Eating back calories..

Alpine021

I've read lots of posts and replies about this and I stressed about it as well. Thinking - my calories are correct today to hit my goal for my deficit but I've worked out out. Now what - eat them back??

But I read a really good article recently that sensibly argues - you're thinking about it the wrong way

Everyone myself included loves an example.. Say your maintenance calories are 2500 (you can work this out easily just by googling it and using online calculators) and you want to lose 1lb a weight which is a 500 calorie deficit a day therefore 2000 calories (or you might be using a % deficit - it doesn't matter, male or female) 500 calories / 20% deficit is the most recommended amount.

Day 1) You eat 2000 calories and don't workout. You've hit your deficit goal and did what you need for fat loss to occur ✅

Day 2) You workout. It doesn't matter what you do but you burn 500 calories. You then eat your normal 2500 calories and you have hit your deficit calorie goal but this time through exercise. Again - ✅ (I just like the ticks!)

So what if you do both? Simple - you've just created a larger deficit. Is this OK? Yes. As long as it's not huge. So in the example maybe 500 food deficit and 250 calories from exercise so 750 deficit total.

As lots of articles have stated you could have a bigger deficit everyday and lose fat quicker but it's hard to sustain, increased muscle loss, harder to recover for future workouts, less energy etc.. so you want the happy medium.

In summary - use workouts and diet in tandem to create your deficit. Some days when I work out I eat a bit more which I enjoy. Also sometimes I'll have larger deficits in the week to make up for slightly overindulging at weekends. But per week I'm losing 1-2 pounds and still enjoying myself. I just have to work a bit harder in the week.

Hope this helps a bit

Afura

It's also about understanding that the MFP estimate can be off from what your actual burn is. Even some band calculations are off as well. To be safe eat back about 50% of those calories, not everything. And that your body doesn't care about what you were over 1 day, it's about the overall loss, which is why you can look at your calories per week instead of just by the day.

Alpine021

I round everything down. Also I don't use MFP for burn. I have a band and if says 300 calls I put 200 on MFP. if I do 450 calories on the treadmill I put 300 on MFP. Not that I don't trust the data I just think it's a buffer this way. And like I said I do my calories over a week not day by day so agreed it's the overall loss

emmarrgh

Yep, MFP gives me 1,700 exercise cals a day, which I *know* is not accurate, so I definitely don't eat them back.

I attempt to eat around 1500 a day, give or take 200 a day if I feel extra hungry from exercise, or a bad night's sleep, or if dinner is just too delicious to stop eating lol.

happysherri

It's all about trial and error, everyone is different. I was doing as your example states for over 3 weeks and went to a plateau. For about the past 1 1/2 weeks I stopped eating back my exercise calories and now I have broke that plateau! For now I do not eat back my exercise calories, that may change in the future (but definitely will give time). Thanks

Spliner1969

I think as long as your deficit isn't too bad, you absolutely can create a bigger deficit if you want using exercise. Matter of fact, if you're using MFP's method (NEAT) then that's the way it was designed. Set yourself at 1lb/wk loss which is 500 calories a day deficit. That way on days you rest and do no exercise it isn't so hard to stay at or under your goal. On days you work out, you should get to eat back those calories because you've done extra effort, but if you only want to eat a portion of them back and create an extra 500 calorie deficit then that's completely fine as long as you're getting enough calories overall that you aren't doing harm to yourself. However, if you set yourself at a 2lb/wk loss, then do exercise and don't eat back those calories, you're probably heading for injury or poor health in the near future.

Alpine021

Love the way everyone keeps mentioning eating them back when I'm trying to get rid of the phrase! At the end of a day say you are 300 calories short of your deficit caloric goal (so maybe effectively 800 short) you either have some food if you want or have a larger deficit. Alter your mindset! Nothing to do with eating anything back.

Alpine021

Just to note I'm not saying "eating back" calories is technically incorrect I just feel it complicates things when you could just view weight loss (fat loss) as using using diet and exercise to reach you daily calorie target.

rsclause

I always ate back when I was logging. The weird thing is that when I would go way low thinking "I am going to kill this" I would get sick and wouldn't really lose any weight. I would need days to recover and had to stop my running. I learned a slight deficit is my sweet spot to lose weight consistently.

CattOfTheGarage

But the most important question is: how do you write those ticks?

cwolfman13

I never found any of this to be particularly confusing and actually rather intuitive. You move more, you can eat more, regardless of weight management objectives.

Afura

Alpine021 wrote: »

Just to note I'm not saying "eating back" calories is technically incorrect I just feel it complicates things when you could just view weight loss (fat loss) as using using diet and exercise to reach you daily calorie target.

MFP gives you a healthy deficit to lose weight without exercise. Because you don't need exercise to lose weight, exercise is great for your overall body health. If you exercise and burn calories, you put those calories back in keeping the deficit as is.

Christine_72

I'm doing things a little differently now. I've set MFP to sedentary maintenance calories , and create a deficit with exercise. I've only got 2-3kgs left to lose, so am not in a hurry. This seems to be working well so far.

This also helps on hungry days, as i know i can eat all of my calories up to maintenance and i won't have those stupid red numbers taunting me.

lemonychild

cwolfman13 wrote: »

I never found any of this to be particularly confusing and actually rather intuitive. You move more, you can eat more, regardless of weight management objectives.

exactly. very intuitive. but seems many love extremity

Alpine0021

cwolfman13 wrote: »

I never found any of this to be particularly confusing and actually rather intuitive. You move more, you can eat more, regardless of weight management objectives.

I hope it is intuitive but lots of people don't know what NEAT is, EPOC, LISS cardio etc. I knew about NEAT but didn't know it had an actual name so to speak! Just trying to keep it simple for everyone as on this page we all have the same goals and it's not easy.