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MyFitnessPal Community

eating back calories you burn

donohoeshaunap

so I generally try to eat around 1200 calories - and i burned about 300 from cardio, and about 2300 from just general activity (I wear a fitbit) I'm losing weight but I am so hungry.

I know I should eat back some of what I burn but I'm scared I won't continue to lose weight.

what do you do? do you eat back all your calories? How much of what you burn do you eat back.

Replies

malibu927

You should be eating at least some of them back to fuel your body. In fact, if you're burning 2300 a day according to Fitbit, you should be eating a lot more than 1200, especially if you only have ten pounds to lose. If your logging is accurate, you'll lose weight.

RGv2

Just so I can understand. You're burning a total of 2600 calories per day (300 exercise+2300 general) and are trying to only eat 1200 calories? That's TDEE -54%. That doesn't sound the safest unless you have a ton of weight to lose (and I don't think so by your profile pic).

What do I do? Eat some back. How many? about 75% cutting.

whmscll

I am on 1200 and I eat back every single exercise calorie I can. Otherwise I feel like I'm starving to death. I am very conservative with logging my calorie burn from exercise; I look it up on various online calculators, go with the general consensus, and then shave 50-100 calories off that and log it. Then I eat back all the exercise calories I have logged. If it's in my calorie allowance for the day, I eat it, LOL. I have been steadily losing .5 to 1 pound a week.

ntdrive

https://blog.myfitnesspal.com/ask-the-dietitian-should-i-eat-back-my-exercise-calories/

SarcasmIsMyLoveLanguage

When I was losing weight, I was eating roughly 50% back and still had great success. Now that I'm maintaining, I eat back closer to 100%. Eating back some of your calories is important to fuel your body.

TeaBea

donohoeshaunap wrote: »

so I generally try to eat around 1200 calories - and i burned about 300 from cardio, and about 2300 from just general activity (I wear a fitbit) I'm losing weight but I am so hungry.

I know I should eat back some of what I burn but I'm scared I won't continue to lose weight.

what do you do? do you eat back all your calories? How much of what you burn do you eat back.

It's just math

1200 < 2300

1200 + 300 < 2300

It's just a matter of how fast you want to lose. I eat back all my exercise calories because I am older and want to hold onto as much lean muscle as I can. Faster weight loss generally results in a larger percentage of lean muscle loss than most people are comfortable with. If you want to keep muscle, if you want to lower your body fat percentage, eat more and add strength training to your fitness regimen (if you haven't already).

1200 is MFPs lowest DEFAULT minimum. Almost anyone can eat more & still lose.

editorgrrl

donohoeshaunap wrote: »

so I generally try to eat around 1200 calories - and i burned about 300 from cardio, and about 2300 from just general activity (I wear a fitbit) I'm losing weight but I am so hungry.

Your Fitbit burn is TDEE (total daily energy expenditure), the calories necessary to maintain your current weight. If you eat less than that, you will lose weight.

Connect your accounts at http://www.myfitnesspal.com/fitbit

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

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

Ignore your Fitbit calorie goal and follow MFP's, eating back your adjustments. No need to log any step-based activity—your Fitbit is tracking it for you. Log non-step exercise (like swimming or biking) either in Fitbit or in MFP—never both. Exercise logged in MFP overwrites your Fitbit burn during that time.

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

donohoeshaunap

RGv2 wrote: »

Just so I can understand. You're burning a total of 2600 calories per day (300 exercise+2300 general) and are trying to only eat 1200 calories? That's TDEE -54%. That doesn't sound the safest unless you have a ton of weight to lose (and I don't think so by your profile pic).

What do I do? Eat some back. How many? about 75% cutting.

Your right this is probably why I am constantly hungry I would like to lose 30 lbs but I also want to gain muscle so the scale isn't super important to me, how I look and feel is what is important to me.

donohoeshaunap

editorgrrl wrote: »

donohoeshaunap wrote: »

so I generally try to eat around 1200 calories - and i burned about 300 from cardio, and about 2300 from just general activity (I wear a fitbit) I'm losing weight but I am so hungry.

Your Fitbit burn is TDEE (total daily energy expenditure), the calories necessary to maintain your current weight. If you eat less than that, you will lose weight.

Connect your accounts at http://www.myfitnesspal.com/fitbit

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

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

Ignore your Fitbit calorie goal and follow MFP's, eating back your adjustments. No need to log any step-based activity—your Fitbit is tracking it for you. Log non-step exercise (like swimming or biking) either in Fitbit or in MFP—never both. Exercise logged in MFP overwrites your Fitbit burn during that time.

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

thank you

initialsdeebee

As for the fear of not losing thing, I think I have some idea how you feel/have felt that before. The way I think of it is, I know my body will rebel if I keep up extreme habits all the time. So I think ok, I don't want to trigger a binge eating cycle later due to drawn out deprivation, eating so much I feel like a gross failure, then cope with that disappointment by continuing to eat and then end up back where I started (this has been my experience in the past). So even though it might seem scary to eat more and even though you might be on a roll and executing great will power now, think about what will be sustainable or how you can stay in control.