We are pleased to announce that on March 4, 2025, an updated Rich Text Editor will be introduced in the MyFitnessPal Community. To learn more about the upcoming changes, please click here. We look forward to sharing this new feature with you!
1400 calories per day
sarahjgibson79
Posts: 2 Member
Hi, ive been allocated 1400 calories, this was based on working a desk job however I have started exercising 3 times a week which earns calories and I feel hungrier..can I eat some of the earnt calories or will this hinder weight loss, im new here, thank you
0
Answers
-
you should eat back at least some of them - that is how MFP system is designed to work.3
-
Ive just updated my DOB in the app and it's increased my base goal calories is that correct??0
-
Yes, you should eat exercise calories back, or at least some part of them.
Your DOF: are you younger now? so yeah, this might give you a few calories extra.2 -
I listen to a lot of fitness channels on YouTube and to be honest, they all say not to eat them back. It sets a bad precedent, and you will overeat and hinder your weight loss. I too only am allotted 1400cal and I stick to it solely. Eating the extra calories you are "given" is kind of gimmicky and should not be treated as a practice. Eat your 1400cal or whatever your daily goal is and stay with it. It's all about that deficit so eating more is only going to slow down progress. I can say that within the last 30days, I have dropped 10lbs on the scale, by staying in my deficit and not eating calories back.1
-
I listen to a lot of fitness channels on YouTube and to be honest, they all say not to eat them back. It sets a bad precedent, and you will overeat and hinder your weight loss. I too only am allotted 1400cal and I stick to it solely. Eating the extra calories you are "given" is kind of gimmicky and should not be treated as a practice. Eat your 1400cal or whatever your daily goal is and stay with it. It's all about that deficit so eating more is only going to slow down progress. I can say that within the last 30days, I have dropped 10lbs on the scale, by staying in my deficit and not eating calories back.
That's, I'm sorry to be so frank rubbish because you can't compare statements without understand the system they operate under. MFP is designed for exercise calories to be eaten back. The average TDEE calculator already includes calories for exercise. Both are different ways.
The MFP way has a couple of advantages: this way you learn what the calorie influence is of exercise. And it might help build new habits. On the other hand, this might not work for everyone and then exercise should be factored into the total. Besides, say TO exercises for 300 calories every day. Then she's eating 1400 calories - 300 = 1100. That's very little. How long do you think she could keep this up without crashing and burning out? Would she get sufficient nutrition from 1100 calories? Yes, I'm exaggerating now, but maybe not so much considering you say you lost 2.5lbs per week. Now look again what the maximum weightloss goal per week here is and compare. And why this might be? If you're very obese you're fine. Or not.
Hey, why not make this about sustainable weightloss that hopefully stays away for once, and not about 'she who suffers most wins'?8 -
The most important thing is track what you're consuming, and track your weight change. Everything else is just guesswork. Most of your weight loss is from diet. You didn't say what weight loss rate you requested which resulted in that 1,400 estimate, however since MFP does not include intentional exercise in that number, then you should assume the real target is a little higher. IMO, eating back 50% of exercise calories here is a reasonable option. Then, as mentioned, track your weight change and adjust as needed.sarahjgibson79 wrote: »Hi, ive been allocated 1400 calories, this was based on working a desk job however I have started exercising 3 times a week which earns calories and I feel hungrier..can I eat some of the earnt calories or will this hinder weight loss, im new here, thank you
Yes and no.I listen to a lot of fitness channels on YouTube and to be honest, they all say not to eat them back. It sets a bad precedent, and you will overeat and hinder your weight loss. I too only am allotted 1400cal and I stick to it solely. Eating the extra calories you are "given" is kind of gimmicky and should not be treated as a practice. Eat your 1400cal or whatever your daily goal is and stay with it. It's all about that deficit so eating more is only going to slow down progress. I can say that within the last 30days, I have dropped 10lbs on the scale, by staying in my deficit and not eating calories back.
A generic online TDEE calculator will include all of your weekly activity. The MFP system excludes intentional exercise from that, so it would be wrong to say "use the MFP number then don't eat any exercise calories".
OTOH, there is plenty of evidence that we do not actually "gain" 100% of exercise calories burned, so I agree the premise is flawed, and prone to error if you over-estimate exercise calories which is easy to do. However, it's also a flawed premise to count 0%. Which is why I recommend 50% as a reasonable solution.5 -
The main thing to keep in mind is:
1. despite our best attempts, our calculation of calories eaten will be flawed. maybe we eyeballed something wrong. maybe we measured it in grams perfectly but the MFP entry we chose for that food was a little off.
2. our knowledge of just how many calories we burn when we exercise is also imperfect. fitness watches are imperfect. burn estimates on machines are worse.
this is why the answer is “sort of” when it comes to “can i eat those calories back?” give it a try and see if you still lose weight. if you don’t start eating less back. rinse and repeat.5 -
@yirara MFP has recently changed the multiplier assigned to the various activity definitions.
As such any recalculation/setup update, either for age or weight lost may show an increase in calories available to eat for a given deficit.
E.g. a multiplier change from 1.25 to 1.4 for entry level activity is 0.15 * BMR more calories. This will probably exceed a small BMR decrease for being a year older or losing 5 or 10lbs (sub 5kg)3 -
I listen to a lot of fitness channels on YouTube and to be honest, they all say not to eat them back. It sets a bad precedent, and you will overeat and hinder your weight loss. I too only am allotted 1400cal and I stick to it solely. Eating the extra calories you are "given" is kind of gimmicky and should not be treated as a practice. Eat your 1400cal or whatever your daily goal is and stay with it. It's all about that deficit so eating more is only going to slow down progress. I can say that within the last 30days, I have dropped 10lbs on the scale, by staying in my deficit and not eating calories back.
Yirara's point is key, about this. It's essential to understand the system you're using. Not doing that is IMO what "sets a bad precedent", and I'll explain why.
If using the "MFP way" a person sets their calorie goal based on their lifestyle not including exercise, by choosing the right activity level in MFP as a starting point. They then estimate exercise calories carefully, and eat those calories, too. That keeps their calorie deficit the same.
Just as an example, round numbers: If I burn 2000 calories a day before exercise, and I want to lose a pound a week, my calorie goal to do that would be 1500. If I then do 350 calories worth of exercise 3x a week, simplistically that means I'd burn 2350 calories on exercise days rather than 2000. Subtract 500 from that, to keep the same pound a week loss goal, so I eat 1850 those days instead of 1500.
The other way, as noted above, is the TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) method. A person sets their calorie goal considering all their activity, including their average daily exercise activity. They eat the same number of calories every day.
,
Just as an example: I burn 2000 calories doing daily life stuff as above, but I exercise 3 times a week for 350 calories. That makes my average daily calorie burn - including the exercise - 2150. That's my basic 2000, plus 3 times 350 = 1050 divided by 7 days which is 150, for a daily total of 2150 on average. Subtract 500 calories from that to lose a pound a week, eat the same amount every day, 1650 calories.
In either example scenario, I'm eating the same number of calories per week, so I'll get the same weight loss results. The difference is just an accounting method. If either method is applied correctly, the exercise calories don't wipe out the calorie deficit.
Of course all of this is estimates, but we don't need exactitude, just workable estimates. Every sensible person should test out their calorie theory - no matter the source or method - for 4-6 weeks or at least one whole menstrual period - then adjust if necessary based on real-world actual results.
Yes, eating more calories will always result in slower weight loss (with a few weird, specialized exceptions . . . maybe). But faster weight loss isn't necessarily better weight loss. For one, fast loss increases health risks. Nothing bad is definitely guaranteed to happen, but bad outcomes become more likely the faster the loss. Some of the potential bad outcomes are very bad indeed: Muscle loss, gallbladder problems, hair falling out, and more. There are more subtle bad things that aren't pleasant, too, like weakness, fatigue, feeling cold all the time, suppressed immune system, etc.
On top of that, too low a calorie goal is hard to stick with, more likely to cause bouts of deprivation-triggered over-eating, breaks in the action, or giving up altogether because it's Just. Too. Hard. Sometimes a slower loss rate will get a person to goal weight in less calendar time than an aggressive plan that has those kinds of oopsies involved.
Yes, if a person has a relatively slow planned loss rate, and doesn't do a lot of intense exercise, it's probably fine under either method to skip eating any exercise calories, and let the exercise cause somewhat faster weight loss.
On the flip side, if a person picks a very aggressively fast loss rate, then stacks a bunch of long, intense daily exercise on top of that, they're more likely to generate those health risks (and early-failure risks) I mentioned above. It's not a good plan.
In between, it's a matter of how much risk a person wants to take with their health. What matters on that front is the actual loss rate, not the accounting method a person uses to get there.
Personally, I don't like health risks. I'm also a fairly consistent, heavy exerciser. I lost around 50 pounds in a bit less than a year, eating back all of my carefully-estimated exercise calories, and am happy with that rate. I've also maintained my weight successfully for 9+ years since, helped with that by understanding how my exercise effort contributed to calorie needs: There have been times, multiple weeks sometimes, where I couldn't do my normal exercise because of things like illness, injury, surgical recovery, competing life challenges that sucked up my time, etc.
I could still maintain weight with or without exercise. To me, that's the real goal, not just white-knuckling it through to goal weight with the biggest deficit I could manage, but staying at a healthy weight long term using new, practiced habits that can run almost on autopilot when life gets complicated . . . because it will.
P.S. The examples above are simplistic for illustrative purposes, and accurate enough as a generality. In the real world, there are complexities like a person differing from the population averages that any of the calculators/estimators spit out; over-estimating exercise calories in various ways since there are better and worse methods; calorie compensation as Retro points out from over-exercising to the point of fatigue so bleeding calorie burn out of daily life and effectively wiping out some of the exercise calories, and more. This is not the place to explain or debate those, but I want to be clear that I was being simplistic in order to be clear about the basic "calorie accounting methods" ideas.5 -
ugh. Just don't eat them back and call it a day. Makes life that much easier.
Eric Roberts explain why you should not eat them back here:
https://youtu.be/x8-dlI35PnA?si=60k0e1_d4PHbUNSG
And there are so many other people that explain the same thing. And as others have mentioned here, calorie counters are imperfect. Sure play the game and see if you can eat them back...but why play the game and see when you could just stick to your calorie goal and already win the game?
Make it make sense.1 -
ugh. Just don't eat them back and call it a day. Makes life that much easier.
Eric Roberts explain why you should not eat them back here:https://youtu.be/x8-dlI35PnA?si=60k0e1_d4PHbUNSG
And there are so many other people that explain the same thing. And as others have mentioned here, calorie counters are imperfect. Sure play the game and see if you can eat them back...but why play the game and see when you could just stick to your calorie goal and already win the game?
Make it make sense.
Based on that line of thinking, the only sure thing to do would be to eat nothing, and all error is removed, and weight loss is a guarantee. An intentionally extreme example, but only to make a point.
Do you think you could run 15-20 miles a week and eat the same amounts you do now without being much more hungry? Adding exercise increases deficit for those losing weight, and at some point you have to compensate or you will either suffer increased hunger, lack of workout performance, or both.
Obviously this has to be reasonable, and care should be taken to make sure exercise calorie burns are reasonable before eating back those calories. A person can't walk a half mile and eat a big tub of ice cream. But if a person burns XX extra calories they can eat XX more food and remain at the same weight loss trend.
Long term, people should use their weight trends as well as exercise trends to adjust for any error in the loop, which we already know exists. As for basing anything on what you find online, I would say use caution when taking such approach. Because you can find extreme examples of people twisting science to suit what they want to say.3 -
-
ugh. Just don't eat them back and call it a day. Makes life that much easier.
Eric Roberts explain why you should not eat them back here:https://youtu.be/x8-dlI35PnA?si=60k0e1_d4PHbUNSG
And there are so many other people that explain the same thing. And as others have mentioned here, calorie counters are imperfect. Sure play the game and see if you can eat them back...but why play the game and see when you could just stick to your calorie goal and already win the game?
Make it make sense.
So, here we are on a web site, designed in consultation with dietitians and weight loss experts, that is structured to allow us to estimate our base calorie needs, and add exercise calories when we do some. That teaches the useful lesson, move more, eat more; move less, eat less . . . or else.
But we are fools to follow that model, and should listen to YouTube . . . influencers? . . . who probably don't use the site, and certainly don't understand its structure.
OK. You do you. I wish you luck when it comes time to maintain your weight long term, sincerely.
Fortunately, this app does allow people like you to use the app in the way you prefer. I support people here who choose the TDEE approach, and who use it intelligently.
But trying to convince others to do your thing instead of the app's thing, based on some YouTubers, when you clearly don't understand the whys and wherefores of the site that could have some benefits for others . . . well, I think that's one step over a line, but that's just my opinion.
P.S. I won already: Getting close to 10 years at a healthy weight, after around 30 previous years of overweight/obesity . . . doing it the MFP way, adding exercise calories separately. But it's not a game. It's a fun, productive science fair experiment for grown-ups, with the potential big prize of long term health weight as the outcome. There's math (and statistics) involved, whether the accounting is TDEE method or MFP method. Understanding those a bit can improve odds of success with either method.5 -
ugh. Just don't eat them back and call it a day. Makes life that much easier.
I dont know who Eric Roberts is or why what he has to say about MFP program is more important than what MFP says itsef - but just on above point - how is not tracking exercise making life that much easier?
If you are already tracking your intake calories - which presumably anyone using MFP system is - it isn't hard to also track your intentional exercise calories.
Most people do the same or similar exercises from day to day so once "jogging at medium pace" for example, is in your data base you just add however many minutes you do that day and eat back at least some of the calories it says you burned.0 -
Oh, so I’m just supposed to be fine not eating back exercise calories because who cares that MFP isn’t a TDEE calculator? Guess 900 calories is plenty to fuel me while running three businesses, managing a household and family, maintaining my health, and having enough energy for everything else. Seriously? This is one of the most dismissive and shortsighted responses I’ve seen in a long time.3
-
Oh FFS. Why did I waste my time listening to this guy just trying to promote his other videos?
Sure half the stuff he says is correct. Sure half the terms he uses are incorrectly used (1500 Caldeficit when talking about a 1500 Cal eating goal) and half the other stuff he says is either stretching the truth or not understanding what he is talking about himself.*
But you know when I stopped the stupid video? When he started talking about calories cycling around your exercise days.
Gee like that doesn't mean eating more calories because you've exercised. But wrapped in a different explanation.
Really at the end of the day your actual deficit will determine whether you lose, gain, or stay even.
And that includes the calories you counted correctly going in, the ones you didn't count correctly going in, the ones you counted correctly going out, and the ones you didn't count correctly going out. Correct or incorrect the final number over a long enough term and once you've managed to account for the uncertainties and limitations of your ability to measure progress is going to be dependent on what really did or did not go out
You don't have to count anything to lose weight.
Or you can count calories if you want to and think that it can help you achieve reasonably set goals.
None of the counts are exactly right. For many reasons. But over time consistently counting can help you make some pretty good decisions.
If you're willing and able to put in the work.
* In particular I like the one about the watches not being able to account for improved performance. Now you *could* be arguing that in fact the watches are unable to correctly account for actual underperformance by someone who is new to an exercise where their off the wall heart rate is incorrectly assumed to correlate to a higher work effort and burn.
But that's not what he argued.
He argued that the trained person will be seeing an inflated count.
To the contrary the trained person is likely to see amore accurate or an underinflated count because their heart rate will be significantly lower while they're still engageging in actual work.
And again it doesn't matter if there is consistency and we are talking about something that happens more than once a week or once a month.
TEF from protein is a nice bonus but talk about majoring in the minors. And it has to do with your calories in not out, the same way that you could be discussing what percentage of nut calories are absorbed depending on which nuts you chose to eat. Probably not a particularly productive issue to focus on starting out
How about don't go nuts and just use the tools the way they are intended to be used and adjust over time?5
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 394.3K Introduce Yourself
- 44K Getting Started
- 260.4K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.6K Food and Nutrition
- 47.3K Recipes
- 232.7K Fitness and Exercise
- 389 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.4K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 153.1K Motivation and Support
- 8.1K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.3K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 4K MyFitnessPal Information
- 16 News and Announcements
- 1.2K Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.7K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions