does it matter..

if the deficit comes from exercise or what i burn naturally?

i aim to eat 1300 cals a day but burn 1000 everyday working out, so i tend to eat more than just the 1300. i usually get up to between 1500-1700 but still have a great deficit.

i trust that my heart rate monitor is honest in the calories i burn, so im wondering if i should keep this up, or if i should try to workout less and eat less? ive just started and am still a bit confused.

It does not really matter as long as the deficit itself does not go over 1000 cals. There are a couple of concerns. You don't want to get so hungry that you undermine your own efforts, nor do you want to work out so much that you burn muscle instead of fat. This can be a problem so you might want to ask when that happens on the Fitness forum.

Best of luck.

is it working?  if it ain't broke,  don't fix it.  :D

Oops, I think I am thinking wrong, disregard my post....

hmm.. I think it may matter in the long run. I believe that eating well balanced meals along with exercising, will definitely yield better results than just eating well but less.

Some may argue that you can create a good deficit by cutting your daily calorie intake but in my humble opinion, it is not the healthiest option. We all know way too many people who eat at or under the commonly accepted minimum for women and I always wonder 'how is that sustainable?'

Wouldn't you rather exercise a little (or a lot) every day and get to eat more, than not exercise and eat the bare minimum (i.e. starve) in order to see results?

And I didn't even touch on what exercise in general does to your overall health! So, I vote for exercising and eating well, just don't over do the exercise.

yeah just be careful... I was eating about 1150-1350 cals a day and that was totally fine for my weight loss... worked wonders! But then I started working out... um yeah period where did you go??? lmao, and I was stuck at the low cal intake; fearful of gaining. Long story short I now take in no more than a 500 cal defecit... sometimes more :). I log my exercise in the AM so I cna get an idea of what my bod will need that day... and I try to plan my meals around it.

No period but I feel much better :)

In terms of weight loss, a calorie is a calorie, a 500 calorie deficit achieved through exercise will yield the same results as a 500 calorie deficit achieve without exercise.

In terms of the composition of your weight loss, it depends on the type of exercise.  A 500 calorie deficit achieved through diet only and a 500 caloried deficit achieved through aerobics will pretty similar proportions of fat and lean tissue lost.  But a 500 calorie deficit achieved through anaerobic exercise will result in more fat loss and less lean tissue loss than aerobics and/or diet.

However, a plan that involves eating more and more exercise will keep your metabolism high, so that same deficit will be easier to maintain than a plan that only involves calorie restriction.