Can I just skip the exercise? Confused by another thread...

cwolfman13

You're correct. If you eat back all your exercise calories, exercise becomes pointless, from a weight-loss standpoint.

Not to mention the fact that if you overestimate your caloric burn during your workout, you will actually be WORSE off than if you didn't exercise at all.

Is anyone really reading and comprehending this? Not that exercise is pointless but that if you eat all the calories back then it negates the calorie burn of the workout as far as weight loss goes. Not that exercise isn't going to help your fitness even if you eat those calories back.

Here's what you're missing...my MFP calorie goal to lose 1 Lb per week was 1,860 calories...this was based on a lightly active NEAT activity level (DOES NOT INCLUDE EXERCISE)....it includes a weight loss deficit already...my actual NEAT maintenance is 2,360. If I go out and do a 15 mile ride, I'll burn roughly 600 calories...given that my calorie goal is based on my NEAT (as per the MFP method), that exercise is completely unaccounted for. So if I don't eat them, I've now created a 1,100 calorie deficit when my goal was a 500 calorie deficit to lose 1 Lb per week. At no point during my weight loss did I ever have the fat stores necessary to sustain such a deficit.

I lost 40 Lbs averaging about 1 Lb per week loss all the while eat back exercise calories...so your notion that eating back exercise calories negates the weight loss benefits of exercise is completely and utterly invalid. It is only a valid assumption if you're actually trying to create a calorie deficit with exercise or are utilizing the TDEE method. If you're using MFP as designed (a NEAT method calculator) then it works just fine.

I honestly fail to see how something this simple is missed on so many people...it's really, really, really friggin easy and just basic mathematics....

Perhaps others aren't subscribing to the MFP system, where slow weight loss is recommended (for everyone, no matter their weight). If you're 40 lbs overweight and believe that the only right way to lose weight is to eat back your calories because you're on a 1200 calorie diet, good for you. That will work. If someone else is, perhaps, 100 lbs overweight and they're eating 1800 calories and NOT eating their calories back, good for them. That will work, too. If someone is eating 1200 calories and burning 600 calories every day, that's probably not so good and can have health consequences (hair and muscle loss, vitamin/mineral deficiency, et cetera). Sometimes, I eat back my calories. Sometimes I don't. Those weeks that I eat back the cals, my weight loss slows to about 1 lb; weeks where I've not eaten back the calories, I average about 2 lbs a week. Unfortunately for me, I have a pretty good store of fat, so I can get away with this. Lots of variables here to consider so I don't think it's just basic math.

Again...and just to reitterate...UNDERSTAND the FRIGGIN' TOOL YOU ARE USING....I assume people ascribe to the MFP method here because...well, this is friggin' MFP and they have like 1 post and don't know their head from their *kitten* when it comes to nutrition and fitness. Generally speaking, people who know what the frack is going on are pretty much ok....

Srsly...this is some easy *kitten* friggin' ****.....Srssssllyyyyyy.....