Exercise = extra calories??

This is a matter of great and terrible debate on the MFP forums. The simple answer is, as the poster above me states, a deficit is built in to your MFP goals and exercise represents an opportunity to eat additional calories while maintaining that deficit. The eternal question is: should you do that. The answer, as always, is complicated. If you exercise relatively lightly (say, fewer than 400 calories a day), it probably doesn't matter whether you consume those calories or not. You'll lose weight a little bit faster if you don't and you probably won't serious impact anything by leaving those calories "on the table" as it were. You'll lose weight a little slower if you do eat them, but you'll still lose. A lot of light exercisers don't normally eat their exercise calories, but like to keep them as a little reserve for if they want a treat... 30 minutes on the treadmill and a single donut have a nice symmetry of calories burned vs. consumed.

It gets complicated if you either have MFP setup for a very large deficit already, or if you exercise a lot. You need to fuel your body, and bad things can happen if your deficit gets too large for too long. You can find yourself exhausted, your body can start cannibalizing muscle, and/or your metabolism can change for the worse. I run between 25 and 35 miles a week, and do strength work 3 times a week. I usually eat my calories back. I've lost a pretty fair amount of weight and been pretty successful overall. Your mileage may vary.

Probably someone will post here saying that they workout four hours a day six days a week and consume 1000 calories a day and they're doing great. Personally I think these people are smoking something, but they'll swear it's true. If it is true, I think these people are going to see long term negative affects on their bodies, even if they see results in the short term.

As a side note, most calorie burn estimates are just that, estimates. For that reason, while I do eat my calories back I try to leave around a 5-10% buffer left in the pool to account for possible errors in rounding.

First, I would ask if your Dr. is a nutrition specialist? If not, the majority of them have very little experience in nutrition. My friends only had 1 class each. It's almost like going to your dentist for a stomach issue. It's a completely different specialty. If you want nutrition advice, go to a dietitian or a nutritionist. The only time you need to go to a Dr. is for blood work or a physical (this can be worked in conjunction with a dietitian so they can collaborate).


Next, if you use MFP like it's designed, you should eat back your exercise calories. As someone suggested, eat 50% of them as MFP can over estimate for some people. If a person isn't active, 1200 calories is probably enough, but if you are active, you will need more calories. Most active women I know are eating 1700-2000 calories. The reason for this is your body needs more fuel when you are active, especially the smaller and closer to a normal weight you become. When you are smaller, your fat stores are smaller. And when people don't eat enough calories, their body finds another source of energy... it does this by attacking the amino acids in your lean body mass. And there is a huge difference between weight loss and fat loss. Fat loss will provide a lean and tight body (as demonstrated by the link below). On the left, typical weight loss, on the right is what happens after you realize that you lost a lot of muscle due to under eating... aka you eat a surplus, do lots of weight training and gain 10 lbs of muscle). Remember, muscle is tight and lean so preserving that is critical. The more muscle you have, the smaller you will be.

So I say, feed you body properly which you should estimate your total calories you burn and then cut 20% from that. Your TDEE would include metabolic rate, lifestyle and your exercise.



http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/392784-skinny-fat-vs-fit-photo?hl=skinny+fat+vs