you have put in the proper info to start you should begin loosing and keep loosing.

Tim

It's pretty easy when you do the math...

If you're me you need 1940 calories/day to just park your butt in a recliner and watch TV. That's what they call your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) and there's a formula that takes into account your weight, height, sex, age, ATM PIN number and bunch of other stuff. MFP calculates something like that when you set up your profile.

I'm about 20 pounds heavier than I'd like to be. Yes, that's right and explains why I'm not reading Salon.com right now and hanging out with all of you. So to lose a pound/week I need to NOT consume 3500 calories (or 1 lb. of fat) of my allotted 13,580 RMR cals per week. So that leaves 1440 on a daily basis, and hey, whaddya know...that's the number MFP spit out for me.

As for the so-called "bonus calories" you get when you work out....if I go to the gym or ride my bike, and I do one or the other most every day, then I should add however many calories it takes to do those things to my 1440 and I will STILL, in theory, lose weight, which...is actually not just a theory but is really happening. So well done me!

So on a typical gym workout day I can (and should) add from 300-800 cals and on a typical bike ride day, from 600-2,000. And believe me, on those intense cycling days, the problem can be eating ENOUGH extra calories to not go into starvation mode. A nice problem to have and one that I must say I really enjoy. So I try to get off my rear and move every day, getting my heart rate up to at least 60-75% of my max for 45 minutes or more, which on a bike, in the hilly area where i live, happens before I leave the driveway.

Any of this make sense?

Having said that, if you keep reading this site, you'll discover that it's not an exact science, or at least if the science is exact, the process is rarely linear. I bounce around all over the place; up one day, down the next, so I don't weigh myself more than once or twice/week just to keep sane. As long as the general trend is "south", I'm a happy guy.

Bottom line...the web site is pretty right on. You can trust it. Hang in there.

To lose weight you eat the specififed Kcal this site recommends. Eg 1200kcal.

SO you are eating 800 kcal a day less than you are allowed which is why you lose weight.

If you eat 1200kcal and then go to the gym and do spin and burn say 400 kcal then you have burnt 400 of the kcal so technically you have only eaten 800kcal.

which is why, if you workout the calories you burn are calories you can then eat as if you only ate 1200 and then worked out you're not giving your body sufficient energy and your metabolism for slow down etc etc etc etc

understand? it's quite simple :flowerforyou: