Need A Sensus of People who Eat Exercise Calories Back and N

MadeOfMagic

Okay, so I have gone through a million thread regarding eating exercise calories, I understand it varies individual to individual, so I wanted to get some info from you guys, I want to get a general idea of people's success following either of those two options (eating exercise calories or not) for different body types. Your help will be greatly appreciated, be as brief as you want to: :glasses: :

1. Starting Weight, Height, Age, Sex:
2. Daily Food Calorie Intake (not NET):
3. Averga Daily Exercise Calories Burned:
4. Do you eat your exercise calories? (Yes or No):
5. Your average weight loss per week:
6. How much weight have you lost following your eating exercise calories/not eating them back?
7. How did this work for you? Did you ever plateau?
8. (optional) if you platauds what did you do to get out of it?

I think having this information will help me better understand what works for who, thanks for taking your time to answer these, it's much appreciated, have a wonderful day! :flowerforyou:

apsmith51

1. Starting Weight, Height, Age, Sex:
160, 5'5", 60, F
2. Daily Food Calorie Intake (not NET):
1200- 1600
3. Averga Daily Exercise Calories Burned:
300-400 on days I exercise
4. Daily Total Calorie Deficit:
Hmmm.... a little over 300, I think.
5. Do you eat your exercise calories? (Yes or No):
Yes
6. Your average weight loss per week:
.5 - .7 very slow, but I only had about 15-20 pounds to lose and am 60...
7. How much weight have you lost following your eating exercise calories/not eating them back?
I usually eat most of them back as I am only given 1200 calories and that is hard. I have lost 12 pounds since June 30.
8. How did this work for you? Did you ever plateau?
It has been slow and I have had weeks where I have gained, but the overall trend has been down as I have lost 12 pounds and can live doing it this way. If I could only eat 1200 calories I would have thrown in the towel by now.
9. (optional) if you platauds what did you do to get out of it?
Just kept following the plan. It is a marathon and not a sprint for me.

Good luck with whatever you decide

hajjcomb

I think you're over-thinking it.

Txnurse97

I think you're over-thinking it.

Yes. This.

MadeOfMagic

Not over thinking really, just very curious to see, I already know what I am going with my plan but I'm just very curious to see the specifics of people and how it worked for them :glasses:

lausa22

1. Starting Weight, Height, Age, Sex: 185lbs / 5"3.5 / 18 / Female.

2. Daily Food Calorie Intake (not NET): 1000-1200.
3. Averga Daily Exercise Calories Burned: 200-600 depending on the day.

4. Daily Total Calorie Deficit: About -200 to -300

5. Do you eat your exercise calories? (Yes or No): No.

6. Your average weight loss per week: 0.5- 1.5lbs.

7. How much weight have you lost following your eating exercise calories/not eating them back? 22lbs so far! (I started MFP around 177lbs)

8. How did this work for you? Did you ever plateau? It's been working great, I couldn't bring myself to eat all my exercise calories back, but occasionally I'll eat about 100 back, but not on purpose. I've plateau'd once, but that was due to stress, not diet.

9. (optional) if you platauds what did you do to get out of it? I plateau'd once due to stress, but it only lasted 2 weeks. I just continued what I was doing, eating 1200calories a day and exercising. Once things got back to normal I started to drop weight again!

charityateet

1. Starting Weight, Height, Age, Sex: 209/5'6"/34/Female
2. Daily Food Calorie Intake (not NET): 1500-1800
3. Averga Daily Exercise Calories Burned: 350-800
4. Daily Total Calorie Deficit: not sure what you mean? usually I'm right on - lately I'm about 200 under or so
5. Do you eat your exercise calories? (Yes or No): always did - I'm experimenting with 1/2 back now
6. Your average weight loss per week: for the first 6 months it was 2lbs a week
7. How much weight have you lost following your eating exercise calories/not eating them back? 35lbs
8. How did this work for you? Did you ever plateau? I'm on a plateau now
9. (optional) if you platauds what did you do to get out of it? working on it!!!

CaptainMFP

1. Starting weight: 240 6'0" 37 Male
2. Average gross caloric intake for last 30 days: 2200 calories (this has declined as I have lost weight, obviously)
3. Weekly burn: Average 3500 calories, so 500 per day (that includes one 0 calorie rest day a week)
4. Daily total deficit of 1000 - 1500 calories with exercise included
5. I have always eaten back exercise calories; am currently focused on weekly rather than daily exercise calories
6. Since starting in April I have lost an average of 1.8 lbs. per week.
7. Not relevant to me; I have always eaten exercise calories.
8/9. Have had a short (3 week) plateau. I increased calories to break the plateau. I weigh daily to monitor all trends. I have a cycle of two weeks of rapid loss followed by 2 - 4 weeks of slower/minimal loss. The plateau was the longest such period and involved a lot of daily oscillation but no real drop for 3 weeks.

At present, I am eating a set amount of calories each day (2100 - 2200) and not recording exercise calories. In the past I had eaten anywhere from 1700 to 2700 calories a day to eat back exercise calories. This new approach I'm using still involves eating back exercise calories (the 2200 is a function of my estimated BMR and the typical caloric burn I get from exercise) so that I will be eating back exercise calories over the course of the week rather than daily. This change was made mainly to make family menu planning easier and rest days less stressful. Hope this helps.

healthyJenn0915

1. Starting Weight, Height, Age, Sex: SW:172, H:5'6", Age:30, S:F
2. Daily Food Calorie Intake (not NET): Roughly 1200, usually under except this week!
3. Averga Daily Exercise Calories Burned: Roughly 300-600 depending on the workout
4. Daily Total Calorie Deficit: ? not sure what this is
5. Do you eat your exercise calories? (Yes or No): Not usually, maybe sometimes just a little of it, but try not to.
6. Your average weight loss per week: 1lb but since starting Insanity not so much on the scale, but inches.
7. How much weight have you lost following your eating exercise calories/not eating them back? So far 17lbs since the end of March
8. How did this work for you? Did you ever plateau? It was working great, but I'm kind of at a Plateau with Insanity. Not sure if I need to eat more.
9. (optional) if you platauds what did you do to get out of it? Not sure yet!

clong1985

1. Starting Weight, Height, Age, Sex:
172 lbs, 5'3", 25 years old, female

2. Daily Food Calorie Intake (not NET):
Between 1100 and 1500 (my food diary is a little whack this week because of missing meals due to food poisoning)

3. Average Daily Exercise Calories Burned:
200-400

4. Daily Total Calorie Deficit:
I usually aim for 100-150

5. Do you eat your exercise calories? (Yes or No):
Yes! Absolutely, especially days when I do weight training

6. Your average weight loss per week:
1-2 lbs

7. How much weight have you lost following your eating exercise calories/not eating them back?
19.2 lbs since starting, around 10 of those since the beginning of August when I started taking this seriously and exercising/tracking food every day. The other 9.2 were over months and months and months.

8. How did this work for you? Did you ever plateau?
The only plateau I have hit so far was my own fault when I was not exercising at all and only tracking "good" days, lol!!

9. (optional) if you plateaus what did you do to get out of it?
None so far but when I hit them I will reevaluate my workout plan.

lauratwigzy

1. Starting Weight, Height, Age, Sex: Starting weight- 187, 5'8, 22 yrs old
2. Daily Food Calorie Intake (not NET): 1200-1300 Calories on average (MFP has me set at 1200 calories)
3. Averga Daily Exercise Calories Burned: Depends- Usually 225-400 calories
4. Daily Total Calorie Deficit: idk
5. Do you eat your exercise calories? (Yes or No): No
6. Your average weight loss per week: Between 1-2 lbs
7. How much weight have you lost following your eating exercise calories/not eating them back? 8. How did this work for you? Did you ever plateau? 9. (optional) if you platauds what did you do to get out of it?
I have tried both eating my calories back and not eating my exercise calories back. I find that when I eat my calories back, I tend to lose less weight. I think it is okay to eat a little more than what your calories are set at then it is okay to splurge with calories. I usually don't eat all my calories back though.

Tonnina

1. Starting Weight, Height, Age, Sex: 270lbs, 5'11", 22, Female
2. Daily Food Calorie Intake (not NET): My limit is 1500 but on average I hit about 1200.
3. Averga Daily Exercise Calories Burned: varies from 150 to 500
4. Daily Total Calorie Deficit: -500 I think? I have no clue what you are truly asking here but meh!
5. Do you eat your exercise calories? (Yes or No): NEVER!! (I've tried eating them back previously and it didn't work for me.)
6. Your average weight loss per week: I'm set up for 1.5 to 2.1lbs a week, but I'm probably closer to the 1.5lbs
7. How much weight have you lost following your eating exercise calories/not eating them back? This time around just 11 but I've just started, I'm looking to loose 89 more pounds. When I was losing weight for my wedding in 2008, I didn't even know you could eat back calories so I just walked and ate no more than 1300 calories a day. I lost 35lbs in 16 weeks at that time.
8. How did this work for you? Did you ever plateau? So far it's working just fine. Back in 2008, I did plateau at about 20lbs lost but I just kept doing everything the same (kept walking and eating the same) and I eventually broke through.
9. (optional) if you platauds what did you do to get out of it? See the end of #8 :-D

MisterDubs303

My ticker speaks for me.

1. Male 43 yrs. old, 5'8" SW: 310
2. Avg. Calories Consumed: 1600-2400
3. Avg. Calories Burned: 400
4. Do you eat your exercise calories? Yes, 98% of the time.
5. Your average weight loss per week: It varies, and it always will:
=In my first 3 months, I lost 42 pounds
=In my second 3 months, I lost 21 pounds
=in my third three months (now), I'm on track to lose about 20 or maybe a little less.

6. I learned quickly that following the plan (any plan) well does not yield constant, consistent results. There are so many little things that will eventually affect this, and it's just part of living a normal human life as opposed to being a robot: Sodium, H20 consumption, how much of which kind of exercises are you doing (weight training or cardio), etc. You would probably lose more without eating the exercise calories back, but why would you? The short-term benefit would just create a different problem to fix later (after all that work to create new, healthier habits).

7-8. Everybody plateaus at some point, no matter what method they use. Yes, I've plateaued, and it was frustrating. I just continued to do what I KNEW had already been working, and after a couple of weeks the scale started moving again. I also checked to make sure I wasn't compromising anywhere in my plan. Logging everything IS everything. Otherwise you are just creating an opportunity to lie to yourself about why something is not working. Until we are honest with ourselves, it's impossible to fix ourselves.

There are many people who will argue that eating your exercise calories back is not necessary, and maybe they are right. But there are tens of thousands on here who do eat them back, follow the plan as guided by MFP, and lose plenty of weight at a safe, healthy rate. I am one of them, and I promote identifying a NET calorie target that considers both consumption and exercise.

Hope this helped. Good luck!