Eating back exercise calories

waitingformyruca

MFP sets you at a caloric deficit when your goal is to lose weight right? So am I supposed to eat the back calories I gain through exercise, and if I dont does that mean I can lose weight faster?

MikePTY

MFP already sets you a deficit that doesn't include any of your exercise activity. So when you exercise, your body burns more, which means you should eat more calories to maintain the deficit that MFP recommends for you.

If you do not eat them back, it's possible you might lose weight faster. But MFP promotes healthy and sustainable weight loss, not rapid weight loss. Not providing your body with enough energy can lead to a lot of negative health consequences, including muscle loss. It also makes it harder to sustain your habits long term, leading to yoyo dieting and weight regain. It is better to follow the MFP recommendations and eat your exercise calories back.

If you feel like your calorie burned estimates are too high, you may want to tart by eating 50-75% of them back until you get a better idea of how many calories you are actually burning. But it is important to account for your exercise in your daily energy intake.

Panini911

YES MFP is designed for your to eat those exercise calories.
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10503681/exercise-calories-do-i-eat-these-a-video-explanation/p1

losing faster is not always better and can even have some negative long term health consequences. You also need to fuel your body for the exercise. the MFP calorie goal does NOT fuel you for exercise (it is not with MFP's base calorie recommendation).

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10552826/why-is-eating-under-calorie-count-a-good-idea

Scottgriesser

Common recommendations found all over the interwebs is never fall below 1200 net cals.

MFP uses this as its floor. Regardless of what you set your goal to, it will never go below that. It assumes you are going to eat back calories to hit your number that equates to your goal.

Yes, you could go below that number and "lose weight faster", but as mentioned it isn't recommended for health reasons.

You didn't get overweight in a week, so you shouldn't try to/expect to get back in a week either.

tinkerbellang83

Maxxitt

As noted, eating back exercise calories is recommended. The caveat is that estimating exercise calories is more of a guesstimate than estimating calories in (even with weighing/measuring and using the famously variable data base). My general practice is to let my appetite be my guide and aim to leave up to half of the exercise calories un-eaten. Seems to work for me, according to my data collection.