Daily Calorie Intake/Exercise
 

I'm sure this has been asked and answered plenty of times, but when I search I get SO many results it's impossible to look through them all to find what I'm looking for! I'm fairly new at the calorie counting and I'm keeping track on thedailyplate.com Now I am aiming for 1300 calories per day. When I exercise and enter that into my daily log, it compensates by saying I may eat that many more calories for that day. Should my calorie intake compensate for the exercise I've done? For example, yesterday I ate around 1300 calories, but then I exercised and burned 400. Do I NEED to eat more so I don't go below the recommended minimum of 1200 cals per day or does exercise not get figured into the equation? Thanks in advance for your patience and help!

I don't think so .... the problem with 1200 cals or below, is getting enough nutrients into you. So if you're getting all your vitamins and minerals etc ... exercising cannot change that. Are you?

How do you feel? Are you satisfied? Do you have enough energy to do all the things you must do in a day?

Yes, I feel just fine and I almost feel like when I exercise and then my dailyplate says "hey, you can eat 500 more calories today" I don't want them. If I'm hungry, then I'd definitely eat something to fill me up. But I definitely don't want to eat more calories just because I can. If I don't need to, then why bother? That's more weight loss for me!

I have a little rant about exercise expenditures at fitday.com. They are wack! Unfortunately, seeing that I'm using 2800 calories per day doing housework and I'm sure I walked 4 miles an hour for ... oh it had to be a whole hour ... I can eat around 3000 cals ... then an extra piece of pizza won't hurt ... is not going to create a deficit for me ... no matter what the science of fitday says.

Trial and error are the only science most of us have access to ... Keep plugging along. We'll help ya.

When I'm in weight loss mode I do NOT compensate for calories burned during exercise with more food. You'll lose weight faster because of the bigger deficit, for one thing, and for another, those calories-burned estimates are notoriously inaccurate.

Now that I'm in maintenance and wear a heart rate monitor, I do eat up the calories I burn off at the gym, but I don't recommend it for the losing stage.

Thanks :)

While you don't have to eat back your calories expended by exercising, it also won't hurt you.

If your body needs 1300 calories to lose weight and you are eating that amount, by burning 400 calories, your body is only getting 900 calories. While this might result in losing weight faster, is it healthy for your body?

There are some theories that your net calories should be 1300 calories. That would be Calorie Intake - Calories Burned = Net Calories.

You could eat 1700 calories minus 400 calories burned to equal 1300 net calories.

An estimate of what you need to maintain your current body weight would be to multiply your weight by 12.

185 x 12 = 2220 calories a day x 7 = 15,540 calories a week

To lose one pound a week, you need to reduce your total weekly intake by 3500 or 500 calories a day. So technically, you could lose weight by eating 1720 calories a day. (2220 - 500 = 1720) Figure in your exercise calories burned of 400 and your net calories would be 1320 calories.

Currently your net total is about 900 calories. If this is a reoccurring event, your body could go into starvation mode because you are dropping your net calories below 1200. Here's a link with info on starvation mode.

:)

That might happen, but it also might not. Two years ago I lost 35 pounds eating 1200-1300 a day and then burning off 500-600 five days a week. I lost weight steadily, without plateauing, and felt very healthy and energetic. YMMV, of course.

Above a certain amount of exercise I do compensate. So my "normal run" is ~500 calories, I dont compensate for that (although it is built into my plan--expecting to burn that). My long run can be ALOT though. Last Sunday it was around 1850 calories burned. Not adding extra that day (like I could NOT, I would be starving) would be counter productive. I would be ravenous, I would be weaker and I wouldnt recover as quickly.

The risk is potential metabolism slow down if you're net calories are too low. Of course some people counter balance that with weight training too. I eat back most to about half of my calories I burn via exercise, because I have had issues with extreme low calories cauisng gallstone issues and FEAR any reoccurance.

While losing more the 2lbs a week sounds attractive to me I rather to it slow and steady and keep it off. If your body feels okay and you feel like you can keep that pace up it's your call. I doubt you should be below 1000 net without some type of supervision. (net being calories intake - energy expended)

I'm with Ennay - there is a difference between your "normal" calorie expenditure (my daily date with the elliptical), your less common but still "normal" and fairly regular add-ons (twice a week weight training), and major, non-normal expenditures (like the time I was outside in the hot sun for 8 hours, helping my dad build a deck by hauling loads of 25 foot pieces of redwood up two flights of stairs, using brute force to lift the boards into place, using my body weight and shoulder muscles to sink in screws, etc.). For my "normal" stuff, I don't add it in. For the abnormal stuff (another example - 8 hour whitewater rafting day, days when you're camping and hiking ALL DAY, etc) I do eat more, because I'm -hungry- if I don't. My body tells me what it needs. It tells me I feel fine eating a 1300-1500 calorie a day diet and doing an hour on the elliptical (about 600 calories according to my HRM) and weight training twice a week. It tells me I do not feel fine eating that number of calories and going extreme on physical activity, so I eat more.

Good points, Ennay & Amanda. I'm with you. Extra exercise calls for extra calories. (Ennay! How the devil do you burn 1800 calories during a run! My god! You must have amazing stamina!) But, on the whole, I think it best to just take the exercise as separate from the food--unless you're feeling weak or hungry or lethargic, in which case it might be time to re-evaluate.

I usually try to overestimate my calories and underestimate my exercise. So I don't generally eat to make up for the burned calories.

However, as others have said, if you are are really really hungry, then it's a good idea to eat.

But what I have found is that in those times, I eat more protein, which is not a normal thing for me. Instead of eating pasta or bread, I will just have a piece of chicken or a piece of cheese and it tends to make the hunger go away quickly.

Ditto to ennay & amanda - extra food for extra activity, but like morag, I tend to underestimate the extra exercise I do and overestimate the calories I need for the extras. A little extra caloric deficit never hurts ;) esp. on those pesky hard-to-lose last pounds.