Eating back exercise calories

Telfordp283

232lbs
25 percent bf

Deadlift 240kg 1rm
Squat 160kg 1rm
Bench 120kg 1rm

Training to gain muscle and strength and lose fat . Gained some good muscle and lost alot of fat to get where I am now with the help of my fitness pal on 2800 calories but recently I've felt tired and unable to push past any of my current best lifts and muscle gain seems to have halted however fat loss has continued quite steadily . As of today I've started to add exercise calories to mfp and plan on eating them back stopping short by maybe a couple hundred calories . Anyone think this is a good idea and think I will jump start the muscle gain again ? Thoughts appreciated

TavistockToad

So is 2800 cals maintenance or a surplus?

Not many people I know of keep bulking at 25% bodyfat.

heybales

What tells you that you were gaining good muscle and that muscle gains have halted?

And what period of time are you talking about here with your comments?

caloriemuse

This is only one small part of your question, perhaps not even really the part of the question you find most useful. That said I think the title will draw lots of attention.

The best explanation I've ever heard regarding exercise and how to understand how to account for the calories burned in a diet plan is from Yoni Freedhoff. In this 39+ minute video, he reviews a large number of studies, goes over a number of perspectives on the subject of exercise https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7FK8noIc5I
His blog is here: http://www.weightymatters.ca/

I'll warning you that if you've been enjoying the out of the box equation that MFP uses regarding adding your exercise calories back in as if they represent More you can eat (what's not to like), this information will be disappointing. On the flip side if you've been conducting a diet that is heavily reliant on calories burned during exercise to produce a calorie deficit overall and you've been disappointed with the results, now you'll know why.