[Phoenixflame]

I joined My Fitness Pal, because being able to log my foods makes it so much easier to keep track of calories. But is the calorie alotter accurate? After I put in all my excising for the day (spin and body sculpting), it told me to eat well over 1,800 cals for the day. I never eat that much! Should I listen to it?

[RealCdn]

There's so many variables that go into answering the question, the best any could answer is 'maybe'. There's so much variation with online counters, especially with exercise, that I personally wouldn't use them to adjust my calories.

However, depending on your current weight, your general activity level, how much you've been eating up to now, and if you've already been counting calories, 1800 might be a reasonable calorie level. On days when I lift weights I eat around 2300 calories. On days that I don't I stick to 2000 calories. For me, that still works, and still gives me around 2 lbs/week loss. So, who knows for you.

Oh - and just for fun, and because I wear a heart rate monitor, I went and plugged in the two exercises I do with relative frequency (weight lifting and walking) and the numbers came close to what I get. So, at first glance, the calories burned seem reasonable. That is not to say at whatever weight you are that they are also reasonable. I used to find that when I weighed more they were much more inaccurate.