Why do people say to eat back the calories just burned?

rubywoo123
rubywoo123 Posts: 80
in Health and Weight Loss
when you burn calories people say to eat them back? why? doesn't that defeat the whole objective..

Replies

  • LittleMissDover
    LittleMissDover Posts: 820 Member
    Because your body needs a certain level of fuel to function.
  • magerum
    magerum Posts: 12,589 Member
    Use your diet to achieve caloric deficit and exercise for fitness/health. If you're already in deficit with your diet you don't need additional deficit with exercise, hence "eat them back". This only works if you're accurately, as possible, tracking your caloric expenditure.
  • rubywoo123
    rubywoo123 Posts: 80
    THANKS EVERYONE XXXXXXX
  • cyndilie
    cyndilie Posts: 52
    It is very confusing I know. I am not currently eating back my calories, but I am losing weight. When I do eat back my calories, I gain. It's tough to know the right thing to do when so many advise you to "eat more to lose more".
  • Pearsquared
    Pearsquared Posts: 1,656 Member
    If you're eating at your normal deficit (say, 500 calories a day for a 1 lb. loss a week) that's where your weight loss is. Exercising helps to boost your metabolism and allows you to eat more.

    The reason you want to eat back your burned calories is because if you exercise enough, you're not giving your body enough calories to function - they've been burned off already. A short-term side effect is fatigue because your body just plain doesn't have enough energy. If this is kept up for a long enough period of time, your body may face a metabolic slowdown from exercise rather than the boost it's supposed to give!

    However, accurately tracking calories burned is not the easiest thing. MFP tends to overestimate, and HRMs need to be used correctly or else they can skew results. For this reason, I only partially eat back my calories burned from exercise (I only walk, so it's not very much, lol).
  • BarbellApprentice
    BarbellApprentice Posts: 486 Member
    If you are trying to lose fat, then yea it defeats the purpose. I don't even count my exercise calories.
  • rob1976
    rob1976 Posts: 1,328 Member
    It is very confusing I know. I am not currently eating back my calories, but I am losing weight. When I do eat back my calories, I gain. It's tough to know the right thing to do when so many advise you to "eat more to lose more".
    that is because human bodies are not cookie-cutter. Everyone's body responds to stimuli differently.
  • HealthWoke0ish
    HealthWoke0ish Posts: 2,078 Member
    It is very confusing I know. I am not currently eating back my calories, but I am losing weight. When I do eat back my calories, I gain. It's tough to know the right thing to do when so many advise you to "eat more to lose more".

    If MFP allots me 1750 calories...then I try to net 1750. So if I workout and burn 1000 calories, I try to eat around 2750 that day, so that I end up with a net of 1750.

    ETA: The two most valuable equipment items (re: fitness/weightloss) are my heart rate monitor and my digital food scale. They help me get a more accurate idea of intake and burn. :)
  • kimosabe1
    kimosabe1 Posts: 2,467 Member
    it works!!! eat exercise calories so the loss don't stop!
  • bulbadoof
    bulbadoof Posts: 1,058 Member
    A lot of people say they eat 60-75% of their exercise calories back, to allow for miscalculations and slightly increase their deficit while ensuring they get the food their body needs. If you don't want to eat them all, you could try eating a portion of them and see if that works for you hunger-wise.
  • annakow
    annakow Posts: 385 Member
    You need to eat to lose weight when you do exercise.

    37367090.png
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  • twinketta
    twinketta Posts: 2,130 Member
    when you burn calories people say to eat them back? why? doesn't that defeat the whole objective..

    I can not see the amount of cals that MFP has calculated based on what you have put into the calculator.

    But let me give you an example.

    If it is the BMR of 1200 cals a day and you are exercising and burning 500 cals a day. Then your net calories are 700 so you would be undereating.

    If your cals on MFP are 2000 and you exercise and burn 500 cals then you would net 1500 cals so you are good to go, if you do not want to eat your exercise calories
  • ndowns22
    ndowns22 Posts: 20
    Abs are made in the kitchen not the gym. You lose weight in the kitchen and get fit in the gym. 70% what you eat and 30% workout, you cannot out exercise a bad diet.
    Food can be viewed in two ways: good or bad.... Fuel your body by eating clean and stop "feeding" your body with junk food. Your body NEEDS carbs to give you energy to workout but there are the good complex carbs (whole grains, brown rice, rice flour ) and the baddd carbs (chips, cheetos, doughnuts, white bread/rice..). As they say, you are what you eat....if you eat clean you will lose weight and keep it off, be full of energy and feeling great. If you what crap....well, you will feel like crap :(

    Msg me and we can chat more about the importance of clean eating! <3
  • Cese27
    Cese27 Posts: 626 Member
    So white rice is not good huh,guess I missed that memo as I had 500grams uncooked weight of it today,no wonder I'm in such an awful state
  • jcscasllc
    jcscasllc Posts: 1
    Abs are made in the kitchen not the gym. You lose weight in the kitchen and get fit in the gym. 70% what you eat and 30% workout, you cannot out exercise a bad diet.
    Food can be viewed in two ways: good or bad.... Fuel your body by eating clean and stop "feeding" your body with junk food. Your body NEEDS carbs to give you energy to workout but there are the good complex carbs (whole grains, brown rice, rice flour ) and the baddd carbs (chips, cheetos, doughnuts, white bread/rice..). As they say, you are what you eat....if you eat clean you will lose weight and keep it off, be full of energy and feeling great. If you what crap....well, you will feel like crap :(

    Msg me and we can chat more about the importance of clean eating! <3

    This is so true!! Thanks for putting it out there!
  • SteelySunshine
    SteelySunshine Posts: 1,092 Member
    I don't know why people say to eat back calories. In some cases it is very good advice and in others not so much. It's not a one size fits all rule. If you are morbidly obese it really isn't important at all to eat back your calories. You will already be eating an adequate amount if you are following the MFP calorie allotment. It could be upwards to 3000 a day, depending on how obese and your activity level, I am sure there are outliers that have a higher requirement then even that. So, if you have 3000 calories to play with and you exercise an additional 1000 calorie deficit to bring your total deficit to 1500 for the day, it's really ok to lose that 3 pounds a week. It is likely to be a lower loss than that though since the calorie allotment could be a titch high and the calorie burn estimate a titch low. And a lot of people under count calories by a titch as well. That is a lot of titches and it can add up to 500 calories easily.

    But on the other hand if you have less than 30 pounds to lose you should be set to lose less than a pound a week and it's very likely you won't be eating more than 2000 calories unless you are very very active. In that case you should eat a good percentage back. You would have to play around and see what works. If you don't eat enough you can stall if you eat a bit too much or don't exercise enough you can stall. I am sure it is maddening. But, what you don't want to play around and do is create a 1500 calorie deficit, that is just begging for trouble even though losing weight at that rate is very attractive. It's just not sustainable and you haven't really figured out a healthy lifestyle, you've just figured out how to starve yourself, congrats I guess.

    So, to make a long answer short, if you are obese don't worry about eating them all back or even worry if you don't eat any back. If you are close to goal 30 lbs or less to lose then absolutely eat all or most back, when you have figured out exactly what your TDEE is and what you need to do to lose a half to one pound a week.
  • ironanimal
    ironanimal Posts: 5,922 Member
    So white rice is not good huh,guess I missed that memo as I had 500grams uncooked weight of it today,no wonder I'm in such an awful state
    Fat git.
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 49,021 Member
    Abs are made in the kitchen not the gym. You lose weight in the kitchen and get fit in the gym. 70% what you eat and 30% workout, you cannot out exercise a bad diet.
    Food can be viewed in two ways: good or bad.... Fuel your body by eating clean and stop "feeding" your body with junk food. Your body NEEDS carbs to give you energy to workout but there are the good complex carbs (whole grains, brown rice, rice flour ) and the baddd carbs (chips, cheetos, doughnuts, white bread/rice..). As they say, you are what you eat....if you eat clean you will lose weight and keep it off, be full of energy and feeling great. If you what crap....well, you will feel like crap :(

    Msg me and we can chat more about the importance of clean eating! <3
    Subjective. You don't have to eat clean to achieve energy nor feel great. If I am what I eat, then I must be Ronald McDonald and the Taco Bell chihuahua rolled into one.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
  • pinkpatron
    pinkpatron Posts: 154
    If I don't eat back atleast 400 of the 800-1k calories I burn a day, by Thursday I am so lethargic its not even funny.
  • ValerieMartini2Olives
    ValerieMartini2Olives Posts: 3,024 Member
    If you are trying to lose fat, then yea it defeats the purpose. I don't even count my exercise calories.

    I am losing body fat and I eat back most or all of my calories
  • gaz7114
    gaz7114 Posts: 8 Member
    I tried logging my exercise and then eating them but it's been working better for me if I don't log my exercise and just stick to my allocated calories.
  • dfair1967
    dfair1967 Posts: 91
    Nicely said.
  • rubywoo123
    rubywoo123 Posts: 80
    thank you everyone!! xx
  • amyx593
    amyx593 Posts: 211 Member
    because MFP sets a caloric goal for you, assuming that you aren't exercising- only cutting calories. This is to be the bare minimum calories consumed. If you burn calories through exercise, you have now dipped below that and must eat them back to reach your NET calorie goal.
  • Garlicmash
    Garlicmash Posts: 208
    It's been working for me 13 lbs down since starting mfp and eating back some and sometimes all calories if hungry enough.
    the thing you have to watch out for is the wrong amount of exercise calories being added, if it's higher than it really is and you eat them back then you will continue to gain weight,same with the food you have to weigh it to make sure you're logging the right amount. I made the mistake of logging a guess of 200 for rice till i weighed it after i didn't loos anything for a while,it was 400g i was eating not 200g.
    I haven't had that problem since.
  • gaz7114
    gaz7114 Posts: 8 Member
    As said before it depends on how much you burn when exercising, I don't exercise that much due to my back problems so find it better for me if I don't log my exercise. I was hit by a drunk driver 3 years go and not being able to work or exercise like I did before I just piled the weight on. but it's coming of slowly :) I have tried both ways and it's what works for me.
  • ThickMcRunFast
    ThickMcRunFast Posts: 22,511 Member
    It is very confusing I know. I am not currently eating back my calories, but I am losing weight. When I do eat back my calories, I gain. It's tough to know the right thing to do when so many advise you to "eat more to lose more".
    that is because human bodies are not cookie-cutter. Everyone's body responds to stimuli differently.

    Exactly! For instance, some people eat food to get energy. I photosynthesize. Others prefer oxidizing methane

    Oh wait, no. Barring the very small percentage of the population that has a metabolic disorder, we are remarkably similar. If you want your body to perform, you need to fuel it. If you use MFP, you calorie goal already has a deficit built into it. If you exercise, you increase that deficit. Running too large a deficit will lead to things like muscle loss and hangry days.
  • megsmom2
    megsmom2 Posts: 2,362 Member
    because that's how MFP is designed to work. did you read anything when you signed up? didn't think so.
  • jenilla1
    jenilla1 Posts: 11,118 Member
    because MFP sets a caloric goal for you, assuming that you aren't exercising- only cutting calories. This is to be the bare minimum calories consumed. If you burn calories through exercise, you have now dipped below that and must eat them back to reach your NET calorie goal.

    Exactly. It's very simple, yet people struggle with the concept. :huh:

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