so confused on eating exercise calories back!

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Replies

  • tmauck4472
    tmauck4472 Posts: 1,785 Member
    Hi, in a nutshell, MFP already calculates you at a deficit if you were to NOT exercise. When you "earn" more calories through exercise, MFP is recalculating such that you still eat the original deficit and fuel you workout.

    Read the stickies please, there is a ton of debate on this and a lot of it is speculation. You can find some better info here: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/10665-newbies-please-read-me-2nd-edition

    It's only MFP, most people are at 1200 because they want to be not because MFP says thats where they should be. I think unless your new to the site you set your own calorie intake goal and go from there. I can't see being religious to what MFP says, kinda silly if you ask me, they are NOT your doctor or your nutritionist. They believe in "starvation mode", for me this site has for the most part good people, and a great way to track your calories and exercise, and forums where you learn things and also take things with a grain of salt. This is of course MY OPINION.
  • Smuterella
    Smuterella Posts: 1,623 Member
    Just follow the system for a bit and see if it works, if it doesnt ask questions then.
  • rlmadrid
    rlmadrid Posts: 694 Member

    Well, awesome. :drinker:
  • tmauck4472
    tmauck4472 Posts: 1,785 Member
    One last note - people who are extremely overweight, like the poster above was when they started out, can apparently sustain these huge calorie deficits for a good length of time. if you are "overweight" (not obese) or "normal", then it's best to stick to a moderate deficit, like 20% of your TDEE.

    I agree, but I still would not eat my calories back unless I was hungry. Doesn't make sense to me. I am moving my calories up now just moving slowly, very slowly so I don't gain even a lb back

    So if your eating 20% below your TDEE then that shoud be a lot of food, I should be eating over 2000 a day. 2000 is alot of food. You can google a site that will help you find your TDEE.
    A lot of times I am hungry after I work out, so I like to have some extra calories to play with.
  • rlmadrid
    rlmadrid Posts: 694 Member
    Hi, in a nutshell, MFP already calculates you at a deficit if you were to NOT exercise. When you "earn" more calories through exercise, MFP is recalculating such that you still eat the original deficit and fuel you workout.

    Read the stickies please, there is a ton of debate on this and a lot of it is speculation. You can find some better info here: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/10665-newbies-please-read-me-2nd-edition

    It's only MFP, most people are at 1200 because they want to be not because MFP says thats where they should be. I think unless your new to the site you set your own calorie intake goal and go from there. I can't see being religious to what MFP says, kinda silly if you ask me, they are NOT your doctor or your nutritionist. They believe in "starvation mode", for me this site has for the most part good people, and a great way to track your calories and exercise, and forums where you learn things and also take things with a grain of salt. This is of course MY OPINION.

    Yes, but you will be hard-pressed to find people who want to hear that MFP is not the secret to weight loss. It's not the missing link, but an extremely helpful tool in understanding what we put into our bodies in a day. It helps us learn to make better food choices in terms of calories, macronutrients, sodium, and sugar. It helps give a (very) general idea of what exercise activities will burn.

    I agree, everything read on ANY forum must be personally investigated for truth. I've seen everything from people advocating "starvation mode" to people who are adamant that you will not lose weight unless you eat under 1200 calories a day AND work out.

    OP, though it is sometimes good to simplify the information into a yes, there are more technical explanations. For calculations of your BMR and TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) I found this site: http://www.iifym.com/tdee-calculator - though I am sure you could find more with a Google search.

    If you would like some articles on this information, this were found using Google Scholar and the full article is free by pdf:
    http://www.ajcn.org/content/59/4/800.short

    I hope some of that was helpful! Don't get overwhelmed; use MFP as a guideline for fuelling your body.
  • alikonner
    alikonner Posts: 67
    Hi, in a nutshell, MFP already calculates you at a deficit if you were to NOT exercise. When you "earn" more calories through exercise, MFP is recalculating such that you still eat the original deficit and fuel you workout.

    Read the stickies please, there is a ton of debate on this and a lot of it is speculation. You can find some better info here: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/10665-newbies-please-read-me-2nd-edition

    It's only MFP, most people are at 1200 because they want to be not because MFP says thats where they should be. I think unless your new to the site you set your own calorie intake goal and go from there. I can't see being religious to what MFP says, kinda silly if you ask me, they are NOT your doctor or your nutritionist. They believe in "starvation mode", for me this site has for the most part good people, and a great way to track your calories and exercise, and forums where you learn things and also take things with a grain of salt. This is of course MY OPINION.

    Yes, but you will be hard-pressed to find people who want to hear that MFP is not the secret to weight loss. It's not the missing link, but an extremely helpful tool in understanding what we put into our bodies in a day. It helps us learn to make better food choices in terms of calories, macronutrients, sodium, and sugar. It helps give a (very) general idea of what exercise activities will burn.

    I agree, everything read on ANY forum must be personally investigated for truth. I've seen everything from people advocating "starvation mode" to people who are adamant that you will not lose weight unless you eat under 1200 calories a day AND work out.

    OP, though it is sometimes good to simplify the information into a yes, there are more technical explanations. For calculations of your BMR and TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) I found this site: http://www.iifym.com/tdee-calculator - though I am sure you could find more with a Google search.

    If you would like some articles on this information, this were found using Google Scholar and the full article is free by pdf:
    http://www.ajcn.org/content/59/4/800.short

    I hope some of that was helpful! Don't get overwhelmed; use MFP as a guideline for fuelling your body.

    Thank you very much for taking the time to answer :)
  • rlmadrid
    rlmadrid Posts: 694 Member
    Hi, in a nutshell, MFP already calculates you at a deficit if you were to NOT exercise. When you "earn" more calories through exercise, MFP is recalculating such that you still eat the original deficit and fuel you workout.

    Read the stickies please, there is a ton of debate on this and a lot of it is speculation. You can find some better info here: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/10665-newbies-please-read-me-2nd-edition

    It's only MFP, most people are at 1200 because they want to be not because MFP says thats where they should be. I think unless your new to the site you set your own calorie intake goal and go from there. I can't see being religious to what MFP says, kinda silly if you ask me, they are NOT your doctor or your nutritionist. They believe in "starvation mode", for me this site has for the most part good people, and a great way to track your calories and exercise, and forums where you learn things and also take things with a grain of salt. This is of course MY OPINION.

    Yes, but you will be hard-pressed to find people who want to hear that MFP is not the secret to weight loss. It's not the missing link, but an extremely helpful tool in understanding what we put into our bodies in a day. It helps us learn to make better food choices in terms of calories, macronutrients, sodium, and sugar. It helps give a (very) general idea of what exercise activities will burn.

    I agree, everything read on ANY forum must be personally investigated for truth. I've seen everything from people advocating "starvation mode" to people who are adamant that you will not lose weight unless you eat under 1200 calories a day AND work out.

    OP, though it is sometimes good to simplify the information into a yes, there are more technical explanations. For calculations of your BMR and TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) I found this site: http://www.iifym.com/tdee-calculator - though I am sure you could find more with a Google search.

    If you would like some articles on this information, this were found using Google Scholar and the full article is free by pdf:
    http://www.ajcn.org/content/59/4/800.short

    I hope some of that was helpful! Don't get overwhelmed; use MFP as a guideline for fuelling your body.

    Thank you very much for taking the time to answer :)

    Not a problem, love. Keep strong and good luck. With dedication, it will come together :smile:
  • scarlettesong
    scarlettesong Posts: 108 Member
    Sounds like a reasonable burn if you are working hard during the 30DS workout. If you have MFP set up to correctly then you need to eat your exercise calories back. Here's why:

    You enter your information into MFP.
    MFP does a calculation to know that if you eat say 1700 calories/day (made up number, this will be based on on your height, weight, sex, activity level) you won't gain or lose weight.
    You tell MFP you want to lose 1 lb/wk so it subtracts 500 calories/day to set your target (because 500 cal/day x 7 days = 3500 calorie deficit/week = 1 lb/week).
    Any time you exercise above your activity level you set in MFP, then you essentially earn calories to eat and are still eating at a deficit to lose weight. Or in other words if you didn't eat your exercise calories back you would have a 750 calorie/day deficit and lose 1.5 lbs/week.

    If you only have 10 lbs to lose, you may want to consider losing at a slower speed, no more than 0.5 lb/week. And know that the last 10 lb can take a long time to come off (several months).

    Make sense?

    Makes a lot of sense! Thank you! And thanks for taking the time to answer. I know a lot of people have posted about this, but for some reason it still confuses me. But, how you put it makes a lot of sense. After I had the baby, I lost like 20-30lbs pretty quick. Did weight watchers and lost another 10 fairly quickly (but wasn't so happy, and wasn't exercising) So, now I'm at the last 10-15lbs and it is just not coming off! But, exercising is helping with inches a bit.

    Anyways, so I will eat them back.. Thanks a lot for your input! I know people get a bit impatient when other people don't understand this topic.. lol.

    So you say the weight isn't coming off, but you're still losing inches? That's great! That means any weight you're losing, you happen to be gaining in muscle from your exercise. Because muscle is denser, you still get a smaller waistline/dress size. That's awesome! Congratulations! Just keep following the plan if you want to lose the pounds, but don't get discouraged if it takes even longer or even goes up a bit as long as you're seeing the good physical changes indicating muscle gain.