Hey all,

I am using an app on my phone to track my calories, and on my gym days, it says that I am burning ~700 calories. So far, I haven't been counting them, and have continued to eat under my 1300 limit despite burning so many calories.

Do any of you ladies actually account for the deficit created by working out in your daily calorie limit, or are you doing like me and assuming if you don't take those into account, you'll lose weight faster?

As far as the deficit created by exercise, I don't take that into account because no one will really ever know how many calories he or she is burning. I just see those calories burned as a bonus!

Is there a reason you are using 1300 calories as your daily intake? That seems like an awfully low number, so I'm just curious. We are the same height and when I weighed 195 I was able to easily lose weight eating 1700-1850 a day.

Ok great! Thank you, that is exactly how I felt about those extra burned calories, I just want to make sure I'm not going to harm my body or hinder my weight loss in ANY way!

As far as the 1300 intake limit, the application on my phone says that to lose 2 lbs a week, I should limit myself to 1182 calories a day, but that seemed too low, so I have been aiming for 1200, but allowing myself to go up to 1300.

I used to count calories burned because I wanted to give myself a reason to eat more. But that wasn't productive at all! I was finally convinced that wasn't a good thing and just concentrated on cutting caloric intake.

I'm 50, 5'11", I weigh 300 lbs and I can't lose significantly unless I eat around 1200 calories. I will gain at 1750, albeit very slowly. My RMR is around 1580.

I definitely count the calories I burn while exercising. I wear a HR monitor and I think that gives me a pretty decent idea of what I'm burning. The calories you burn are just as much of the equation as how many you are eating. Knowing how many calories I'm burning helps me figure out how much I should be eating to create the calorie deficit I want.

This might be slightly complicated, but here is my philosophy.

I burn about 2200 calories per day on my own, with no exercise (at least that's the average of what these online calculators tell me). I'd like to lose about 2 lbs a week, so to do that I'd have to eat 1200 calories per day. That's kind of low. But if I go exercise, I can pretty much be guaranteed to burn about 200 calories, if not more. So I've set my calories for the days I exercise at 1400 and the days I don't at 1200. It motivates me to exercise, b/c I know I can have that extra snack or 2.

Basically, I want a 1000 calorie deficit everyday to lose around 2 lbs per week. If I burn more than 200 calories at the gym, fantastic, but I generally don't go too far over 1400 calories. That's the way I look at it anyway. So ultimately, I DO figure the calories burned by exercise into my calories to eat for the day, but only so that I can keep a 1000 calorie deficit.

Maybe split the difference and see what that does for you?

I includes calories burned, but then I'm using software which I can customise for my general daily activities as well as added activities. Sometimes I burn more calories if I get more exercise, sometimes I burn less if I take a long siesta, but either way the difference is small since I'm very inactive. The main thing is that I've been using this software for two months, am following a total deficit of 400, and am steadily losing at 1lb/week, so it's working. The best way to find out what works for you is to try it, and it's probably easier to err on the side of a smaller calorie deficit to begin with rather than risk eating far too little.

I know how my brain works since I've done this weight loss thing before MANY times... so I know I don't want to "reward" myself with food for exercising, because that just leads to more unhealthy ways of thinking about food, fitness, and my own self-worth.

So instead, I take my overall/average activity level into account when deciding how much to eat, and then I don't worry about how much I burn through exercise on any given day. I usually don't even log my exercise anywhere, other than describing what I did in some accountability threads in the forums.

I don't work out nearly as much, I usually burn between 150-300 per day from exercise (I do 30Day Shred workouts) and I'll usually eat 100 of those exercise calories as a snack after I work out.

I aim for 1200 cals per day, but this averages to 1300 per day on a weekly average. (Not counting my binges, which I'm trying to take control of now). With this calorie limit I can lose 1 pound per week. I lose more if I exercise, so I aim to burn 500 - 700 each day. This will give me another 1 lb loss per week if I keep this up. So 2 lbs total loss per week. I try not to consume the cals I burned, but if I do, then I can feel comfort in knowing at least I can have the 1 lb lost through diet. I do not feel like it's too low for me. In fact 1200-1300 is probably what I was eating on maintenance anyways.

For me it depends on the amount of exercise. For example, I've been dog sitting for 10 days. Walking a total of 6 dogs 2ce a day, I logged over 3 hours of walk time a day. I am definitely eating some of those lost calories because I'm hungry. I've also lost 2 lbs for my first week of CC (last week) so I've made my goal... I've been eating between 1500-1700 and my limit is set at 1400 w/o exercise.
Now that I'm home and just talking two walks a day with 2 dogs together, I will only be walking 1 1/2 hours or so total. I will probably not be eating anymore than 1500 tops.