WHY???eating back burned calories. HELP

Jrab6486

I am so confused. I do not understand why we should eat back our burned calories that we work so hard to get off of us? It is extremely confusing to me. I feel that the more I burn the less I should weigh, however the scale is not telling me the same. I have lost 1.5lbs in 3 weeks. That is sad. I just don't get it? PLEASE HELP!

clhung

I have never heard of that until I joined MFP. My trainer said not to look at the scale. You should look more at your inches lost. As the muscle replaces fat in your body, you may not lose any weight. (Mucsle doesn't weight more than fat as many people believe) A pound is a pound wether it's muscle or fat, its just that a pound of muscle is smaller than a pound of fat so you will look smaller. From what I've also been reading on here, if you do not have that much body fat to loose the pounds will take longer to fall off and you may need to also switch up your excercise and do more strength training so that you are building more muscle.

tigersmoondiva

People will say what they will say - and just because it's true for them may not mean its true for you. Honestly if I believed everything people told me here- I'd probably have gained weight instead of losing. They mean well - but what worked for them may not work for you. You have to find what works for you.

AndreSF

You burn "goo" and replace it with clean fuel that is needed for your body to perform at its pick during workouts.

Good luck!

insame1

you need to eat back so your body doesnt think it is starving and store all the food you eat as fat.

bikingpanda

Hello,
MFP sets your calories to lose what you set it to without doing any exercise. I can eat my daily goal and not do any exercise and still should see the scale move down. If you don't get at least 1200 calories a day in, your body can start to hold onto the weight thinking that it's starving. You don't need to eat them all back, but You should probably eat some.

kapeluza

"One issue that seems to be related to MFP more than any other forum I post on is the question of "to eat or not to eat" the calories one expends exercising. I'm assuming it has something to do with the logging and calculations used on MFP, which I am admittedly unfamiliar with. However, suffice it to say that I get this question in my inbox a few times each week, so it's obviously worth mentioning on the forum.

First, let it be known that there are no universally accepted rules regarding eating them back or not. The reason being is because there's no magic to it - it comes down to energy balance. Nothing more. Let me explain...

Let's try to make this real simple:

Maintenance calorie intake is where calories in = calories out, right?

We know that a calorie deficit is required if fat is to be lost, so calories in < calories out.

Large deficits can have negative effects such as increased cravings, muscle loss, irritability, unsustainability (I made that word up), etc.

So we want a moderate deficit, which I'd label as 20-35% off of your maintenance. There's latitude here, mind you.

So if your maintenance is 2000 calories, anywhere from 1300 to 1600 calories would be realistic for fat loss.

That's a deficit of 400-700 calories per day.

Said deficit, in theory, could come from a number of combinations.

On one end of the spectrum you could simply eat 400-700 calories less per day. This assumes the energy out side of the equation stays reasonably static.

On the other end of the spectrum you could keep eating 2000 calories but increase calories expended via exercise to 400-700 calories per day.

If you went with this latter scenario, you wouldn't have to eat back your exercise calories because the expended calories from exercise put you in the sweet spot, calorically speaking.

Now if you cut calories by 400-700 AND increased activity by 400-700, then you'd be running too large a deficit unless you ate back your exercise calories. I can't express how general this is, but it's something many should listen to. Obese folks, on the contrary, can run much larger deficits than thinner folks for reasons we won't get into here today. But all of these relatively thin folks who are trying to "beat their bodies into submission" by blitzing it full force with calorie deprivation and massive amounts of exercise should probably heed this advice.

In real terms, most people establish their deficits partly by cutting calories and partly by increasing activity. But for those of you wondering whether you should be eating back your calories expended exercising, you need to look at your calories in net terms. Where does your deficit stand without eating back your exercise calories?

I'll note that personally I don't worry about any of this with my own training or my clients. I set what I consider sane and productive volumes of various exercise (strength training, energy system development, conditioning for fat loss, etc.). From there, there's really not a lot of variability in energy expenditure since I know, by and large, what volume of exercise is required to drive the adaptations I'm shooting for.

Therefore, the only thing to really manipulate is calorie intake. It's a much cleaner approach but to each his own. Do what you're happy with and what makes the most sense for you."

kapeluza

"I still see many people that are confused or "question" the idea of eating your exercise calories. I wanted to try (as futile as this may turn out to be) to explain the concept in no uncertain terms. I'll save the question of "eating your exercise calories" for the end because I want people to understand WHY we say to do this.

NOTE: I'm not going to use a lot of citation in this, but I don't want people thinking this is my opinion, I have put much careful research into it, most of which is very complicated and took a long time for me to sift through and summarize, and thanks to my chemical engineering backgroud I have the tools to read clinical studies and translate them (somewhat) into more human terms. Some of this information comes from sources I can't forward because they are from pay sites (like New England Journal of Medicine), so you can ask for anything, but I may or may not be able to readilly provide it for you (I can always tell you where to go if you want to though).

I'll break it down into 3 sections.
Section 1 will be our metabolic lifecycle or what happens when we eat and how our body burns fuel.
Section 2 will be what happens when we receive too much, too little, or the wrong kind of fuel.
Section 3 will be the steps needed to bring the body to a healthy state and how the body "thinks" on a sympathetic level (the automatic things our body does like digestion, and energy distribution).

Section 1:
Metabolism, in "layman's" terms, is the process of taking in food, breaking it down into it's components, using the food as fuel and building blocks, and the disposal of the poisons and waste that we ingest as part of it. Metabolism has three overall factors, genetics, nutrition, and environment. So who we are, what we eat, and how we live all contribute to how our metabolism works. You can control 2 of these 3 factors (nutrition, environment).
When you eat food, it is broken down into it's component parts. Protein, vitamins and minerals are transported to the cells that need them to build new cells or repair existing cells. Fats(fatty acid molecules) and carbohydrates are processed (by 2 different means) and either immediately burned or stored for energy. Because the body doesn't store food in a pre-digested state, if you eat more carbs and fat then you need immediately, the body will save them for later in human fat cells (adipose tissue). This is important to realize because even if you eat the correct number of calories in a 24 hour period, if you eat in large quantities infrequently (more then you can burn during the digestion process), your body will still store the extra as fat and eliminate some of the nutrients. (Side note: this is why simple or processed carbs are worse for you compared with complex carbs)

Section 2:
The human body has a set metabolic rate (based on the criteria stated above), this rate can be changed by overall nutritional intake over a period of time, or by increasing activity levels also over a period of time (the exact amount of time for sustained increase in metabolic rates is the subject of some debate, but all studies agree that any increase in activity level will increse the metabolism).
It is important to note that obesity does not drasticly change the level of metabolic process, that means that if you become obese, you don't burn a higher fat percentage just because you have more to burn.
The balance of incomming fuel vs the amount of fuel the body uses is called maintenance calories, or the amount of calories it takes to run your body during a normal day (not including exercise or an extremely lethargic day). The metabolism is a sympathetic process, this means it will utilize lower brain function to control it's level, it also means it can actively "learn" how a body is fitness wise, and knows approximately how much energy it needs to function correctly. It also means automatic reactions will happen when too much or too little fuel is taken in. Too much fuel triggers fat storage, adipose tissue expands and fat is deposited, also free "fat" cells (triglycerides) will circulate in the blood stream (HDL and LDL cholesterol). Too little fuel (again, over an extended period) triggers a survival mode instinct, where the body recognizes the lack of fuel comming in and attempts to minimize body function (slowing down of non-essential organ function) and the maximization of fat storage. It's important to note that this isn't a "switch", the body does this as an ongoing analysis and will adjust the levels of this as needed (there is no "line" between normal and survival mode.).
When you're activity level increases, the human body will perform multiple functions, first, readily available carbohydrates and fats are broken down into fuel, oxydized, and sent directly to the areas that need fuel, next adipose (body) fat is retreived, oxydized, and transported to the areas it is needed for additional fuel, 3rd (and this is important), if fat stores are not easilly reachable (as in people with a healthy BMI where adipose fat is much more scarce), muscle is broken down and used for energy. What people must realize is that the metabolism is an efficiency engine, it will take the best available source of energy, if fat stores are too far away from the systems that need them or too dense to break down quickly, then it won't wait for the slower transfer, it will start breaking down muscle (while still breaking down some of that dense fat as well).

Section 3:
The wonderful part of the human metabolic system is it's ability to adapt and change. Just because your body has entered a certain state, doesn't mean it will stay that way. The downfall to this is that if organs go unused over a long period, they can lose functionality and can take years to fully recover(and sometimes never).
As long as there is no permenant damage to organ function, most people can "re-train" their metabolism to be more efficient by essentially showing it (with the intake of the proper levels and nutritional elements) that it will always have the right amount and types of fuel. This is also known as a healthy nutritional intake.
Going to the extreme one way or the other with fuel consumption will cause the metabolism to react, the more drastic the swing, the more drastic the metabolism reacts to this (for example, a diet that limits fat or cabohydrate intake to very low levels). In general terms, the metabolism will react with predictable results if fuel levels remain in a range it associates with normal fuel levels. If you raise these fuel levels it will react by storing more fat, if you lower these fuel levels, it will react by shutting down processes and storing fat for the "upcomming" famine levels. The most prominent immediate issues (in no particular order) with caloric levels below normal are reduced muscle function, reduction of muscle size and density, liver and kidney failures, increase in LDL (bad) cholesterol levels, and gallstones .


Now onto the question of "Eating your exercise calories"

As I have hinted to throughout this summary of metabolic process, the body has a "range" in which it feels it is receiving the right amount of fuel. The range (as most doctors and research scientists agree) is somewhere between 500 calories above your maintenance calories and 1000 calories below your maintenance calories. This means that the metabolism won't drastically change it's functionality in this range, with that said, this is not exact, it is a range based on averages, you may have a larger or smaller range based on the 3 factors of metabolism stated at the top.
On our website (MyFitnessPal), when you enter your goals, there is a prebuilt deficit designed to keep you in the "normal" metabolic functionality while still burning more calories then you take in. This goal DOES NOT INCLUDE exercise until you enter it. If you enter exercise into your daily plan, the site automatically adjusts your total caloric needs to stay within that normal range (in other words, just put your exercise in, don't worry about doing any additional calculations). Not eating exercise calories can bring you outside that range and (if done over an extended period of days or weeks) will gradually send your body into survival mode, making it harder (but not impossible) to continue to lose weight. The important thing to understand is (and this is REALLY important) the closer you are to your overall healthy weight (again, your metabolism views this a a range, not a specific number) the more prominant the survival mode becomes (remember, we talked about efficiency). This is because as fat becomes scarce, muscle is easier to break down and transport. And thus, the reason why it's harder to lose that "Last 10 pounds".

I really hope this puts a lot of questions to bed. I know people struggle with this issue and I want to make sure they have the straight facts of why we all harp on eating your exercise calories.

-Regards,

Banks"

TeaBea

Do you want to build muscle when you exercise? What is your body going to use to build that muscle? Eating your exercise calories is fuel.

Sedentary people will lose weight with ZERO exercise when using the deficit set up by MFP. That deficit is the lowest possible safe number your body needs for basic daily functions. Increasing activity without increasing fuel - plateauville

ArroganceInStep

***Lots of smart stuff***

Yeah...what she said

joeygirl84

I don't eat mine back. I just don't go into the negative ... but I try to burn off as much as I can while still feeding my body my daily amount.

You'll hear all kinds of people saying you HAVE TO... or you'll "go into starvation mode" but my dietition said that's not the case as long as you get your daily calories in.

Everyone is different, just do what works for you! I've lost 61 lbs since January this way.

brittanyjeanxo

You have to take into account that MFP creates a calorie deficit for you, so that even if you don't exercise, you should still lose weight, provided you eat correctly. Now, your body needs a certain amount of nutrients and calories to keep energized. Let's say your daily goal is 1600. You eat 1300, exercise, and your net is down to 900. For most, though not all, people, that is not enough for the body to keep itself energized and still burn fat effectively. If you eat back those exercise calories, which in this case would be 400 calories, you are now back up to 1300, have still burned fat, WILL still burn fat, and you've given yourself enough food to sustain you the rest of the day. Make sense? Also, people seem to think that if you don't eat the magical 1200 calories, your body will automatically "shut down" and go into this controversial "starvation mode." It takes much more than just eating less than 1200 calories a day to go into starvation mode. I personally don't always eat 1200, and trust me, I'm still losing

If it makes it easier, think of it this way:
Let's say tomorrow morning, you fill up your gas tank. Then you run around and go shopping, go to the mall, go see some friends, get groceries, pay your bills, pick up your kids, and go home. You're now down to about 1/4 tank. Now you need to go put MORE gas in the tank, because it simply will not go for long without the gas it needs. See?

Jrab6486

thank you everyone for all of the info! much help! Thanks so much!

Rae6503

The way MFP works you are "supposed to". It gives you a calorie deficit before you workout, then working out actually increases this deficit and can cause it to become too large which can make things hard and/or slow down weight loss. This doesn't happen for everyone but seems to happen for most. And really I'd rather eat more when presented with the option.

engineman312

i don't eat back all my calories, but right after a work out i have a protein fruit smoothie to refuel my body, and then i eat like normal for the day. usually i'm under my calorie goal for the day.

it also depends on the food you eat, and what works for you. everybody is different, but you don't want to go into starvation mood!! give it a shot, and see if by reating some of your calories, you might actually lose weight!!!

but don't throw out the baby with the bath water if it doesn't work right away.