Eating Back Exercise Calories

distortedvision78

I do not understand this method for weight loss.

Surely the whole point of exercise is to create a daily calorific deficit so that the body burns fat.

If you're eating the exercise calories back then surely your body mass will remain constant.

L1zardQueen

Read this link. http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10503681/exercise-calories-do-i-eat-these-a-video-explanation/p1

sijomial

There is a whole Help section which explains everything......

Example - https://support.myfitnesspal.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032625391-How-does-MyFitnessPal-calculate-my-initial-goals-

Dogmom1978

I thought this was a joke, like seriously.

Read the thinks above or just think about it.

If I get 1400 calories a day. And then I work out and gain an extra 200 calories. Now I can eat 1600 calories total and my deficit is the same, so I still lose the expected amount of weight.

Sometimes I eat all my exercise calories back and sometimes I eat a portion, depends on how hungry I am. I usually burn 300-400 calories exercising. I consistently lose the expected 1 lb a week, sometimes a little more and sometimes a little less depending on what I’ve splurged on that week.

xodreamariexo

I don’t eat them back unless the exercise causes a deficit of 1200 or less, OR im really craving something & thanks to exercise I have the extra calories. But ideally, I don’t eat them back. I don’t understand it either. And it’s likely that my fitness pal thinks we’re burning more than we are so they could be sabotaging their selves by it.

glassyo

In a nutshell, when you joined mfp, you chose a level of weight loss (.5, 1, 1.5, 2 lbs a week). MFP then gave you a calorie goal dependent on gender, age, activity level. This goal already included the corresponding deficit (250, 500, 750, 1000 calories a week). Purposeful exercise creates more of a deficit which isn't always a good thing.

Yes, if you use mfp's exercise calculations, they might be over estimated. Or they might not. Wouldn't you rather be able to eat more if you can?

I know I would.

And I did.

I lost 120ish lbs eating every last point (when I was on weight watchers) and calorie my no longer sedentary body earned with a year of said overestimating of exercise calories via fitbit thrown in for good measure.

Eat at least a portion of your exercise calories back and reevaluate your weight loss after about 6 weeks.

distortedvision78

My point is weight loss is greater if you don't eat your exercise calories back.

glassyo

distortedvision78 wrote: »

My point is weight loss is greater if you don't eat your exercise calories back.

See above.

Lietchi

distortedvision78 wrote: »

My point is weight loss is greater if you don't eat your exercise calories back.

Faster does NOT equal better. Underfueling your body can come with a lot of 'unpleasantness', from fatigue, brittle nails and hair loss to muscle loss and cardiac problems (the heart is a muscle).

janejellyroll

The point of exercise is to increase fitness and achieve the huge array of other benefits associated with it, not to lose weight (although exercise can certainly be part of creating a calorie deficit).

If the point of exercise was to create a deficit, then there wouldn't be any reason for people at their goal weight to exercise. Yet we see all kinds of people enjoying exercise.

The bottom line: healthy people fuel their activity by considering their overall energy needs, including the energy burned through exercise. This can either be through a method like MFP's (receiving a base calorie goal and then adding more when intentional exercise is done) or a TDEE method (setting a daily calorie goal that includes the calories burnt through exercise).

NovusDies

Weight loss is a byproduct of reducing stored energy in the body. This is done by depriving the body adequate energy from food. To lose weight healthily this needs to be a very controlled and overall minor energy deficit. If this is not the case you risk it becoming an energy crisis. The crisis begins the moment you have reached your maximum capacity of stored fat utilization and your body turns to muscle for fuel. To preserve muscle it then begins to try to scale back less important energy demands which is why losing hair is common for people in a prolonged aggressive deficit. That is just one symptom though. Fatigue will make a person miserable. Cognition, temper, and patience can be impacted. Depression can set in. The more miserable you are the less likely you will be able to keep losing weight. This helps explain why 95 percent of all weight loss efforts end in failure... they focus on speed.

It is faster to lose weight slower and sustainably. This is because your chance of success goes up. If you can feel good enough while losing long enough it results in major losses. Yo-yoing with dramatic weight drops that end in failure just means you will have to keep starting over... so slower.

sijomial

distortedvision78 wrote: »

My point is weight loss is greater if you don't eat your exercise calories back.

Well that's very different to your OP!

So you do understand how MFP works, you do know exercise isn't just for burning calories and you do know that if you take your actual exercise calories into account you will still lose weight?

NovusDies

Oh and it is common if a person is losing weight too fast to feel completely normal or even great. FOR A SHORT TIME. It is often assumed it means that you are doing something positive and that your body is grateful. It can be a little of that. If a person loses a nice tidy amount of water weight it can help in a variety of places. Fat loss can reduce strain on organs and certainly make it easier to climb a flight of stairs. It is also possible that your body will want you to feel good because it thinks you may need to hunt or gather more food which would be more difficult if you were fatigued.

It can take weeks or months for all the unhealthy aspects of aggressive weight loss to catch up with you. I like to say that the body is highly resilient until it isn't. When it becomes impaired it can take a very long time to fix it and during that time your medical team will not want you to lose any additional weight and may even have you eating in a surplus for a time.

Dogmom1978

So, I don’t exercise to lose weight. It’s an added benefit if it helps create a SLIGHTLY larger deficit. Trying to drop it like it’s hot is a sure fire way to fail miserably. Slow and steady gets you to goal and STAYING at goal is done by creating sustainable habits along the way.

@xodreamariexo the calories burned by said exercise are often overestimated by the people who input the activities. Most of us can get an idea of what we actually burn (for example my dog walks: I use a gps that tells me distance and average speed, then I subtract out any stops for the dogs to get a drink or play). I subtract 20% off any burn that cardio machines give me and I go with an extremely conservative number for weight lifting.

My activity level is sedentary (desk job) and mfp sets my calorie goal as such. Then I add in my exercise. I don’t think there is such a thing as “you MUST eat all these calories back”, but I earned them and I’m going to eat some of them back. It would also be unhealthy weight loss if I didn’t eat them back on weekends when I go hiking. If I do an all day hike, I can burn upwards of 800 calories. I only eat 1400. If I didn’t eat most of that 800 back, I would be well below 1200. I like to have energy also, and frankly, for the crowd who never eats those calories back, it will catch up with you and you will crash at some point.

Best of luck

xodreamariexo

My point to my original comment is that I don’t exercise to be able to eat more, or create more of a deficit. I exercise to strengthen my heart & muscles. Some days I exercise I still eat over my calorie goal because it’s one of those days. Some days I exercise I eat just as must as if I didn’t exercise. Whatever it happens to be. I never plan to eat back my exercise calories but many times I do. However if the exercise caused an unhealthy deficit, which rarely happens(I usually eat a lot & I’m not huge on exercise so I never do more than 30 min of cardio in one day), I make sure to consume a healthy amount. BEFORE you judge you need to understand a person’s situation. If I eat all of my calorie goal of 2000 calories for example, & burn 150 calories on the elliptical for 20 minutes, I will be fine not eating those calories back.

Dogmom1978

xodreamariexo wrote: »

My point to my original comment is that I don’t exercise to be able to eat more, or create more of a deficit. I exercise to strengthen my heart & muscles. Some days I exercise I still eat over my calorie goal because it’s one of those days. Some days I exercise I eat just as must as if I didn’t exercise. Whatever it happens to be. I never plan to eat back my exercise calories but many times I do. However if the exercise caused an unhealthy deficit, which rarely happens(I usually eat a lot & I’m not huge on exercise so I never do more than 30 min of cardio in one day), I make sure to consume a healthy amount. BEFORE you judge you need to understand a person’s situation. If I eat all of my calorie goal of 2000 calories for example, & burn 150 calories on the elliptical for 20 minutes, I will be fine not eating those calories back.

@xodreamariexo you got so many disagrees because your original comment did NOT make that clear AT ALL. If I only burn 100 calories, I probably won’t even bother logging it or I might, but won’t eat those calories back because they won’t cause me to be hungry.

The OP seems to think that eating them back causes weight gain or at least causes less weight loss, which simply isn’t the way it works.

sarahbetherck

I eat back most of my exercise calories and still consistently lose weight.

ninerbuff

distortedvision78 wrote: »

My point is weight loss is greater if you don't eat your exercise calories back.

Starving does that too.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

AnnPT77

distortedvision78 wrote: »

My point is weight loss is greater if you don't eat your exercise calories back.

And maintenance is harder if we don't practice and refine the skills we need.

Fueling at varied exercise/activity levels is a skill.

That's assuming a person's loss routine successfully takes them all the way to maintenance, of course.