Calorie Consumption

atano

I'm finally getting back to tracking what I eat- I find that this website is very helpful though confused whether I'm supposed to "eat back" the calories I burned from working out. For example, I input all of my meals for the day and still have 540 calories remaining bc I did an hour of cardio at the gym. If I don't consume those calories, will I just lose the weight faster?

jrich1

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/10665-newbies-please-read-me-2nd-edition

HotSouthernMess

this is a topic that gets a lot of attention and most will say YES!!! ABSOLUTELY!!! all i can tell you, is what i know. when i first started here, i asked the same thing...was advised to consume all or most of them so i did. problem is, i was losing .6 pounds a week or less and got frustrated. i stopped eating them and now keep to around 1200 and im finally losing weight. you can take the advice or leave it but i chose to do what works for me. i am not in any danger of "starving" and i dont think my HRM is very accurate (and i know the calories burned tool on here is very inflated) so i would rather eat too little than too much. just my personal opinion. you might need to do what i did and try both ways. good luck!!

hpsnickers1

yes eat them!! If you don't you will lose but you will lose muscle mass, not fat mass and this will slow down your metabolism. Please do not listen to the people who say no. If you are at a 1200 NET goal and you burn 500 that will leave you with 700 and that is severe calorie restriction. Eventually your weight loss will slow and come to a halt. And it's better to go over your calories a bit rather than under. You need those calories to fuel your exercise.


Working With Your Body - The Basic Strategy
By John P. Hussman, Ph.D.
All rights reserved and actively enforced.



The goal of this site is to help you to transform your physique by walking you step-by-step through everything you need to know about exercise physiology and nutrition. I know that a lot of you have “tried everything,” and because there are so many approaches that have failed you, there's a real risk that you'll quit again and again if you don't see results immediately, or if you don't fully understand why your fitness program should work. Worse, there may be some missing pieces in your program, which could lead to slow progress even though you're hard at work. My hope is that this information will help you to stay on track - to turn effort into results - and to reach your goal.

Want to change your physique? Start by realizing that whatever shape you're in right now is your body's way of adapting to the lifestyle you're living. It's your body's attempt to survive. So the strategy is simple. We're going to give your body a very specific “environment” – a particular mix of activities, nutrition, and recovery – and your body is going to adapt by becoming leaner, stronger, and healthier.

Every change you throw at your body triggers a response. The problem with many diet and exercise programs is that they can accidentally encourage your body to defend fat, shed muscle, increase appetite and even lower its metabolism. The key to fast results is to know exactly which actions will cause your body to adapt by becoming fitter.

Maybe you've tried before to get in shape. But for some reason, you didn't get the results you wanted. If you're like I used to be, you've repeated that cycle year after year to no avail. Maybe you've failed so many times that you think of yourself as a “special case.” You've started to believe your entire metabolism consists of a little turtle on a treadmill. You wonder whether you've got the fat gene. You're convinced that no matter how hard you diet, your cells can still be seen eating Twinkies when viewed under a microscope.

Look. You're not a special case. Even if you had the fat gene (common among Pima Indians but rare otherwise), you'd only be burning 50-60 calories a day less than anybody else. Even if you've been diagnosed with a metabolic difficulty such as diabetes or hypothyroidism, you can still be successful with proper medical support. Most probably, other approaches failed you either because they were missing important pieces, focused on the wrong things, or produced results so slowly that you just gave up. What you need most is good information. You're in the right place.

The law of unintended consequences
Your body is an amazing feedback system aimed at balance and survival. Humans are at the top of the food chain because they are able to adapt to their environment. Every action produces a reaction. Every change in its environment triggers a survival response. It's important to keep that in mind when you plan your fitness program. If you treat your body as an enemy to be conquered, you'll produce unintended results.

For example, if you severely cut off the supply of food to your body, it will defend itself by slowing down its metabolism to survive starvation. The body will shed muscle mass the same way that you would throw cargo from a plane that was low on fuel, and it will reduce its thyroid activity to conserve energy. The body will also actually defend its fat stores. In anorexia, muscle loss can be so profound that fat as a percentage of body weight actually rises. Extreme carbohydrate restriction also causes muscle loss, dehydration, and slower metabolism, which is why even successful Atkins dieters can have a significant rebound in weight after they stop the diet (don't worry – the advice on this site will prevent that from happening).

As another example, if you put your body under stress through overexertion and lack of sleep, it will respond by slowing down, reducing muscle growth, and increasing your appetite for junk food, carbohydrates and fat. If you feed your body excessive amounts of sugar and quickly digested carbohydrates, and it will shut off its ability to burn fat until those sugars are taken out of the bloodstream.

This website will show you how to work with your body to quickly produce the changes you want. In order to do that, you need to take actions that push your body to adapt – to build strength, burn fat, and increase fitness. You need a training program, not an exercise routine. You need a nutrition plan, not a diet. You need a challenge, not a few good habits you usually try to follow except when you don't.

Setting the right goal
John Dewey once said that a problem well-stated is half-solved. If you want to reach your goal, you have to define it correctly. See, a lot of people say “I want to lose weight.” Well, if losing weight is your goal, go on a no-carb diet. You'll lose a lot of weight – some of it will be fat, a lot of it will be water, and a dangerous amount will be muscle tissue. You'll lose weight quickly, but you'll slow your metabolism and gain fat more quickly once you go off the diet. Trust me on this. I've been there, done that. {Me: This also applies to a severe calorie restriction}

The problem is that you've set the wrong goal. If you want to look better, have more energy and enjoy better health, the goal is not simply to “lose weight.” The goal is to improve your fitness level and body composition. That means losing fat, improving your aerobic capacity, training your strength and defending your muscle tissue. You can't do that with a no-carb diet {or severe calorie restriction}. You will do it using the approach you'll learn on this website. Trust me on this one too. I know what it's like to feel fat, tired and helplessly out of shape. The whole point of this site is to help others avoid that, by sharing lessons that I had to learn the hard way.

http://www.hussmanfitness.org/html/TPAdaptation.html

In fact eat at least your BMR (under Tools). This is what your body requires for your organs and systems to function. And on days you exercise eat that and your exercise calories.

There's nothing wrong with losing weight slowly. It is the healthy way and it is more likely to stay off.

aeckels616

Eat them, if a) You're already at enough of a deficit to lose weight without exercising, and b) You're sure you're logging them correctly.

MFP will give you the total calories burned during exercise, but it's already assuming that you're burning SOME calories during that same period of the day that you spent exercising. So if you're not subtracting what you would have expended during that time doing normal daily activity (in other words, logging NET calories instead of TOTAL calories burned), then you're double-logging some calories and eating back those double-logged calories could hamper your weight loss.

Ms_Natalie

Hi there,
please read the sticky threads in the general forum area as suggested by jrich1.

In all honesty, different things work for different people...there are no set rules...which is why it causes such debate on the forums.

However, you need to make sure you are adequately fueling your body. You should be aiming to eat your allocated calorie amount every day!....even when taking exercise into account. Under no circumstances should you go below 1200 calories.

Your body needs key nutrients from food to help you physiologically and psychologically function...so by increasing your calorie deficit you may be doing more harm than good.

You need to listen to your body....if you are hungry and it's not due to lack of water...then you need to eat.

Good Luck :flowerforyou: