Should you eat your burned calories?

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  • meadow_sage
    meadow_sage Posts: 308 Member
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    Sometimes I eat them back and sometimes I don't. Most of the time I eat some of them back but not all of them. I am also seriously morbidly obese so, it is not quite frowned upon for me to be losing more than the recommended one-two pounds per week. You have to remember that you set your calories at a number where you will be losing weight so the exercise is to give you more calories so you eat "normal" and to get your body into shape. Exercise is just as important as nutrition. I would talk to your doctor because they could tell you better than anyone else whether or not it is safe for you to lose more than what is recommended by MFP. I do know, from experience, that slow and steady weight loss is the best way to keep it off.
  • LilRedRooster
    LilRedRooster Posts: 1,421 Member
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    The base amount of calories that you're given is just what your body needs to function properly. You actually spend MOST of your calories just doing ordinary things like making cells, maintaining your body temperature, digestion, and daily functioning that doesn't include any skeletal muscle activity. Exercise actually adds to that base amount, because you're adding work onto the work that your body is already doing just to keep you alive.

    So if you set up your calories so that you're already eating less than your body needs to function properly at a BASE level (without exercising), if you add exercise, you just have a larger deficit. You can just not add those calories in and not eat them back, and your body will adjust fine, but ultimately, the more weight you lose with that larger deficit, the harder it will be for your body to maintain its normal functions and extra work.

    The point of eating calories back is to keep your body functioning in a happy place where it's not having to work as hard to make up deficits you're creating through lowered caloric intake. It doesn't mean a lot of weight loss quickly, but will give you much more stable weight loss over time that is easier to maintain down the road. You can not eat them back and function just fine, but in the long run, that's harder to maintain than eating them back, because it creates much more work on your body's maintenance day-to-day.

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