Do you eat the calories burned back?

sanchezgmc06

Hello I use the fitbit flex and my calorie goal is set to 1300 I would like to loose 1lb a week however i am a little at lost. Can I each the calories burned and still loose weight?

What has been your experience?

dawniemate

I sometimes eat back half if im hungry or save a few extra for weekend. ..I think it's what suits you best. ..

Sued0nim

sanchezgmc06 wrote: »

Hello I use the fitbit flex and my calorie goal is set to 1300 I would like to loose 1lb a week however i am a little at lost. Can I each the calories burned and still loose weight?

What has been your experience?

Every delicious one

At the end of the day the one who eats the most whilst losing weight wins

(Started June 2014...54lbs down ..maintenance since Feb)

RGv2

That is how MFP works. You enter your stats and goals into MFP and it shoots out your calorie goal with the deficit built in, figuring you do zero exercise. Since your goal is 1300 cals, MFP figures that 1700 is what gets you through a normal day to maintain weight.

So it works like this.

1700 to maintain - 500 cal deficit (1lb per week) = 1300 cal goal

or

1700 to maintain + 400cals burned at the gym = 2100 cals to maintain - 500 cal deficit (1lb per week) = 1600 cal goal.

One thing to remember is that MFP is pretty notorious for over estimating calorie burns, so many start out at eating back 50% and adjust from there.

strong_curves

I eat about 75% of my fitbit flex calories back...only because I'm still learning how to weigh/measure my food portions correctly.

I started in April and I'm down 6 lbs... I have my settings set at 0.5 lb a week for loss.

SezxyStef

I eat back about 80% of my Jawbone adjustment...just testing it right now to see how close it is.

North44

Yes I eat mine back for the most part. If I get a really big burn- like from playing 2 hours of tennis or something I usually eat maybe half back. If I go for a walk or do something active after dinner I don't eat those back. I usually eat between 1400 and 1600 a day and MFP has my cals set at 1200. I've been losing about a pound a week. As active as I am with exercise there's no way I could eat 1200 and be anything close to happy.

cwolfman13

provided you set your profile up properly, your activity level and other stats give you a calorie target that already includes your weight loss deficit WITHOUT exercise. It stands to reason that if, for example, you put sedentary as your activity level and were given a calorie goal based on that...well, it stands to reason that if you actually exercise you would no longer be sedentary...thus your maintenance calories would increase...thus the amount you could eat to lose weight would increase.

you have to account for exercise activity somewhere...with MFP, you're not trying to create your deficit through exercise...your deficit is in your diet. this is intended to teach you that diet is for weight management; exercise is for fitness. once you get your head wrapped around the idea of fitness for the sake of fitness...well, it makes a lot of sense to actually fuel your fitness.

all that said, people tend to not do any of this right...people tend to be very inaccurate when it comes to calorie counting...they choose erroneous entries from the database without double checking...they eyeball servings...they otherwise underestimate their intake and also tend to pick outlandish calorie burns from the database, etc.

sanchezgmc06

Thanks! This helped me get a better understanding

Sued0nim

I have to say that I always judged how much weight I lost over a 2 month timeframe against my weight loss goal with the thought that I would adjust how many exercise calories I ate back (I took 100% fitbit cals and 50% of MFP exercise database calories before I bought an HRM )

But it always worked for me

harpsdesire

I generally only eat mine back on a regular basis if I'm hungry (rather than just 'snack-y'). If I worked out much more than usual, I go ahead and eat back 30-50% so I don't have an 'empty day' the next day!

kami3006

I have found that on days that I don't eat back at least half of my exercise calories, my next day's workout suffers.

999tigger

Depends. Priority goes to making sure I fuel my exercise, carbs before and protein after. I then eat according to whether im hungry post exercise. If ive done a decent amount then im more likely to eat extra back. Its intuitive for me. Just make sure you are eating back actual calories burned so as to protect your deficit.

DeterminedFee201426

my experience is that ..>most the time i eat half my exercise calories back* &
it has not slowed my weightloss .. My goal is 1320 but most days iam at 1390-1450 atm

tannibal_lecter

sanchezgmc06 wrote: »

Hello I use the fitbit flex and my calorie goal is set to 1300 I would like to loose 1lb a week however i am a little at lost. Can I each the calories burned and still loose weight?

What has been your experience?

Yes, I always eat back the calories or at least half. I plateaued when I didn't eat enough and the weight is melting off now that eat back calories. My general rule of thumb though is to eat half of them and then see if I'm still hungry(I usually am but not always). I also try to fill up my protein macros first.

joolieb1

I haven't been eating mine as I already have 1510 calories and feel pretty full already. I lost 4 lb on my first week and my aim was for 1 lb per week. For example, I wanted a slice of toast today for supper but was just under my daily calories even though I had over 300 calories burnt through exercise. I stubbornly refused to have the treat! Will I lose weight this week again with this approach, we will see tomorrow on weigh in day lol

editorgrrl

sanchezgmc06 wrote: »

I use the fitbit flex and my calorie goal is set to 1300. I would like to lose 1lb a week however I am a little lost. Can I eat the calories burned and still lose weight?

What has been your experience?

Your Fitbit burn is TDEE, the calories necessary to maintain your current weight. If you eat at a reasonable deficit* from that (way more than 1,300 calories), you will lose weight.

If (and only if) you enable negative calorie adjustments in your diary settings, eating back 100% of your adjustments means you're eating TDEE minus deficit.

Enable negative calorie adjustments: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings

*Set your goal to .5 lb. per week for every 25 lbs. you're overweight: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/change_goals_guided

You can learn more in the Fitbit Users group: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/1290-fitbit-users

These are the settings I've used to lose the weight & maintain for a year.