do i hav to eat back the cals i earn back from exercise?

DeeNelly

My goal is 1200 calories a day but as it changes due to exercise do i need to eat back all those calories. Isn't the greater deficit better?

Di3012

Some people swear by eating them all back, personally, I only usually go into my exercise calories by 50 to 100 and no, I have not plateaued.

bulbadoof

I feel like you should never feel obligated to eat. Listen to your body. Eat if it's hungry. Don't if it's not. Maybe you'll be under one day because you're not hungry, maybe you'll be over one day because you are.

JesterMFP

You're an adult (I presume), so you don't have to eat anything you don't want to. It's the way MFP was designed to work though. MFP gives you a particular calorie goal assuming that you will eat back the calories burned off through exercise. Otherwise, it would have given you a higher calorie goal. If you are eating 1200 calories a day and exercising, you may have a calorie deficit that is too big. This may cause you problems in the future with losing too much lean body mass (muscle) and slowing your metabolism more than you would otherwise. A lot of people find that their weight loss stalls when they are not fuelling their body properly. I've always eaten all of mine back (estimated with a heart rate monitor, which is probably more accurate than MFP's calorie burn estimates). I haven't had any problems with losing.

You might find some of these useful:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/23912-links-in-mfp-you-want-to-read-again-and-again

DeeNelly

Thanks everyone for all the info.

Scorpioangel

I don't eat them back all the time but at times I will.

carld256

It also depends on how accurate you think your numbers are. I suspect that I'm not burning as many calories as the treadmill says, and that I'm likely underestimating the number of calories I'm eating. So, I may eat back some of my calories, but not all of them.

savageman69

I usually eat back some but never all of them....Ive never plateaued either

gatecityradio

Yes /thread

megsmom2

You're an adult (I presume), so you don't have to eat anything you don't want to. It's the way MFP was designed to work though. MFP gives you a particular calorie goal assuming that you will eat back the calories burned off through exercise. Otherwise, it would have given you a higher calorie goal. If you are eating 1200 calories a day and exercising, you may have a calorie deficit that is too big. This may cause you problems in the future with losing too much lean body mass (muscle) and slowing your metabolism more than you would otherwise. A lot of people find that their weight loss stalls when they are not fuelling their body properly. I've always eaten all of mine back (estimated with a heart rate monitor, which is probably more accurate than MFP's calorie burn estimates). I haven't had any problems with losing.

You might find some of these useful:



http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/23912-links-in-mfp-you-want-to-read-again-and-again

This! Even if you're losing weight you have to fuel your body properly. If anything, that's when you should be being even more conscious of nutrition.