Should I eat my calories back?

aannsheetz

I know there are a lot of posts out there about this, but I wanted to reach out about my particular height/weight/exercise.

I'm 26 years old, 5'5" with a starting weight of 214. I work in an office which is a lot different from my old job as a server where I was on my feet walking around all day. I now sit at a desk most of the day. I am doing Jillian Michaels 30 day shred right now to start off.
My goal is to lost about 60-70 lbs and be down to 150lbs.

MFP suggested a 1200 x day diet. With eating that few calories ... should I be eating back the calories I burn with exercise?

Any help or advice would be really appreciated! Thanks!

Yanicka1

Try eating 50 to 75% of you exercise calories. If your weight do not move down after a few weeks, lower by 100 calories.

Good luck

SezxyStef

It doesn't matter what your stats are...you eat back exercise calories if you are following MFP methods.

Esp if you are only consuming 1200 a day to begin with.

Which I suspect is because you said 2lbs a week....with your goal of 50-70lbs it should be 1-1 1/2 lbs a week not two.

arrseegee

My answer is yes. With your weight and height 1200 is a very low intake, and also makes it difficult to get a varied diet when you have so few calories to work with. Some people on here will recommend eating 2/3 of the exercise calories back, but I have always eaten all of them and still successfully lost a lot of weight (nearly 20kg since March 2013).

FindingMyPerfection

To make this a sustainable long term change eating back cals is key. If you want a more consistent cal target it may be helpful to figure out your TDEE and eat 20% below that. Recalculate after every 5 lbs lost. Google TDEE calculator and average your results between 3 of them.

aannsheetz

Thank you for all of the advice everyone!

deksgrl

MFP does NOT include exercise in its calculations for how many calories you need. It calculates what you need just for your daily life not including deliberate exercise. Then when you choose how many pounds per week you would like to lose, it takes a flat number of calories off of it (but will not go below 1,200 calories). If you chose 2 pounds per week, it subtracts 1,000 calories a day. Choosing 2 pounds a day is not sustainable for people who don't have a lot of weight to lose. You should choose 1.5 pounds, then change it to 1 when you lose more, and then half a pound when you are close to your goal.

Now, when you exercise, you need to eat more food for fuel. It adds calories to your daily total when you log your exercise. This is the meaning of the "net calories".

Example:

1,200 (the amount MFP told you to eat)
-300 (the calories burned in exercise)
+300 (the amount more you eat for fuel for exercise)
=1,200 NET

You really ate 1,500 calories on this example, but it was a net of 1,200.

As someone else mentioned, calorie burns can be estimated too high, so you might want to eat some but not all of them.

Other websites use a TDEE - % calculation, this would include your exercise. A properly set MFP+exercise goal should be somewhere in the same ballpark as a properly set TDEE - % goal.

littlebutlean

I'm probably in a minority here but I would NOT eat back exercise calories. Firstly because they may be grossly inaccurate estimates and second because I have spent years losing weight, and not once have I ever found ANY negative detrimental issue with eating fewer calories.

Eating fewer calories will just lead to faster weight loss, plain and simple.

Ready2Rock206

I'm probably in a minority here but I would NOT eat back exercise calories. Firstly because they may be grossly inaccurate estimates and second because I have spent years losing weight, and not once have I ever found ANY negative detrimental issue with eating fewer calories.

Eating fewer calories will just lead to faster weight loss, plain and simple.

I agree with you to a point. I don't eat back exercise calories but I also don't have my calorie goal set ridiculously low.

I think if you insist on eating 1200 calories you probably should eat at least some calories back.

Or figure out your TDEE minus a reasonable percent and eat that and don't worry about the exercise calories. That's what I do - because seriously I hate trying to figure out what I actually burned each day (and I know it is never accurate) and then always trying to hit a moving target drove me nuts. And I just hate all the math.

Mr_Knight

I am doing Jillian Michaels 30 day shred right now to start off... should I be eating back the calories I burn with exercise?

No. Not enough calories burned by that exercise, too much room for error.

In theory, you would eat them back. But like the man said..."in theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not".

TeaBea

I'm probably in a minority here but I would NOT eat back exercise calories. Firstly because they may be grossly inaccurate estimates and second because I have spent years losing weight, and not once have I ever found ANY negative detrimental issue with eating fewer calories.

Eating fewer calories will just lead to faster weight loss, plain and simple.

Re: Eating fewer calories will just lead to faster weight loss, plain and simple.

This is the problem with blanket statements..........there is such a thing as eating TOO FEW calories....which leads to "weight" loss .....as in fat+muscle loss

OP- if you want a lower body fat %...........eat some of your calories back. The reason it's "some" of your calories.....yes, MFP does overstate calorie burns. However, if you want fat loss......it's worth it to figure out what the % (for you) is.

1200 is as low as MFP will go......so eating back calories becomes more important for you.

littlebutlean

I think if you insist on eating 1200 calories you probably should eat at least some calories back.

Why? If you eat 1200 calories a day and you burn 450 calories from exercise, you're full throughout the day or mostly satiated, why eat back the calories? Even if you're a little hungry and can mentally deal with that, it's fine. The idea is to cut back calories and cut them back as little as possible while being able to maintain your diet and not go mentally insane.

I swear to god, and promise you I ate 500-700 calories for 2 1/2 months straight, less than 15-20 carbs a day and lost 41 lbs. I lost 41 lbs in 10 weeks. I supplemented with sodium, vitamins (multi/calcium/magnesium/potassium) and fish oils. People can and will argue, "Oh that's unhealthy!!!" "Oh that's not good for your body!!" "Oh that's too few calories" .. why? I did it, I lived .. no issues. I've done *EXTENSIVE* blood work, I'm healthy as a horse and it got me lean to where I could slowly put on lean mass. Was I just "lucky" ? I doubt it.

The best diet is and will always be the diet where you can eat the fewest calories and maintain it mentally.

I would never tell anyone that I was training or helping "Make sure you eat back all the calories you burn from exercise!" .. that's just not in line with the overall goal which is to reduce calories.

littlebutlean

This is the problem with blanket statements..........there is such a thing as eating TOO FEW calories....which leads to "weight" loss .....as in fat+muscle loss

Disagree.

I'm not parroting from something I read or theorized, I speak from personal experience. I cut down (lost ~95 lbs) to a super lean 141 from 235 clinically obese, maintained a *small* amount of lean muscle from resistance training. From there I slowly put on lean mass to ~152 over the next few years. I now sit at ~7-8% body fat year round and am slowly getting bigger. I'm 36 years old.

There is no such thing as "too few calories" when you're dieting unless you've used AAS and are 5'8"+ @ 230 lbs only then are you really truly worried about severe muscle loss.