Eat back what you burn or not??

I've been wondering the same thing. Mine says to eat around 1900 calories a day, and for the longest time I've eaten no where near that. I started eating more so my body wouldn't be in 'starvation mode', and I have lost some weight. I noticed it adds back the calories you burn off, but I haven't been eating the extra. Like you, I'm at a loss here.

Echoing Bean. You need to fuel your recovery. While low calories is great, and the more overweight you are the easier it is lose (pound for pound) you can't sustain yourself on stored energy alone. Better to take the long road on this matter. Slower weight loss will also give your skin time to recover; if you go too fast you'll just end up with a different problem.

You have to assess how you feel. This site/app/whatever isn't just designed for people looking to lose weight. If I'm liftig regularly and calories are important to me I would want to eat them back to keep energy levels up. However, I'm trying to lose weight so I always make sure I'm under my calorie goal and don't purposely eat the calories back. I eat what I'm comfortable eating. I don't think I could eat what it tells me to unless I made some poor choices or added in extra pumpkin pie or something. As long as you're feeling good and have good energy levels you should be fine. My bud at work who I also work out with was trying to cut back but was getting weak and light headed between meals. A granola bar for breakfast simply isn't enough to fuel him until lunch. Eat sensibly. That's the most important thing here. You aren't doing any good if you're starving yourself.

Interesting, several people suggested eating them back, but you only responded to the two that told you not to. I'd listen to the people who have several thousand posts on the forum (and are looking pretty great). For more information:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/818082-exercise-calories-again-wtf

My vote is yes. I eat back every single one and always have.

BUT, since you're larger you can afford a slightly bigger deficit than a smaller person could. So my caveat would be that if your workouts are <300 cals, you're probably ok. 300-500 cals you should probably eat some, and 500+ you should eat a good percentage. I see people not eat back like 1200 calorie workouts, and that leaves them in a crash-and-burn situation.

For not so active vs. very active, I'd go with what Bean said (quoted above). You have a lot to lose, and have your calories set to lose 1lb/week. You could tolerate a little steeper deficit. You can create that larger deficit by not eating back your calories (or you could set it to 2lbs/week and eat back exercise calories). You'd probably end up around the same place if you're not killing yourself in the gym (I'm all for not going cardio crazy). I'd go with whichever system works, but like Bean said, if you start doing more intense workouts, I'd start eating back some.

(And thank you for being reasonable and listening to all the varied advice.)

Read from one other member that is not such a thing as starving "fat people " only people who lacks of food for many many days can actually starve . also read that we do usually eat more than we should and the 1500 and the 1800 are way to much I kind of believe that should be truth
For Reference her name is Californiagirl2012

I started with the Katch-McArdle equation and used a weekly feedback loop to find my personal sweet spot. That being said, exercise is going to be factored in the equation already. I don't "eat back" anything. My sweet spot is around 1650 calories. I eat that daily, no matter how many calories I happen to burn off each day.

You are doing the same thing as eating back your calories because they are factored into your daily allowance.

If you're seeing good progress I wouldn't change anything yet

If your eating at a deficit eat your workout calories back if your eating at TDEE then let you exercise be your deficit and do not eat your calories back but do NOT do both.

Interesting, several people suggested eating them back, but you only responded to the two that told you not to. I'd listen to the people who have several thousand posts on the forum (and are looking pretty great). For more information:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/818082-exercise-calories-again-wtf

Good call... see THAT is why I love this place. I value straight forward people. Thanks. That is a good point, but I was also looking at how much weight they lost. I think the point is that it may not matter unless you are highly active. So, if I want to eat it back, be very active... what is your thought on that?

I eat back my exercise calories. All. The. Time.


Check out my ticker. Yup.

In theory, you should eat back what you burn because MFP has built in a deficit for you. There is no way of knowing how accurate your calories burned estimations may or may not be and if you you eat over that actual amount then you may not lose weight in the way that you expect. It is a balance you must find through experimentation.