I need to eat the calories I burn?

Today is my first day as well and i have the same question?

Because your initial calories before exercise are set approx 500 calories less a day (for a 1lb/wk) and if you exercise you'll go below what is considered a healthy amt of food for running your basic needs as you burn through more calories and reducing your overall intake to less than 1200. That number (approx) puts you in starvation mode and won't help you lose weight. You have to eat the calories for the weight loss and any exercise calories to keep yourself running healthy and properly. I will try to "bump" up a few helpful threads. Keep an eye out for them!

This section from the link above states it in the best terms I have ever heard, "Not eating exercise calories can bring you outside that range and (if done over an extended period of days or weeks) will gradually send your body into survival mode, making it harder (but not impossible) to continue to lose weight. The important thing to understand is (and this is REALLY important) the closer you are to your overall healthy weight (again, your metabolism views this a a range, not a specific number) the more prominent the survival mode becomes (remember, we talked about efficiency). This is because as fat becomes scarce, muscle is easier to break down and transport. And thus, the reason why it's harder to lose that "Last 10 pounds". "

If you have a *significant* amount of weight to lose, eating your exercise calories isn't as important as it is for folks who have less to lose. Personally, for now I'm not eating most, if any, of my exercise calories on most days. I'm aware, however, that at a certain point, I will need to eat my exercise calories in order to lose weight in a healthy way.

If you're set to lose 2 pounds a week, you're already set at a 1,000 calorie a day deficit. You need to have a deficit of 7,000 calories a week to burn 2 pounds of fat. So that 1,000 calorie a day deficit you start with here already takes care of that. That's why you can potentially eat every single calorie your burn with exercise and still be on track to lose 2 pounds a week.

I've been eating my daily calories recommended by MFP and exercising enough to burn an additional 3,500 calories a week. I'm averaging a loss of 3 pounds a week at this point (37 pounds lost in 13 weeks). BUT, I had about 120 pounds to lose when I started which put me in the category of being severely overweight which means my body is unlikely to go into "survival mode" because I have so much extra fat to burn for energy. If you don't have a very large amount of extra fat and you're not eating your exercise calories, it's possible your body with either try to conserve every calorie you eat (preventing/slowing weight loss) OR your body could also begin consuming lean muscle which is certainly not something you want to happen.

I just thought I'd note this because often times I notice folks here don't mention that extremely overweight people can get by and lose weight faster (but still healthy) by not eating exercise calories. :flowerforyou: Probably because most people here aren't severely overweight.