Eating back what I worked off?

jkl555

Hello everyone! My name is Jen and I live in New Jersey. I'm fairly new to MFP in the sense I just stared actually utilizing it even though it's been sitting in my apps forever lol. So I'm a little confused when it comes to my daily diary on MFP. Am I supposed to be eating back everything I've worked off calories wise in a day so everything is zeroed out? Because I don't and I usually have anywhere from 200-700 calories remaining a day depending on what I ate/how much I worked out. But I've read you're supposed to eat back everything you worked off. Can someone please clarify? Thanks so much!

animatorswearbras

Yes it's worked into the formula to eat back exercise calories although if you are unsure about your burns and they're just guesses you could eat back a percentage of them 50-75% until you have a better idea of how much you're really burning after a couple of months, or if you really aren't hungry enough to eat your cals back on the same day you burn you can eat them later in the week and go over your cals (some people call it banking cals or working to a weekly deficit, I do this)

The thing is you need to fuel your burns otherwise you'll just end up burning off muscle if your deficit is too aggressive. Hope that helps. x

BusyRaeNOTBusty

Yes, the app is designed for you to eat back what you burn.

cwolfman13

Your calorie target is your deficit WITHOUT any deliberate exercise...exercise isn't included in your activity level...it is unaccounted for activity. Common sense would dictate that all activity should be accounted for and in the case of MFP, exercise activity is accounted for after the fact when you log it and get additional calories. Learning to fuel your activity and fuel your fitness is important. An overly aggressive calorie deficit is sup optimal at best and can actually be dangerous and lead to all kinds of bad *kitten* down the road.

Look at the math...if MFP gives me 1900 calories to lose 1Lb per month, it's assuming my sedentary maintenance is 2,400 calories. If I exercise everyday and burn 600 calories, MFP will up my calories to 2,500...I would still lose at the same rate because my maintenance with the exercise would go from 2,400 to 3,000 calories and 3,000 - 2500 = 500 calorie deficit still.

estherdragonbat

Try eating back half to start with. MFP overestimates calorie burns sometimes.