earned calories by exercise but not really eating them

nudglet
nudglet Posts: 5
in Health and Weight Loss
am a major couch potato as proven by how much I weigh. I try to make sure that I eat my entire base calories a day but I do not eat most of the gained calories I get by exercise.

By failing to eat the earned calories is that going to increase weight loss rate or is it just going to put my body in starvation mode and slow down the fat loss?

Replies

  • veronicacannon
    veronicacannon Posts: 107 Member
    You should eat back most of your calories burned. Say your daily calorie goal is 1200. You burn 500 but don't eat that back. Now you're only netting 700 calories for the day. Its really not enough if you're doing it every single day.
  • liftingandlipstick
    liftingandlipstick Posts: 1,857 Member
    It really depends on what your daily goals are. How tall are you and what do you weigh? If MFP is recommending anything close to 1200 per day for you, I would absolutely eat that back- you need it to fuel not only your workouts, but all of your basic metabolic processes as well. That's why people get so up in arms about netting under 1200 calories.

    If your daily budget is more like 1500, 1600 or more, then . . . eh, it's a choice. You won't die, but your energy levels may be low, feel tired or dizzy, etc. Personally, most of the reason I work out is so that I CAN eat more. But if you don't choose to, then you'll be okay. As long as your daily goal isn't super low to begin with.
  • JesterMFP
    JesterMFP Posts: 3,596 Member
    It's not about "earning" calories as a kind of optional bonus for treats or whatever - MFP gives you a calorie goal based on your normal daily activity level (but not planned workouts) on the assumption that any additional exercise you do, you will log it and eat back those calories. So, if you intend to follow the goal recommended by MFP - you should be eating back your exercise calories. That's how it works. If you can't get your head around doing that, or would prefer to eat the same number of calories every day regardless of what exercise you do - then find out your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) using a different online calculator, take off 20% (for now - reduce that deficit as you get closer to your goal weight) and set that as your calorie goal. Then, do not eat back exercise calories.

    If you're doing it right, the TDEE method should give you about the same goal as the MFP method once you include exercise calories.

    The only caveat is that if you're using MFP's database to estimate calorie burn, it can be inaccurate, so if you're eating back exercise calories, you may want to only eat back say 2/3 of them, to allow for any error.

    Forget starvation mode, but if you're giving yourself a really big calorie deficit, especially if you're not doing any resistance exercises, you're going to risk losing lean mass along with the fat. That means muscle mass and bone density - both of which you really want to hang onto, especially as a woman in your 50s. So yes - it might increase weight loss if you don't eat back those calories, but that's not necessarily a good thing, either for health or for your appearance.

Categories