Creating too much of a deficit

Personally, the bigger I can make my deficit (within reason) the happier I am If I'm eating enough and am satisfied, I see no reason not to exercise more if I feel like it!

Yes I agree. I rarely eat any of the extra calories from exercise. I make a point of eating three nutricious meals a day but I won't force myself to eat more when I'm not hungry. I have not tuned in to the whole debate thing about the wisdom of eating or not eating the extra calories earned by exercise. I have been consistently losing weight so far so what I am doing seems to be working so far.

I "third" the above posts- I rarely eat more than 100-150 of my exercise calories if I eat any of them at all- too much to eat most days! I say exercise on!

I generally don't eat my exercise calories either. I have read a lot about how you SHOULD eat them, on this website. Still, I am 52 years old and don't exercise a TON. I go to an aerobics class twice a week, but other than that, I walk about 30 minutes a day at lunch and/or ride my exercise bike 20-30 minutes a day. I know I am not going to go into starvation mode if I eat my daily allotment of calories (1,200). If I have a splurge here or there, I try to get more exercise to "cover" what I ate. It has worked for me since January and I have been able to stick with it all this time. I figure the exercise gives me the extra calories if I want / need them, but I am not going to eat more just to eat more! Maybe if you are really working out a lot, it makes sense to have to provide fuel for your body. But for moderate exercise, I think you would be fine to "just do it!"

My body did fine with very big deficits (sometimes 2500 calories) for about 4.5 months & then it freaked out.

Now, it apparently doesn't appreciate anything over a 1000 calorie deficit for an extended period of time. About a month ago, when I hit my 2nd plateau in as many months, I reset my goal to lose 1.5 pounds (from 2 pounds) a week & I started trying to eat at least 50% of my exercise calories.

One or 2 days with a large deficit isn't going to hurt. I believe it was the consistently huge deficits that caused me to plateau. I thought my body wouldn't have a problem with it because I had (and still have) quite a bit of weight to lose. I admit I was wrong. I've been fighting it for 2.5 months now & by starting to eat more, I've started losing weight again. But I learned my lesson the hard way. And apparently not everyone will have a problem with it. Everyone's body is different.

I try to make my meal plan coordinate with my exercise plan. If I know I'm going to be working out a lot one day, I try to get in a good many more calories early so I'm not left in your situation. If it doesn't happen very often, I'd go ahead and exercise. But if it becomes a trend, consider being more careful with your meal plans to fit in those extra calories.