Eating back calories

apacheman526

What does it mean to eat back exersize calories?

TeaBea

apacheman526 wrote: »

What does it mean to eat back exersize calories?

MFP as designed gives you a calorie deficit before exercise. That way people who can't/won't exercise still lose weight.

This gets you back to your original deficit.....however calorie burns are estimates. Start by eating back a %....say half & see if weight loss is steady. Eating too little (over time) can lead to fat+muscle loss.

stephe1987

Exercising helps to minimize muscle loss compared to fat loss. You want to preserve muscle while burning fat. On the other hand, it might be good to first set and achieve a body fat percentage goal; after you reach that goal, then start building muscle.

Eating back exercise calories is fine but I would not recommend eating back more than half of what it says you burned. MFP and gym equipment usually overestimate how much was burned, so you're not actually burning as much as it says you are. Also, you might be eating more than you think you are (a lot of inaccurate logging happens on here). Therefore, eating back all your exercise calories is actually eating more than was actually burned. Unless you're sure your calories eaten are correct and you know how much was burned, it's probably not a good idea to eat back all your exercise calories.

Eating "too little" really depends on your own goals.
If you have 75+ lbs to lose 2 lbs/week is ideal
If you have 40-75 lbs to lose 1.5 lbs/week is ideal
If you have 25-40 lbs to lose 1 lb/week is ideal
If you have 15-25 lbs to lose 0.5 to 1.0 lb/week is ideal
If you have less than 15 lbs to lose 0.5 lb/week is ideal

If you're losing faster than this, you're most likely eating too little. The exception would be someone who's morbidly obese and working with a doctor to lose weight as quickly as possible. If you go to the "My Home" and then to the "Goals" tab, MFP will tell you how many pounds per week you're currently set to lose.

The "missing ingredient" to this chart I think is BMI. If your goal is to get into the upper "normal" range, rather than the middle or lower end, you can probably lose faster and lower your goal weight. But a lot of people like to set incremental goals for their ticker, so their ticker goal could be to get into the "normal" (or "overweight") range, but their weight loss rate could be set as if they're getting to the middle of the "normal" range. If your goal weight means your BMI would be in the "underweight" range then the goal is too low and you have less to lose than you thought and should slow it down a bit.

The other thing is MFP will automatically adjust your goal so you cannot go lower than 1200 calories per day. If I put my weight loss goal at 1 lb/week, it sets me at a daily calorie allotment of 1200 calories, but if I look at the "goals" tab it would show my weight loss is actually 0.9 lb/week.

Kalikel

MFP gives you a total for the day, say 1200.

If you exercise, it will raise it to, say, 1500.

The extra 300 calories - people discuss eating them as "eating them back." I have no idea why, but when in Rome...