Do you eat back your exercise calories?

I ignore exercise calories so the exercise log is just to track time spent exercising for me. Exercise calories are highly over rated. You can't exercise away eating too much food. I learned this the hard way most of my life running marathon after marathon (and lifting) and not being able to lose weight and in fact continued to gain year after year. And I don't pig out, binge, snack mindlessly, eat out of boredom, etc, but the portion sizes are too big for a small person like me. (Well I wasn't small when I weighed over 170 lbs at 51'0"!)

Anyway I found what worked for me was separating out the two things:

Eat less to lose weight
Exercise to maintain or build lean body mass
end of story.

I found just ignoring all the complicated stuff everyone throws at us is the key. Day in and day out focus on two things. Eat lless, move more, stay within calorie budget (either weekly or daily). You can eat low one day and high the next, whatever you want. Well, it did work for me. I am the fittest, leanest, strongest, and most muscular I've ever been in my life at age 51 and I'm healthy and don't get sick and have long endurance.

If you have a lot of body fat reserves you would be surprised at how little you can eat (unless you have emotional eating issues or disorders). The leaner you get the less your body has to draw from and then you have to taper up your calories. There is no such thing as starvation mode for women over 12% body fat or men over 6% body fat. I am a living breathing example of that. I went from obese to now under 12% BF and I've maintained for one year and built muscle the whole time. You don't BUILD muscle in starvation mode, so I proved everyone wrong.

I made a post about net calories a while ago, but now I'm just wondering - do you eat back your exercise calories?

My calorie goal is 1200 a day, and I eat that, but when I exercise every day my net calories are somewhere between 800 and 900 calories. I'm worrying this is too little and that I need to eat them back.

I've found two sorts of people on this site and they're split down the middle - those who eat back their exercise calories and say that they hit a plateau when they didn't, and those who have had great weight loss results not eating them back and never hit a plateau.

I really don't want to end up having to get myself out of a plateau!

I guess everyone's body is just different, but I figured I'd do this as somewhat of a poll so I could get as many opinions as possible on making my decision to eat back those calories or not.

I am using a registered dietitian. She has never told me to eat back my exercise cals, but has stressed the importance of never going below actually consuming 1200 cals. She knows I use MFP and uses it herself and has never suggested that I eat all that. She uses the my plate standards. We only need so many serving of each group at day, and they should be healthy choices. So if you've gotten all those serving in, and your at 1400, and burn 500 exercising, I dont see why you need 300-500 cals more of what your body doesn't need? You've already met requirements. Rest is not needed. It's like when the vending machine says $1 but you put ,in $2 and then leave the change, doesn't make sense! Ha ha, so I'd say as long as your diet is mindful of health and getting in the groups, you don't need to eat more. Just remember to eat balanced, not just to lose weight but for total health :-) hope this helps your thought process and decision you make for yourself!

I don't, not because I don't want to, but because it's so flipping hard for me to eat THAT MUCH good food. I'm trying to eat very clean food with very specific macro splits, and it's just too hard to do it. I have tried and ended up feeling disgusting. I say see what works for you; listen to your body and be willing to try different approaches till something clicks.

Clean eating is 100% not required for weight loss.

I eat them all; sometimes I go over in a day; sometimes a bit under, but I try to reconcile within 24-48 hours bc that's what works best for my energy level.

I exercise a lot, because my job is teaching dance and fitness (specifically, spin). I teach about 20 hours a week, and outside of that, I also go road cycling, paddleboarding, and I enjoy lifting heavy objects and putting them back down

I eat A LOT of calories, and I burn a lot of calories.

Anyway, here's an old post of mine which may interest you:

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From one of my old posts from a similar topic:

OK. I'm gonna give this a shot. I am an avid lifelong athlete. I have never been overweight, however, I used to eat too few calories (without knowing it), and a couple years ago, I actually GAINED weight bc of having slowed my metabolism to the point that every little extra treat I ate caused a weight gain, even though overall my calories were too low. THIS DOES HAPPEN.

It is also the reason so many fat people stay fat. They restrict their calories so low, slow their metabolisms, binge (even a little), gain weight, restrict more . . . . and so on and so on. But they are still fat.

It is also the reason most people can't lose that last 10-20 lbs. For real.

1. MFP has a deficit built in. Let's say you're trying to lose 1 lb/ week. That is a 500/day deficit from your BMR (the amount of calories your body needs to complete basic functions.

2. You exercise and burn 500 calories. Now you are at a 1000 deficit. If you eat back those 500 exercise calories, you refuel your body and you still have a 500 deficit for that 1 lb loss. If you DON'T eat back those calories, you have too little fuel. This is bad. This is too much of a deficit for basic functions. If you do this for a long time, you will STOP LOSING WEIGHT. Why? bc your metabolism will slow down -- it's like a brownout--not quite enough electricity to make the whole city (your body) run, so it has to slow down some things. You will probably start being tired a lot, your skin and hair might start to look worse, and you might even gain weight. But you might NOT be hungry -- your body is getting used to fewer calories. That's bad.


That's when you start to gain weight. Let's say you're running along, eating 1200 calories a day, and exercising 400 calories a day, so net is 800. You're losing, you think this is great. You keep doing it, but after a while you stop losing. hmmmmm. One weekend you go out to a special event and have a slice of pizza and a beer. 1 slice of pizza and 1 beer. So you ate maybe 2000 calories that day and exercised off 400, so net 1600. BOOM! You gain 3 lbs! What?!

Next, you freak out and restrict yourself down to 1000 calories a day and work out extra hard, burning 500 calories. Great, netting 500 now. You don't lose any weight, but you sure feel tired. Better get some red bull.

Are you getting the picture?

EDIT: When you work out, you need fuel. Food is fuel. If you don't eat back those exercise calories, you will not only have a big calorie deficit, you will have an ENERGY deficit. Remember, the calorie deficit for weight loss is built in when you use MFP. Exercising basically earns you more calories because you must refuel.
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There are many people who will tell you not to eat exercise calories. Before you take their advice, you might want to see whether they are at goal, have EVER been at goal, or have ever been able to maintain at goal. If anyone says to you 'THE LAST TIME I LOST WEIGHT", just stop listening right there.

Ask some athletes whether or not they replenish their bodies with food equal to the calories they burn. Ask people who are fit and have achieved and maintained a healthy weight for some years. Don't ask people who count walking across a parking lot as exercise.

Here's an interesting case study about how to stay fat while consuming only 700 calories a day. Take a moment, you'll be glad you did:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/3047-700-calories-a-day-and-not-losing

blessings.

I have always ate them back...period. Most people that don't, do not understand that MFP has a deficit already built in....or some say they tried and it "doesn't work", ie they gain. Key is...you should be weighing/measuring your food accurately and wearing a HRM to accurately track your burns if you are going to eat them back, otherwise you're just guessing at everything.

I am new to the site and still working it out. So if my goal is 1200, I have burned 400 calories so it shows my goal for the day is now 1600 calories that I should eat??

Agreed! I think this can be a bit decieving. If you burn 300 calories,it doesnt make sense to add that back to eat more for the day. Seems that defeats the purpose. I want that to come out of the reserve I have already built up!

Then it is clear you do not understand how MFP works.