exercise and calories

Hello. This was my question when I began tracking my food intake and this is what I've learned :

First of all, you should find a professional who can determine what your daily caloric need is and stay true to that amount.

Any calories burned should not be consumed but saved in your "weight loss' bank for 7 days ie: 200 calories X 7 = 1400 calories. Keep track of this info. Now add up the amount of calories/day that you are no longer conusming: ex: 200 fewer calories X7 = 1400 calories.

1400 burned added to 1400 calories no longer consumed = 2800 calories, right? It takes 3500 calories deficit to lose one lb. so 700 more calories still short of a lb. Since you need to consume a minimum amount of calories to stay healthy where will the extra burned calories come from?

Ans: Find another way to burn off the 700/7days or 100 calories each day. I hope this helps you.

What are you talking about??? I think you are assuming the OP is in maintenance.

When MFP gave the OP their caloric intake, it includes a large enough deficit to lose their goal amount of weight each week. In order to lose the goal amount of weight the OP must eat back the cals burned or the deficit will be larger. A larger deficit is not always better.

If MFP gave the OP 1400 calories/day to lose 1 lb/week that is already a deficit of 500 cals/day. If the OP burned 200 cals that deficit would now be 700 (500+200), so if they eat the 200 back the deficit would still be 500 cals, which is their goal.

So...on my plan I'm not eating enough, right? As I said, I've been puzzled by this and thought I had it correct...I apologize for any misguided infotmation.

How do you know how many calories you should eat a day??

How do you know how many calories you should eat a day??

MFP tells you based on your age, weight, gender, weekly weight loss goal, amount of exercise, etc.

You should be ending the day as close as possible to the daily goal that MFP gives you, after exercise. This means eating back exercise calories. It's a NET goal.

Personally, I consider it a success if I am within 100 cals on either side of it (for me that's net 1490).

What are you talking about??? I think you are assuming the OP is in maintenance.

When MFP gave the OP their caloric intake, it includes a large enough deficit to lose their goal amount of weight each week. In order to lose the goal amount of weight the OP must eat back the cals burned or the deficit will be larger. A larger deficit is not always better.

If MFP gave the OP 1400 calories/day to lose 1 lb/week that is already a deficit of 500 cals/day. If the OP burned 200 cals that deficit would now be 700 (500+200), so if they eat the 200 back the deficit would still be 500 cals, which is their goal.

Sorry, but I REALLY wanna know what "OP" stands for!!!????!!!! :blushing:

Original Poster

How do you know how many calories you should eat a day??

You start by going through the "setup wizard" on this site, which estimates it for you based on your age, current weight, overall activity level, etc. I set my lifestyle to "sedentary" so I could log ALL my exercise. Then you tell it how many pounds a week you'd like to lose, and it calculates a deficit of 500 calories a day for every pound a week you wish to lose.

This is a basis, based on averages, to start with. The idea is that you start with this, logging exercise and eating back those calories (because your deficit is already built into your recommended intake, and losing weight FAST is not the goal of this site, losing weight in a controlled manner so you learn long-term eating habits you can maintain for a lifetime is).

If you find you're not losing weight at any point for more than a couple of weeks, then you have to change something out:
- If it's been a while and you've lost some weight, update your goals. You'll probably find that the site takes away some calories because you're not expending energy hauling all that extra weight around.
- Check your mix of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. If you're especially high or low on some, try to bring them back in balance. This feeds ALL the portions of your body, and will keep your metabolism up which burns more calories.
- If you're hungry all the time, too tired to sustain workouts, having a lot of trouble sleeping, and your macros are in balance, you probably need to eat a little more. Try adding a few hundred calories a day and see if that starts things going again.
- If you're not hungry and have plenty of energy and you're just starting out, you might need to lower your calorie intake, the site may have overestimated your caloric burn.

Keep in mind that some of the caloric burn rates for exercise on this site are somewhat accurate, a few are slightly underestimated, and some are overestimated to the point of being downright fanciful. Exercise reasonable judgement and feel free to reduce or increase calories based on what you think is reasonable. You'll learn what works for you.

There are plenty of people who advocate things like not eating back your exercise calories, and it apparently works for them. Whenever I do it, I find it counterproductive - my workout quality starts dwindling and I can't build stamina. But it can take several weeks for the weight loss to stop, so it seems like it's working in the short term, and "resetting" my metabolism so I can start vigorous workouts again usually involves gaining back most of the "extra" loss. Slow and steady works for me. Your mileage may vary.

It's all about experimenting and learning what actually works for you. If you're losing weight at the pace you wanted to without being hungry all the time, you're almost certainly doing it right. If you stop losing weight, do a little troubleshooting and experimentation.

I had the same question so thanks for posting.

As Eric said, MFP already includes a deficit, so eating back exericse is essential to ensure you dont create an unhealthily large deficit. You are netting below 1000 most days which is no good for you.

Everybody seems to choose 2lbs as they want to lose quickly, but quickly usually ends in loss stalling due to being underfed, or regaining the weight. Slower losses are generally more sustainable long term, you should think about changing your goal to 1.5lbs, 2 is a bit much.

Generally this is what you should be aiming for when choosing a goal, anymore you risk losing more muscle along with the fat, which will ultimately make it harder for you to lose and easier to gain.

75+ to lose - 2lbs
50-75 to lose 1.5lbs
25-50 to lose 1lbs - 1.5lbs
15-25 to lose - 1lbs
0-15 to lose - 0.5lbs

I am in the 75+ category but when I was set to 2lbs/week it had me on 1400 or so calories and I was extremely tired and lethargic and wasn't wanting to do anything, no energy. I switched to 1.5lbs/week and I have no problems and have lost almost 5lbs since starting logging my food a week and a half ago. Very odd!

I don't but some people do. Everyone is different.