Ate exercise cal's back....and gained....am NOT sold!

How did you set up your calorie goal on my fitness pal? Does it factor in your activity level or not?

Unless you have it set to sedentary, MFP automatically builds in some calories to account for those settings.

I am in no way a fan of eating exercise calories back. Use the calculator on either fat 2 fit radio or freedieting and put in your activity level. (how many times a week you work out and how vigorous) and use that number. I feel like there's a lot of "iffy"-ness surrounding how much any given exercise burns.

Not everyone eats back their workout cals, as long as your net is over 1200 I wouldn't stress about it. I do find when I increase my calories I usually gain a small amount the first week, then start losing again after my body adjusts. The only reason this site has you eat back workout calories is because it's designed to help you lose weight through eating alone, meaning your daily intake goal alone would cause you to lose 1.5 to 2 lbs a week. If you workout a lot you could end up not eating enough because it's not factoring in that extra calorie defecit. If that makes sense.

Listen to your body. If you are hungry...eat. If you aren't hungry, don't force yourself to eat all those calories back just to reach some number that might not even be correct. It's simple really.

I don't. I lose.

calories were overestimated on burn most likely. And 2 weeks of doing something is not enough time. period. I eat back at least half my exercise calories (sometimes all of them) and it has steadily worked for me for over a year and a half...... I currently average 1800-1900 calories on non exercise days.

here is what i did. set my activity level to sedentary, number of workouts to zero and picked stay at the same weight option. That gives you your baseline for calories.

to that i add what i work out (might be a good idea to invest in a heart rate monitor but thats just my opinion). and make sure that there is at least 500 extra calories remaining per day. (essentially for every 3500 calories saved/worked you lose a pound). This way the whole process is transparent to me. It is a little convoluted but makes more sense to me.

Also, it might be a good idea to be more realistic in terms of your goals too - start at 1 pound a week rather than 1.5-2. But again, that is just my opinion. Hope this helps.

Amritha.

if it doesn't work for you, don't do it

i've eaten mine back consistently, and i've lost 42 lbs. but i don't always use MFP's numbers. i don't have a heart rate monitor, but i try to use calculators that include varying activity levels and weight. i have MFP set to sedentary, because i'm a writer and grad student, so a huge portion of my day is spent stationary, in front of a computer.

that said, i also don't log things like housecleaning, walking (from parking spots, at the store, etc. - if i go to the mall and walk for two hours, i log it) or anything that's part of my daily routine, unless it's excessive. if i rearrange the furniture, i log it

there's a lot of talk here about how MFP's estimates of calories burned aren't right for everyone, and there's also the fact that unless you're weighing/measuring every bite, your calories could be wrong as well...i try to set my calories high enough that i'm not starving all the time, and low enough that there's some margin for error.

i also have a lot more to lose, too, so it could be that once i approach my goal i'll have to get more vigilant.

there really is no fine science to this - it's a matter of finding what works for you. as long as you're getting enough to eat, it shouldn't matter if you eat your exercise calories back or not. the reason people freak out over it is because there seems to be a high number of people who are eating 1200 calories and not eating back hours of calories burned off at the gym - but if you aren't being unhealthy, why worry either way?

Listen to your body. If you are hungry...eat. If you aren't hungry, don't force yourself to eat all those calories back just to reach some number that might not even be correct. It's simple really.

This ^. People make it so damn complicated

The bottom line is this:

If you have calculated your calorie needs based on a sedentary level of activity and then you log your exercises, you can eat back those calories.

If you have calculated your calorie needs factoring in a higher level of activity, don't log those exercises, and don't eat back the calories. Your allotted intake will automatically be higher.

Were you using a HRM to get calories burned? That might be part of it. Don't trust the exercise numbers here, my experience is that they are way off on certain exercises. Also, most sites recommend only eating back half.

I am an advocate of eating back none unless you are hungry and need them. If you eat back some for that reason, only eat more protein and non-starchy veggies and not carbs.

i use a heart rate monitor to calculate my cal burn, and so far, i've eaten my exercise back most days, give or take a few calories and i lost... mfp's calculations for cal burns are grossly overestimated

I think MFP really overestimates the amount of calories, as do most exercise machines. That's why I'm wary of eating back exercise calories!

Or ... get a heart rate monitor. Not perfect, but better than guestimates and self-starving?