Eating Rehab Calories

thomregan

So, in January I was struck by a car, fractured my tibia and tore my MCL. I spent the better part of a month almost completely immobile. The accident happened only a few days after I started using MFP, and since then I've lost 33 lbs, though I know some significant chunk of that is muscle mass lost, especially in my legs since I was a decent runner.

Recently, I've finally been allowed to go totally brace free, and as part of my rehab, I'm allowed to do ten minutes on an elliptical and ten minutes on a stationary bike every day. Initially I had thought that I wouldn't log the calories I lost doing that, because I'm only burning an extra 150 calories. However, since I've been more mobile, I've been feeling quite a bit hungrier. For the last eight weeks, my personal goal was to come in at least 250 calories under (and often 300-500 calories under) what MFP recommends for two pounds a week of weight loss. As I've lost a bit more weight (lowering the recommended goal) and become more active, that's become not really possible to do without feeling a bit starved.

So, does anyone have any experiences that might help me out here? Is it worth giving myself an extra 150 calories a day, and should I try to actually eat the full 2070 calories I'm allowed? For the record, I've got my exercise level in MFP set at sedentary, because even now I can't do as much standing and walking as I'd like to.