Eating back burned calories

UsedToBeHusky

Personally, you should absolutely eat them if you are hungry. However, IF you are obese, your body can handle the deep calorie deficit. As far as metabolic burns, the body behaves differently depending on your ratio of fat to muscle, and therefore, the need to depend on food calories changes as you lose weight. I have not yet gone from being obese to overweight. Yet there are times when I absolutely have to eat those calories, and there are times when I don't.

Jorra

It's not counter-productive. But obviously, the more you eat back, the slower your weight loss will be. I think if you're hungry, you should eat; your body is telling you it needs fuel.

If you don't eat enough by not eating back exercise calories, the slower your weight loss will be. You will slow down your metabolism by not eating enough.

We can't always trust our bodies to tell us when we are hungry. Plenty of us have gotten here because of emotional or boredom eating. Your mind can trick you into being hungry.

That is just a crutch! We didn't just come here to lose weight. We came here to learn how to understand our bodies signals. Its not your body that you can't trust. It is your head and your own will power.

That's what I'm saying. Some of us can't differentiate those signals yet. If you can't do that yet, you can't just trust your body and mind to work together. In addition, a lot of people have gained weight because they do not eat enough. In this case, they need to retrain their body to want more food to fuel itself.

No matter what, MFP is set up to eat exercise calories. There is still a healthy caloric deficit while doing so.

Thinline1

Thanks everyone for your replies. So far, I have NOT been eating them back (or very little). I have lost significant inches but am now at a plateau. I am set to weigh and measure again tomorrow so I will know a little more then how that has been working(or not).

I have been basing by calorie burn off the cardio machines at the gym (not MFP) and will be getting a HRM soon to better gauge that.

I will start eating more of my calories and see where that puts me. It makes sense to eat after I workout and am ravenous but I need to focus on eating the right nutrient dense foods as well.

thanks again!

-Jenn

Thinline1

Not in the obese range at all. According to my bmi, I am just barely in the overweight range. I have never had my body fat measured, but I can only assume its higher than it needs to be

Personally, you should absolutely eat them if you are hungry. However, IF you are obese, your body can handle the deep calorie deficit. As far as metabolic burns, the body behaves differently depending on your ratio of fat to muscle, and therefore, the need to depend on food calories changes as you lose weight. I have not yet gone from being obese to overweight. Yet there are times when I absolutely have to eat those calories, and there are times when I don't.

CaptainGordo

Thanks everyone for your replies. So far, I have NOT been eating them back (or very little). I have lost significant inches but am now at a plateau. I am set to weigh and measure again tomorrow so I will know a little more then how that has been working(or not).

I have been basing by calorie burn off the cardio machines at the gym (not MFP) and will be getting a HRM soon to better gauge that.

I will start eating more of my calories and see where that puts me. It makes sense to eat after I workout and am ravenous but I need to focus on eating the right nutrient dense foods as well.

thanks again!

-Jenn

Awesome. Report back in this thread or another with your results! best wishes! :drinker:

brookeg20

Just a few quick thoughts on this:

I wasn't eating back my calories at first, and I wasn't losing any weight. I couldn't figure out why, but then when I upped my calories and started eating some of them back I dropped almost two pounds in two days. I don't always eat them all back, but if I don't eat back some then I don't lose weight. I was eating around 1200 calories a day and burning between 300 to 400 in cardio. Now I eat a little over a hundred calories pre and post workout. This seems to really help.

Also, I try to eat consistently so I don't feel like I'm starving. If I don't eat enough I freak out and end up eating wayyyyyy too much!