I'm curious as to what other peoples' calorie ranges are. Do you eat less on days when you don't exercise much/at all? Do you eat the same number of calories regardless? Exercise calories -- do you eat them back or leave them for a bigger deficit?

Indulge a relative newbie, would ya? I'm nosy. *L*

I started at 1600 calories/day. I work out hard every day (Sundays off) so yes, I eat back my calories burned...or I try to...I burn a lot and it's hard to eat it all back.

I recently dropped to 1500 calories/day and am doing well. Once I hit a plateau I think I'm going to try going back up to 1600, but not counting my exercise deficit and see what that does.

For my no exercise, sedentary lifestyle diet, my calorie quantity is supposed to be 1400 but i am eating over that the moment. I"m not worrying about it too much this month. Today i counted just over 1700 before dinner which probably added another 300 i guess.

But for the first three months, i tried to stay around my allowance which was originally 1650 and then sometime in march i dropped it to 1400.

I don't seem to have put on any weight and all up until about beginning of april i was steadily losing.

I need to get a bit remotivated in May. I'm hoping to do that anyway. Until my main aim is to eat healthy food and not too much over maintenance calories, whatever they are.

I know this is a bit cryptic and probably won't be of much help.

It's about 1200 for me. I don't eat my exercise calories back, either. I average a 1.5-2 lbs. loss a week.

I did just start calorie counting this week and my goal range is between 1200 to 1400 a day. I don't eat back my burned calories, I just let them be extra. There may be some days I take advantage of those extra calories, but as of right now, I'm not doing that.

I tried doing 1200 for a bit but holy crap, I felt like a complete slug. *L* I'm envious of people who can manage it!

I also tried doing 1200 calories once and it did not work for me. I was constantly hungry, I felt weak and sluggish and was barely able to work out. I completely ignored the fact that my BMR is ~1400 calories/day.

I like to average 1200 calories or so a day. I also follow Weight Watchers so I look more at the week as a whole rather than trying to rigidly eat the same amount each day.

As far as eating exercise calories, I have 2 answers.

In terms of WW points, I eat my weekly points before eating activity points. I very rarely ever eat any activity points.

As a practical matter if I exercise really heavy on a particular day I may eat a little more that day but I try to stay within my desired average calorie range for the week regardless of exercise. I also mostly focus on having a 500 to 750 calories deficit each day and if I do that (I use a Fitbit to see what I burn) I am happy.

Snoofie--I am used to it now. I rarely get ravenous and my energy level is much better than when I was eating more (off plan). I think my body just needs less to keep it running at maximum efficiency!

Regarding to my high weight by BMR (?) is at about 1650 (calculated with the adapted formula for very heavy people, as fat needs no energy) - and due to most modern believes around here I try not to eat a lot less than that. Normally I end up at around 1400-1550 on normal days, which so far leaves me confortable, full of energy and without great hunger.

I didn't start with doing sports already, but normally I wouldn't eat my extra calories.

Mine is between 900-1000 (the old WW points - I count both) with one day a week around 1300. I don't eat back exercise calories and I don't really make any progress, just maintain for years and years.

My range is from 1200-1400. On days I do light exercise I keep it closer to 1200 then on days when I exercise or am going to be active a lot I hit closer to 1400, but I do my best to listen to my body and define when I am hungry so most days I don't consume the extra calories burned

I intended to start at 1500, but I ended up doing 1200. I try not to go lower than 900 on days when I don't feel like eating.

On the days I don't work out, I only eat 1200 or less. The calorie tracker I use automatically adds calories burned from working out to overall calories allowed for the day; some days I eat them, some days I don't. It's a matter of whether I feel like eating and what I'm craving - two nights ago I "splurged" on some peanut M&M's (69 calories for five!) because I had like 300 calories left for the day and it was almost bedtime.

I would say if you're aiming to be under a certain amount - like 1500 - then burned calories absolutely counts towards your calorie allowance for the day. If you don't exercise, then stay under your alotted amount. If you do, eat those calories if you're hungry and you want to. Or go WW style and bank those extra calories for later in the week/for cheat days.

On a normal day I try not to exceed 1200.

But because I'm trying to lose weight now- until the end of my diet- I won't be going over 500/day.

I'm really shocked by the super low calorie counts people are posting, I would feel awful eating that little and definitely wouldn't be able to exercise as much as I do. I try to stay around 1400 on non-exercise days, 1600 on normal exercise days, and on long exercise days(3+ hours of hiking) I don't really have a goal but try and not get too crazy with eating. I'm working with TDEE and don't eat back my calories. I'm also pretty close to goal and very active. When I started at 200+lbs I lost weight exercising by lifting heavy 2x/wk and cardio 1-2x/wk and eating 1800-2300 calories a day. I slowly adjusted down and for a long time was still losing on 1700/1800 calories but recently have had to drop again.