Eating "earned" calories?

Jacquie_Youngs

Hey guys! If I've got MFP set to lose 2lb/week but I run a hilly 3.5 miles in the morning which burns 400 calories through Endomondo and it links it to MFP, do I need to eat those 400 calories or keep that 400 cal deficit? My target calories before running is 1360. I'm 5'7" and trying to go from 160 back to an original 130. Do I eat 1360 or 1760?

StacyChrz

Personally, I tend to eat back only a portion of my 'earned' calories. I have a Fitbit and when the calories are adjusted it usually gives me back only about 1/3 of the calories I've burned. You should play with it a bit and see how you feel and how your losses are going to find what is best for you.

zoeysasha37

Personally I would eat the 1760. With only 30 lbs to lose, 2 lbs per week loss goal may be rather aggressive.

pichu318

Give yourself at least some of those calories back. Even if you just try to eat until you are at a net of over 1000-1200 calories that should be fine. People say to eat back half to three quarters of your expended calories here. I just liked to make my net above 1000 to be happy with my weight loss and amount I was able to eat back :P

L_Master

Naturally those are calories you need to eat. You'd then eat 1760.

Think of it on the extreme. If you went for say a 30 mile run that burned 4000kcal, you certainly wouldn't just eat 1360 kcal that day. MFP sets you up based on your activity level setting for how many calories you will need to eat that day to have goal deficit, in your case 1360 kcal. If you burn an extra 400 kcal that means if you ate 1360 kcal for the day you would now have a 1400 kcal deficit.

The one exception might be if you have MFP set for some very high activity level to compensate for your running, but if you're logging your exercise from other sites MFP should be set to sedentary or lightly active provided you don't have some manual labor job that is physically demanding day in and day out.

katanasnk

I try to stick to my original calorie goal and not use the exercise calories. Some days, I'm too hungry for that. I've found that using half my exercise calories is usually safe and doesn't stall my progress.

vivmom2014

thorsmom01 wrote: »

Personally I would eat the 1760. With only 30 lbs to lose, 2 lbs per week loss goal may be rather aggressive.

+1

srecupid

Are you craving food late in the day? If so go for it. Listen to your body.

arv51862

I would recommend starting closer to the 1360 # & track your weight loss progress & compare your actual progress to your weekly weight loss goal. Only eat more calories if you are meeting or exceeding your anticipated or expected rate of weight loss. Macro's will also come into play as you will need carbs to fuel your daily run.

PokeyBug

Personally, I'd eat about half those calories back. I'm currently on maintenance, and I still only eat half my exercise calories. I've learned in the past year that all those calorie counter devices (FitBit, Endomondo, Heart, etc.) aren't perfectly accurate. And, honestly, the TDEE on MFP isn't perfectly accurate, either. Since we all have different body chemistries, it's impossible to create a computer program to perfectly measure how many calories we burn.

I'm a good example. MFP was telling me to eat 1650 calories a day for maintenance plus my exercise. And I gained five pounds before I rethought that. I'm currently eating about 1400 calories a day and half my exercise, which seems to be working much better for maintenance. But, we're all special snowflakes and we've all got to figure out what works best for us. I'm one of those people who wants everything to work like a math equation. If you do x + y, your result should always be z. Unfortunately, both x and y turned out to be variables!

callsitlikeiseeit

i eat almost all my logged exercise calories BUT i also dont log all my exercise so in reality, im probably eating half them

blossomingbutterfly

You need to see what works best for you. I'd say start with eating half back and go from there when you see how the weight loss goes. Adjust from there.

TeaBea

thorsmom01 wrote: »

Personally I would eat the 1760. With only 30 lbs to lose, 2 lbs per week loss goal may be rather aggressive.

This^

Too fast weight loss makes it harder for your body to support existing lean muscle. If you had a more moderate goal (1 pound a week)....then you would eat part of your exercise calories. But that too is going closer to 1760 calories.

Dreysander

I don't eat earned calories at the moment. When I go into maintenance I'll likely eat half of them.

rileysowner

Notice something. The vast majority of those saying eat the calories have lots of experience based on their post counts. Eat the calories.

maidengirl_

I have earned calories from working out as well. I only eat back some of them because after a workout my energy levels are low and I need to refuel. I don't deny eating a meal. I still lose weight.

loulamb7

To lose 2 lbs/week you're already at a daily 1000 calorie deficit. If you don't eat the exercise calories, your deficit will be 1400. I agree with the above posts to consider losing at a slower rate and definitely eating the exercise calories back.

tomteboda

Your calorie goal is set up to lose assuming you're sedentary. As you are clearly not sedentary, you need to either adjust your goal by entering a much higher activity level, or start eating calories back. Or deal with hunger and weight loss that is unhealthily rapid.. I mean, it's your body, but I don't recommend that route.

davert123

Eat it back, really. Losing weight to fast is damaging over a period of time and I presume you want to be lean and healthy not just skinny :-)

starwhisperer6

I eat mine, if I am hungry. If I am not I don't. This has worked just fine for me. Im pretty sure I gained the weight by eating when I wasn't hungry so it isn't something I want to continue now.

middlehaitch

I am with all those that say eat your calories back.
I did while losing, and do while maintaining( 6yr) and I am tiny so only had a 1200 base to work from. If I hadn't eaten the extra 200 a day I had expended through exercise to fuel the exercise I would have burnt out, got ill, & lost muscle very quickly.

MFP is set up for you to eat them. Sometimes you have to play with them a little to be getting the loss you entered into MFP, but tightening up calorie counting methods, weighing and measuring everything that goes in your mouth, should be done before dropping cals.

Not eating them back can cause physical and mental problems, fatigue is generally the first. Great work out, ate your MFP cals but not exercise cals, haven't got the energy to cook dinner and vacuum the house = you are under nourishing your body.

Also, a 2 lb loss with 30lb to lose is a bit drastic. Try 1.5 then 1.
As you lose the weight your calorie requirements drop. If you are not eating back your exercise calories, as you get closer to your goal you will have little or no room to adjust your calories down so you can reach your desired weight.

Long story short- eat your exercise calories, monitor your loss ( over 3-4 weeks) and adjust accordingly.

Cheers, h.

PAV8888

Eat your exercise calories back to achieve a reasonable caloric deficit which leads to weight loss.
Don't eat them back to increase your deficit.

Increase your deficit beyond 20% of your TDEE (25% while you're obese); enjoy the benefit of un-necessarily losing lean mass.

Increase your deficit even more, say close to 50% of your TDEE when you are near a normal weight range, and directly experience the Minnesota starvation experiment.

Since I would rather not (actually go ahead and in the middle of a psychotic episode) chew my hand off, I am happy enough staying in a 10% to 20% deficit off of my Total Daily Energy Expenditure.

TDEE is defined as the SUM of your Non-Exercise Activity Calories PLUS your Actual Exercise Calories.

Use a TRENDING WEIGHT APP (www.trendweight.com; Libra for Android, Happy Scale for IPhone) to discover what your underlying weight trend is actually doing as opposed to responding to water weight variation measured by your unfiltered scale weight.

Adjust your deficits based on your trending weight app results over a period of weeks.

WendyLaubach

I'm not eating back my exercise calories. I'm not feeling fatigued or hungry, and I'm clearly getting stronger, so why eat more? On the other hand, my exercise is fairly moderate and consistent. I might do something very different if I were alternating rest days with really brutal workouts, especially if I felt I was running on empty. Also, I started at 245 lbs. It may be quite different when you're closer to your ideal weight.--A lot of people here report that exercise databases and readouts tend to overestimate calorie burn, and the books I read claim the same thing (one said, for instance, that almost no exercise is really going to give you more than 7 cal./min.). So if you do eat back your calories, be very conservative at first and see how fast the weight is dropping. I see posts here all the time from people who are perplexed by why they're not losing weight, although they believe they're accurately logging all their food and eating back only what they've burned. Unless you're awfully accurate and exercising like Lance Armstrong, eating back too many exercise calories is a good way to reverse your calorie deficit inadvertently.

Christine_72

I really struggle to hit my recommended calories...
I NEED those extra exercise calories

middlehaitch

After a few weeks of consistent logging one can extrapolate ones exercise calorie burn.

MFP was giving me 175-185 for most 60min routines ( I'm tiny) and a good few hundred for Zumba.
I actually average out at 200, 350 for Zumba.
Eating 200 extra 7 days a week for 5 days exercise, including lifting, kept me losing at my goal, and maintaining at my goal.

Each of us are very different, and it is worth taking the time to make sure your calories are supporting your goal.

Cheers, h.

middlehaitch

@rankinsect & @veganbaum well said.

Cheers, h.

Asher_Ethan

Eat them back. 1200 is a really aggressive goal especially for a runner.

Blueseraphchaos

thorsmom01 wrote: »

Personally I would eat the 1760. With only 30 lbs to lose, 2 lbs per week loss goal may be rather aggressive.

This...

I'm down to around 30 lbs to lose and If i set my goal for 2 lbs a week, mfp would tell me to eat 1200 cals/day but i would actually need to eat less than 1000. I'm unsure whether i can even stick to a pound a week with only 1310 calories...I've never eaten so few calories before, lol. Even linked to Fitbit, i don't get a ton of extra calories unless I'm working a 10 hr shift running around all the time.

tmn4honesty

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thorsmom01 wrote: »

Personally I would eat the 1760. With only 30 lbs to lose, 2 lbs per week loss goal may be rather aggressive.

This^

Too fast weight loss makes it harder for your body to support existing lean muscle. If you had a more moderate goal (1 pound a week)....then you would eat part of your exercise calories. But that too is going closer to 1760 calories.[/quote]

I agree at least eat some of it back. You don't want your body to overreact to not being Fed.