Do I have to eat the calories I burn exercising?

Here's your formula: BMR (base metabolic rate - e.g., what it costs you calorically to sit and breathe) x overall activity level multiplier (e.g. - light, moderate, vigorous) = equals calories spent in a day. If you ate that amount of calories, you'd maintain your weight.

Calories spent in a day + exercise calories = what you would eat if you wanted to main the same weight while exercising.

(Calories spent in a day + exercise calories) - 500 cals = what you would eat to lose approximately 1 lb a weak.

Real life example:

my BMR: 1695
With my multiplier (light activity) = 2000
2000 + 650 exercise cals = 2600 cals to maintain current weight
(2000 + 650 exercise cals) - 500 cals = 2100 - what I need to eat, when I'm including exercise, to lose approximately 1 lb a week.

Never go below your BMR (there's a calculator under tools). That will put your body into starvation mode.

http://shouldieatmyexercisecalories.com/

Not true. If you're eating below your BMR + exercising you WILL put your body into starvation mode. BMR is what your body NEEDS to keep going, even if you're just sitting in a chair.

Let me put it this way: a 125 lb, 30 year old woman, @ 5'3" has a BMR of approximate 1200 cals. If she exercised, expending 500 calories daily, on top of that + her overall ativity (let's say 'desk job'), dieting at 1200 cals would put her into starvation. Her body wouldn't know what to do.

You need to eat your calories to BMR, that way your body is getting enough; going below is unhealthy when you're exercising on top of that.

Wouldn't eating at BMR maintain your weight instead of losing? Or are you talking about eatig at BMR level and adding exercise to that?

BMR = Basal Metabolic Rate (the energy you'd use to maintain your body while, say, in a coma).
TDEE = Total Daily Energy Expenditure (the energy you actually use every day).

For someone who does not exercise but does things like walk around, eat food rather than have it fed through a tube, etc, TDEE is greater than BMR. So for a "sedentary" lifestyle on MFP, your calorie budget is already over your BMR.

For someone who exercises a lot, their TDEE is significantly above BMR.

The key is to NET above your BMR. Your BMR is what you need to survive - going significantly below it for long periods of time is (in the absence of qualified medical supervision and supplements) a poor health choice.

If your BMR is, say, 1500 calories and you exercise and burn off 200 calories, you really want to eat at least 1700 calories that day or more. But for most people, their TDEE is already well above 1700 calories, so there's still plenty of room for a decent deficit.

Or you skip all the complicated numbers, set your lifestyle to "slightly active" if you think you'll get a good 1 hour workout in every day, keep yourself responsible for doing that workout, don't log your workouts, and eat your allotted calories.

If you're asking where to start experimenting, I'd try using the site as it's intended to be used first, then experiment from there. But that's only my opinion, and I'm no one's doctor and I have only one daughter, and she's 9, so I doubt you're her.

Thank you. I am getting all of my vitamins, etc. So, I'm good on that front.

I tried doing the site as it was intended for several weeks and only lost about a pound and a half over a few weeks. Being someone with a significant amount of weight to lose, I felt that I should be dropping pounds faster than that. Once I bumped it down to the 1200, I started to see a more steady weight loss. I just don't want to damage my metabolism with starvation mode so that I have to eat a miniscule amount of calories just to not gain weight.

It's not just vitamins you need to be concerned with. It's body fat % VS. muscle mass % as well.

The intention behind eating your calories back .... this site ASSUMES you will not exercise, the calorie deficit is built in with ZERO exercise. When you do exercise, you increase the calorie deficit. When your calorie deficit is too high ..... your body may burn MUSCLE as well as fat. Yes, this is weight loss .... but not healthy weight loss.

I eat my calories back because:
1. I am close to my goal weight
2. I use a heart rate monitor to calculate calories burned (more accurate than machines, or MFP ....those are often inflated)
3. I am over 50 and need to keep ALL my muscle mass

This site uses averages ... you may very well be OK with 1200 calories ... but if you are fatigued, or your weight plateaus you may need to bump that number up.

If you're asking where to start experimenting, I'd try using the site as it's intended to be used first, then experiment from there. But that's only my opinion, and I'm no one's doctor and I have only one daughter, and she's 9, so I doubt you're her.

Thank you. I am getting all of my vitamins, etc. So, I'm good on that front.

I tried doing the site as it was intended for several weeks and only lost about a pound and a half over a few weeks. Being someone with a significant amount of weight to lose, I felt that I should be dropping pounds faster than that. Once I bumped it down to the 1200, I started to see a more steady weight loss. I just don't want to damage my metabolism with starvation mode so that I have to eat a miniscule amount of calories just to not gain weight.

OK, looks like you've done a good job starting with the experimentation, now it's time to try something else.

First, how are you feeling? Have your workouts been steadily improving? Not feeling tired? If you're feeling OK and getting all your vitamins and minerals, you're probably good.

The general rule for experimentation based on my experience - not to be confused with competent medical advice or formal studies or whatnot:

If I stop losing weight, which happens at various stages since I weighed 300 pounds, I have learned to assess how I feel.

If I'm feeling tired, having trouble sleeping, am finding that muscle soreness is persisting longer than it should after workouts, seeing a drop in my workout performance, or find myself feeling hungry or being less patient with things, I increase my calories by some modest amount (200-300 a day). I generally find there is a delayed reaction of my weight loss resuming, sometimes with a very modest setback of a pound or two while my body adapts to the increased intake.

If I'm feeling good, sleeping well, recovering quickly, performing well, feeling well-fed, and reasonably patient, I decrease my calories by a modest amount (same, 200-300 a day). Weight loss should start resuming pretty quickly.

I've also found that what works today might not work a month from now. Be prepared to adapt and change.

All good learning opportunities that will come in really handy when you reach your goal and have to transition to maintenance.

Quick question: what if I consume 1600-2000 calories but burn 2600 calories a day ? Is this ok? Will I be able to lose weight?

I am by no means an expert, and have only been "at it" for about a month and a half. I'm 5'2 and have a lot more to lose than you and I get 1200 calories a day too. I was also concerned about the same as you, but I asked my doctor and she said it was ok to eat 1200 calories a day and to work out one hour a day 5-6 times a week, I didn't need to eat the extra calories from exercising. What I am confused about is I've read places that you have to burn more calories than you eat, which I'm not sure sounds healthy, but I've read it in other threads.

It's important to understand that any form of diet where you are losing weight requires you to eat less calories than your body is consuming. This is how you actually lose weight.

For example, say you were a female, age 25, 180 pounds and 5'2. On average you body would burn about 1820 calories a day without any extra exercise. If you at 1200 calories intake a day you would lose a little over a pound a week. Add in another 300-400 calories of exercise and you could potentially lose 2 pounds a week. This is the basics of how most calorie based diets work and this is what they mean when they say you have to eat less than what your body uses.1820 calories + 400 calories of exercise a day is 2220 calories your body uses a day. if you eat 1200 calories a day you will force your body to use around 1000 calories of energy from your current body, burning your fat. A pound of fat is roughly 3500 calories so at 1000 calories of burn a day you will lose 7000 calories a week, the equivalent of 2 pounds.

This is a perfect explanation. Thank you!