eating back calories results and expreiences

nikkiclaire123

i know this has been asked ALOT. It seems 50% of people eat them back and 50% dont.

so i was wondering... do you eat them back? and do you still lose weight?

or if you dont eat them back, do you lose more weight than those who do?

lucan07

I eat back some of my exercise calories to keep my nett at a minimum of 75% suggested and have lost 23.35lbs in 8 weeks with no ill effect, I am much fitter and stronger. All done with medical approval following long illness, as I could not eat back enough of the calories I was burning doing cardio on consultants and dieticians advice I reduced the cardio and increased the strength training.

Greenrun99

You see all these posts on here about people binge eating, or can't control their eating or always hungry.. you know what they all have in common.. not eating back exercise calories. There is no need to create huge deficits and not enjoy things in life when you can and still lose.

Naener

Youre supposed to eat them back, after exercising, look at the NET calorie section on MFP... when you exercise, youre burning and using calories youve already eaten.. if you have MFP set to put you at a deficit ALREADY.. then you eat LESS and BURN some of those you ate... YES you need to eat MORE to make up for it. If you have eaten 800 calories before dinner... and worked out for an hour and burned 400 calories... youve only given your body 400 calories to RUN OFF OF and live... if you eat a dinner thats 500 calories, youre still only at 900 calories for the day...

if youre BMR is 1300 calories... that means you would need at LEAST 1300 calories to live if you were in a COMA... asleep all day and not moving.. just breathing and keeping your body alive takes 1300 calories a day... even if you have a desk job, you need WAY more than 1300 calories to keep your body and brain running at capacity all day... if youre working out, you need MUCH more than that... starvation mode isnt just detrimental to your body... youll mess up your brain functionality too... memory goes, youll feel tired and irritated all the time.

EAT BACK YOUR CALORIES...if you have MFP set at a deficit, make sure your NET calories at the end of the sat, meets that deficit goal! Sometimes its hard.. esp if youre working out HARD, to eat MORE... i have a hard time eating enough on some days... its a daily grind for sure! haha

Funkenstein7

Great answer :flowerforyou:

SouthernCountryGirl

My experience: if I eat back my exercise calories I don't lose weight. Everyone is different. Through trial and error I've found that I lose best on a 1200 calorie diet and not eating back my exercise calories. Is this how I plan to live the rest of my life? No, this is simply what works for me at this moment in time. Once I reach my goal weight, I'll have to shift it some in order to maintain. I also make sure to get plenty of protein and take a good multi-vitamin everyday. Do I cheat, yes I do. When life interrupts I don't get crazed about it. I enjoy and get back on track the next day. Hope you find what you're looking for

aklove907

I eat mine back (or try to) and I have lost over 7lbs in two weeks! Some days it's hard to eat all back, so I get as close as I can. Don't deprive yourself!

QuietBloom

It depends on how accurate your calorie burn estimates are, and that might need to be played around with a bit. I have heard that heart rate monitors provide the best estimate of calorie burn, and I believe it! I don't currently have one, so I have had to play around a bit with figuring it out. Right now I am using Endomondo on my Android. I have found it to be pretty close to what I would calculate for myself using a HRM.

If you are confident of the accuracy of your burns, eat them all back! Every bit. You earned it! :drinker:

FrauHaas2013

Great explanation above of what it means on MFP for NET calories...I used to not eat them back, but now my routine is that when I get home from work (before dinner) I sync my fitbit and see how many "extra" calories that got me...usually it's a huge amount, and then I have a nice, big dinner!!! And for me, usually when I have a big dinner I find that I lose a lb or 2 within the next day or so. I'm definitely not skimping!

ttknowles01

I've been eating back about 75-80% of my exercise calories back, and the weight loss is going pretty well so far...about 1-1.4lbs/week. It took me a while to realize that I needed to eat them back, and I kept wondering why I wasn't losing anything lol

Codefox

I never made a point to eat them back when I was losing. If there was a day I felt like I needed to eat more, then they gave me an extra amount of calories to eat but I operated under the assumption the tools overestimated calories spent and underestimated what was in my food. Worked out just fine for me.

cwolfman13

MFP is designed for you to eat them back...MFP is essentially a NEAT method calculator (Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis) so when you set your activity level, you only account for your general day to day ****...NO EXERCISE. Exercise is accounted for after the fact with a NEAT method calculator...you log it after you do it and then get those calories back. MFP has a deficit built in for weight loss without any exercise whatsoever...with MFP, you're not trying to create the deficit with exercise...it's built into your diet.

The 50% of the people who don't get this simply don't understand the tool and don't have a clue as to what they're actually doing...they probably also drive screws with hammers...

I'm currently in maintenance after losing 40 Lbs...at a rate of about 1 - 1.5 Lbs per week pretty consistently and following the MFP method. MFP's calorie goal for maintenance is 2,360 calories...that is my maintenance level of calories if I didn't do any exercise whatsoever....but with my workouts, I would continue to lose at that calorie level...I've maintained for about 6 months now with a net goal of 2,360 and a gross of around 2700 - 2800 calories. I've both lost and maintained with the MFP method.

The difficulty with MFP is estimating your burn...the average person out there will go for a jog and then get on MFP database and log 30 min jog "vigorous" effort or something and it will show a burn of like 1000 calories for 30 minutes of work...and they're all like, "groovy...I just had a hug burn"...in fact, they're just fooling themselves...just because they were tired afterwards doesn't make it "vigorous" effort. Where most people who say that it doesn't work go wrong is overestimating the burn and also usually underestimating intake because they guestimate rather than weigh and measure every little thing.

When a calorie burn seems too good to be true, it probably is. Eventually you get to figuring out what is more or less reasonable, but it's all estimation and that's what makes it difficult. It is one of the reasons why many, including myself, ultimately gravitate to the TDEE method...this method includes an estimate of your exercise up front in the equation, so you just get a set amount of calories that already includes estimated exercise calories, and then a cut is taken from that for weight loss.

Holly_Roman_Empire

Yes I eat them back. If I didn't, I'd be starving on my workout days. I still don't understand how someone can eat 1300 or so calories, go for a 5 mile run, and not be hungry.

Yes I still lose weight.

ETA: I lose between .5 and 1 pound a week, but I attribute the small weight loss numbers to the fact that I don't have much to lose in the first place.

zyxst

I don't eat them back because I don't use MFP a intended. I have my activity level set to include my exercise, TDEE - 10%.

TwinMamma09

I try to eat back about 3/4 of my exercise calories. That leaves room for inaccuarate logging or over estimating my exercise calories. On that plan I do really well. I might lose fast if I don't eat them back but soon my body starts holding on to the weight because I am not eating enough.

Good luck!

TavistockToad

You see all these posts on here about people binge eating, or can't control their eating or always hungry.. you know what they all have in common.. not eating back exercise calories. There is no need to create huge deficits and not enjoy things in life when you can and still lose.

This!

LJSmith1989

I don't because I have them included within my TDEE I go for moderately active and then cut 15%. I wouldn't never cut below 1650 calories either to be fair, regardless.

ShaSimone

I've done a LOT of trial and error on this thing and dropped huge amounts of weight on 1200 calorie diet without eating back exercise calories. But all I did was YO-YO back almost 45 pounds. So here is what I'm doing...calorie goal is 1450 (number obtained from scooby's workshop as the BMR for my ultimate goal wieght of 150 pounds...then I put 350 calories in everyday for exercise and I average 45-60 minutes everyday. If I don't workout I don't enter any exercise calories. So I eat between 1450 (low end) to 1800 (high end) calories every day. Hope this isn't too confusing, if it is PM me.

SoDamnHungry

I eat them back. Hell, most of the reason I work out is so I can eat more. And in the process I end up looking and feeling better anyway.

CyberEd312

I have always been in the frame of mind that diet and exercise are to separate things that will compliment one another but the 2 are not exclusively necessary together... You can build in a caloric deficit into your meal plan/diet to allow you to lose weight, that is really all you need to do to lose weight. You exercise for the fitness benefits to your overall health, and because of that you must eat accordingly to fuel your body for the workouts you are asking it to do... I have always used the MFP approach and have eaten in a caloric deficit to lose and I eat back a large portion (85% per my Polar FT60) of my exercise calories to fuel my workouts and have had great success with this approach... Best of Luck

nickyvw

If your calorie burns are accurate and you are weighing and logging your food calories accurately, you will lose weight even if you eat back your exercise calories.

plkbplkb

Some days I eat them, some days I do not. Some days I am starving (usually after chest/back or leg lifting days) and some days I could go the whole day without eating at all (I still eat, since I know that I must). Listen to your body. As previous posters mentioned, MFP builds your deficit into your plan. Just make certain that you do not overestimate your calorie burn for your workouts.

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jallforme3

Yes I eat them back, look at your net calories consumed, not the gross!

belgd

I eat them back. Hell, most of the reason I work out is so I can eat more. And in the process I end up looking and feeling better anyway.

Yes. I love to eat so that's one of the main reasons I work out (As bad as it sounds)

magerum

I eat 100% of my calories expended through weight loss. I have a proven, over time (2 years), system of weighs/measures that have yielded predictable (as much as possible) resutls.

Logging/Consistency/Adherence. How do I know my system works? I'm able to eat thousands of calories weekly in "exercise calories", over the last couple years, that otherwise should have made me fat.

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4daluvof_candice

I eat between my BMR and my TDEE-20% and dont eat them back becasue its already calculated but if I was doing MFP calculations, most definitely.

I want to eat the way I plan on eating the rest of my life once I reach my goal and 38+ lbs later obviosuly it working. I refuse to eat 1200 calories now and then have to readjust/palteau or whatever issues may happen:huh: once that day comes.

suz155

Again, depends on the person. I'm 58 with slower metabolism and I'm on a beta blocker for my heart, which slows my metabolism , even more. I, occasionally, eat back, not always and I'm not starving. And, I use a heart rate monitor and don't go by the caloric figures that MFP provides. My HRM may show 150 cals burned and MFP shows 595. Early on, before my HRM, I ate back what MFP gave me for calories and I gained 2 lbs, 1st week, 3 lbs the second week. Again, it just depends on the people.

jacksonpt

The reason there is debate is because people A) don't understand why they should or shouldn't eat them back and/or can't estimate/measure correctly.

Figure out those 2 things and it all becomes incredibly easy.

doctorsookie

Its gonna be tough to know if someone is losing more or less weight due eating back or not eating back calories because everybody's metabolism is different. The best way to find out which one works beat for you is a test. Eat back your calories for two weeks and see how much you lose and then don't eat them back for two weeks and check your weight again. I would also recommend checking your measurements too. Make sure you are doing the same kind of activities because this will be crucial and make a big difference. You can't not eat the calories back and workout there more days a week or vice versa. Also try and eat the same number of calories each day (at least 1200 calories). Now make a plan, stick to it, and get your results.