I am new to the calorie counting and everything is going ok so far. Two weeks in now, but thedailyplate has got me confused. It'll say you can eat like 276 more calories for the day, but at the bottom it'll say you are 66 calories over your recommended intake for the day. How can I eat more, if it says I am over?!?! I am factoring in my exercise I know I am going to do before the day is over, but that's just to make sure I do not go under 1300 calories and enter starvation mode. So do I need to eat the extra calories to make up for the exercise, or do I not have to eat the extra and go below my set 1300? After my exercise it's about 300 calories burned, and in no way do I feel starved. So all in all factor in more calories, or can I leave them out? Also why is thedailyplate saying I am over when I'm not? Sorry for the rambling, thanks to anyone who can help...

I think what thedailyplate is doing is saying if you burn x amount you can eat x amount more. So you burn 300, you can eat that back and still have a deficit. So say you eat your 1300 and burn 300 at the gym. The daily plate says you can eat back those 300 if you want, but this technically puts you at 1600, ie over your daily allowance (i assume this is a fault in tdp's design).

You dont have to eat back what you exercise off. A lot of people chose not to. I dont, the idea for me is to exercise and create a bigger deficit, not eat it back! But others disagree and chose to eat what they burn off. If you dont feel hungry, you prob dont need to eat them

Hope this helps a bit!

Yeah I agree that is a faulty thing on part of TDP.

I would suggest trying a week "eating back" calories (i.e. burn 300 so eat 1600) and a week at not eating extra (i.e. burn 300 and eat 1300) and see which is better for your weight loss.

Some people swear they can't eat calories back and others swear they have to eat calories back in order to lose weight.

Lately I've been eating calories back and it's been pretty good for my weight loss. For awhile I was eating low and exercising a lot and stuck at a plateau. I guess we're all different so just experiment with what works for you.

Thanks for the advice guys. So it is ok to go under 1200 cals though, as long as I eat 1300 cals before exercise?

If you've eaten and consumed 1300 calories worth of food - no exercise in the world can take that away. You've eaten that. Your body has taken in the nutrients and everything that was in that food. So, if you've eaten 1300 calories before exercise, you have STILL eaten 1300 calories AFTER exercise.

Those calories burned calculators are highly inaccurate. I keep my calories eaten totally and completely separate from my calories burned. I eat what I eat and I burn what I burn. One has nothing to do with the other. Any calories I burn through exercise and activity is a bonus in the calorie deficit department.

To "eat back" calories would be highly counter-productive. We're aiming to get a calorie deficit and there's only so much calorie restriction we can safely make through cutting back our calories. That's where the exercise comes into play. It helps to create a larger calorie deficit.

Keep on counting those calories. But I really highly recommend you totally ignore the "exercise" portion of any and all calculators as they are not reliable.

Robin explained things so well. I don't use the exercise calculators either. I've learned through trial and error what calories I need depending upon how active I am that day. My calorie count needs to be pretty low to lose weight consistently so when I'm having a couch potato day, I keep it around 1000-1100 and when I'm active, I bump it up to maybe 1200 and up to 1400 if I'm super active.

That's what works for me.

Ok got it. I knew those calculators seemed a bit high for what I was doing. Not that what I am doing isn't much, but the calories burned seemed so high that it seemed like it wouldn't take much work to burn. Just got worried for a minute because I was down to 151, and all the sudden here I am at 154-155 plateau AGAIN. I am going to pull my hair out lol. Then again I was eating more then my 1300 without even realizing it. I have zero patience, so I am really going to have to work super hard at that. Thanks again everyone.