Ok straight answers please?

bajoyba

Ok let me explain it another way. If you are overweight and you lose 3 lbs of fat in 1 week do you eat 3 lbs of fat because you lost it. Same with calories Just because you use 300 calories does not mean you eat 300 calories. If you start with 2000 calories and you burn up 1000 because you have a sedentary life style and do nothing all day do you eat 3000 calories because you burned up 1000 o f the beginning calories. No You eat less calories because your body will use up the fat it has stored for energy as long as you continue to feed the body. The trick is to eat healthy foods that are better for you with the right kinds of fats and fiber so your body will not continue to store them.

First of all, 3lbs of dietary fat does not equal 3lbs of stored fat in your body. Your body stores calories as fat when you eat more calories than your body requires to maintain its current weight.

If you are in a calorie deficit, your body will not store anything as fat.
And the calorie goal that MFP assigns people has already taken into account their goals, personal information, and activity level and already includes the calorie deficit needed to lose weight.

If you eat that calorie goal, you will lose weight. If you add exercise, burn more calories, and eat them back, the deficit is still the same, and you will lose weight.

determinedbutlazy

Ok let me explain it another way. If you are overweight and you lose 3 lbs of fat in 1 week do you eat 3 lbs of fat because you lost it. Same with calories Just because you use 300 calories does not mean you eat 300 calories. If you start with 2000 calories and you burn up 1000 because you have a sedentary life style and do nothing all day do you eat 3000 calories because you burned up 1000 o f the beginning calories. No You eat less calories because your body will use up the fat it has stored for energy as long as you continue to feed the body. The trick is to eat healthy foods that are better for you with the right kinds of fats and fiber so your body will not continue to store them.

First of all, 3lbs of dietary fat does not equal 3lbs of stored fat in your body. Your body stores calories as fat when you eat more calories than your body requires to maintain its current weight.

If you are in a calorie deficit, your body will not store anything as fat.
And the calorie goal that MFP assigns people has already taken into account their goals, personal information, and activity level and already includes the calorie deficit needed to lose weight.

If you eat that calorie goal, you will lose weight. If you add exercise, burn more calories, and eat them back, the deficit is still the same, and you will lose weight.

^that

BillnRVA

The calories that the elliptical machine gives you probably aren't correct, but they are much more reliable than those that MFP gives. That being said, that's an awful lot of calories burned. I would think you are feeling the effects of too few calories if you're not eating back some of those calories burned. MFP is pretty good about warning you when you're eating too few. With too few, you run the risk of damaging your body from insufficient nutrition, AND it slows down your metabolism...

Dlewis8288

Ok... Well.. I don't and haven't ate all my calories back, I tried to eat about half, in case my elliptical did over estimate what I burned. I am trying very hard to lose weight, I got myself into this mess and want to get myself out in a safe healthy manor. Thank you everyone for you input! I appreciate it very much... From the looks of it, the ones that ate there's back have either lost the most, or reached their goal and are maintaining,,, lol so that helped to see too ;-)

Dlewis8288

Yes I was hungry today! Lol I did the elliptical for a half hour, then my treadmill, and just put in a little extra late night workout while my kids played in the basement! That's why I wanted to know how many eat theirs back, I ate healthy when I was hungry so no worries there, I can tell when my body starts feeling funky that I need something.

bajoyba

And to answer the OP:

Yes, I always ate back my exercise calories. If I was unsure how accurate my burn was, I rounded down or ate a portion of them. I lost 45 pounds that way. At 45 pounds, I began including my exercise calories as part of my activity level (TDEE method), which is really just another way of eating them back.

Will_Thrust_For_Candy

Ok let me explain it another way. If you are overweight and you lose 3 lbs of fat in 1 week do you eat 3 lbs of fat because you lost it. Same with calories Just because you use 300 calories does not mean you eat 300 calories. If you start with 2000 calories and you burn up 1000 because you have a sedentary life style and do nothing all day do you eat 3000 calories because you burned up 1000 o f the beginning calories. No You eat less calories because your body will use up the fat it has stored for energy as long as you continue to feed the body. The trick is to eat healthy foods that are better for you with the right kinds of fats and fiber so your body will not continue to store them.

Strong 1st and 2nd posts :noway:


OP....I don't eat exercise calories back. Occasionally when I do a long run I will eat a bit back, but only because of the fact that it's an endurance workout. I personally find there too be too little room for error when estimating calories burned, especially if you are lifting. I use my body as a guide and if I need a little extra, then I'll eat a little extra. This is what has worked for ME though. I know there are people that are adamant about eating them back and have had success. I will also say that I have my goal set to 1/2 lb per week to lose so my deficit is not super aggressive. Do what works for you, but I will caution you to be very careful with how many calories burned you log. 900 is an awful lot in an hour and overestimating could completely stop any progress you may see. And that's also not accounting for any errors in logging, weighing, measuring, etc.

Good luck!

meshashesha2012

i lost my first 30 pounds eating back all my exercise calories. for the next 30 i plan on doing the same.

the main reason for that is that i have tough workouts ( weight lifting, plyometrics, running) and there's absolutely no way i'd be able to do those, eat at a deficit and not eat my calories back

I_Will_End_You

Yes I was hungry today! Lol I did the elliptical for a half hour, then my treadmill, and just put in a little extra late night workout while my kids played in the basement! That's why I wanted to know how many eat theirs back, I ate healthy when I was hungry so no worries there, I can tell when my body starts feeling funky that I need something.

You probably aren't burning 900 calories using an elliptical for 30 minutes. I don't know your size, but if this helps put it in perspective for you......I'm a 5'6, 118lb female and in 30 minutes I burn about 150-175 on the elliptical...if I'm lucky. (calorie burn via HRM) So don't eat back what your elliptical tells you you're burning. Cut it in half, if not more.

Graelwyn75

900 is possibly an overestimate.
I burn just over 600 calories in an hour on the elliptical (using Polar ft4) at 138Ibs. In fact, I burnt around the same at 126 Ibs as well.
It takes me around 1 hour and 50 minutes of exercise to burn 900 calories. Intense exercise.

chelleb1974

Basically, yes, I think you should eat them back if you're using MFP method. If after a while you find you're not losing enough, you could always scale back and try eating something like 75% or 50% of what you burned. I know several people who do that.

This is what I was going to offer. This is what I am doing. So far I'm able to eat back all of MFPs exercise calories and am losing. If I stall, then the plan is to reduce them as described above.

~Chelle

Dlewis8288

Yes I was hungry today! Lol I did the elliptical for a half hour, then my treadmill, and just put in a little extra late night workout while my kids played in the basement! That's why I wanted to know how many eat theirs back, I ate healthy when I was hungry so no worries there, I can tell when my body starts feeling funky that I need something.

You probably aren't burning 900 calories using an elliptical for 30 minutes. I don't know your size, but if this helps put it in perspective for you......I'm a 5'6, 118lb female and in 30 minutes I burn about 150-175 on the elliptical...if I'm lucky. (calorie burn via HRM) So don't eat back what your elliptical tells you you're burning. Cut it in half, if not more.

Dlewis8288

Lol no way did I burn that in 30 minutes!! Lol I burned like 430 in 35 or something like that , then walked on my treadmill for 20 minutes, THEN later tonight I got back on for another half hour, then walked the treadmill again.I also adjust my resistance to make it a little harder,,, I'm well aware it could be over estimating my calories...

lemon629

Neither. That is to say, I make no particular effort either way. I eat if and when I'm hungry. If I'm not, then I don't, regardless of whether I exercised that day or not. So sometimes I eat my exercise calories, sometimes I don't, and sometimes I eat just some of them.

If you're not hungry, don't force yourself to eat. This kind of attitude-- not paying attention to your body signals-- is a big reason how overweight people got overweight in the first place.

Plus, a lot of people (most?) over estimate the calories burned through exercise and use it to justify over indulging.

1princesswarrior

I use my TDEE which already included activity. I'm also anal about weighing my solid food and measuring liquids. Now that I've said that I do put in some massive burns via my hrm so I still track my exercise and eat at least enough to match my BMR.

I've been at this for awhile so I have a good idea of what my numbers are as far as BMR and TDEE. But comparing with MFP, the two methods are within 100 calories if I ate the exercise calories back. So even if I were using MFP as it is designed I would eat my exercise calories back. This is more important when you burn more calories because your body needs the additional fuel.

megsmom2

Unless your doctor is familiar with the MFP plan, I doubt your going to get a relevant answer. If you're following the MFP plan as designed, then you eat back those calories. If you are following some other plan, but just using this site as a food journal, then you may or may not. I do eat most of them back. Works fine for me.

2stepscloser

I do not typically eat back my exercise calories but I do eat a healthy amount. My daily caloric intake is around 1800 then I burn 500-600 each day so my net is still around 1200.