Am I doing this right? I can't eat enough...

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NaturallyandProperly
NaturallyandProperly Posts: 138 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Without seeing my food diary, Is anyone else having troubles eating back their calories? My goal is to consume 1675 a day. Today I did circuit training which worked out to 821 calories.. according to MFP. This was one hour of circuit training (dead lifts, abs, triceps, biceps, back, lats, rhomboid...etc...) the rest walking. sorry about the format below..

Totals 867 90 36 69 866 35
Your Daily Goal 2,496 342 83 93 2,500 36
Remaining 1,629 252 47 24 1,634 1
Calories Carbs Fat Protein Sodium Sugar
*You've earned 821 extra calories from exercise today

Replies

  • nornyb
    nornyb Posts: 224 Member
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    I don't focus on eating back my exercise calories, on heavy workout days that coule be more than 1000 and I don't want to eat that much extra. I do sometimes eat back 200-300 calories and there has been a day or two when I've come close to eating them all back. I'm losing, so it must be working.
  • BarackMeLikeAHurricane
    BarackMeLikeAHurricane Posts: 3,400 Member
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    What were you eating before you started losing weight? Those foods were probably pretty high calorie. Eat some of those foods. You can also use things like full fat dairy, nuts, nut butters, avocados, olive oil, etc. to get some extra calories in for a small volume of food.
  • karenhray7
    karenhray7 Posts: 219 Member
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    Deciding whether or not to eat back exercise calories is definitely a personal preference; there are people who will tell you you have to eat them back to lose and there are people who will tell you it's best to just leave the deficit. For me personally, I don't try to eat back exercise calories, but if I go over my usual caloric budget (1500) on days where I've "earned" extra from activity, I don't worry about it. So eat them back or not, whatever makes you feel best.
  • gmallan
    gmallan Posts: 2,099 Member
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    Be careful about using the MFP database of exercises as it tends to over-estimate calorie burn.

    You may want to try calculating your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) and eat to this minus about 20%, that way you don't have to worry about eating back exercise cals as these are included in the number. I find that approach much easier. You may find that you are able to eat much more than you thought and still lose weight
  • nornyb
    nornyb Posts: 224 Member
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    I use another calories burned calculator to confirm/compare what MFP says and adjust accordingly.
  • linsey0689
    linsey0689 Posts: 753 Member
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    Okay I don't always believe what MFP says I have burned it is normally pretty high but yes I do have problems eating back the calories normally I just ate some of them back. But what do you have your lifestyle set to sedimentary, low, high or what? Just look at that I recently change my to the lowest one and it is a lot easier to eat back my exercise calories and keep me or track
  • MariaChele85
    MariaChele85 Posts: 267 Member
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    MFP isnt accurate, they over estimate the calories. I would invest in a heart rate monitor for a more accurate count. I compare the two and MFP almost doubles the cal. So if MFP says you burned 800 cal, you most likely only burned 400..
    Also add in high cal foods to make up for those extra calories. Such as nuts, avocado, flax seed oil, olive oil etc....

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