Eating your calories from working out back???

I don't believe in eating back workout calories... it seems like defeating the purpose to me. Some people here disagree with that passionately for perfectly valid reasons (my wife is one of those).

Fair warning: This thread has the potential of exploding into a 130 page slug-fest like most of this breed do.

Okay, so very simply.

You sign up for MFP and select a goal (i.e. lose 1 pound per week)

MFP gives you a calorie target assuming nO WORKING OUT and that target would get you to the aforementioned goal.

You workout.

Those calories burned were not taken into account in the first place.

Now you're at a deficit corresponding to your initial goal + the calories you burned working out. (i.e. a 500 deficit to lose 1 pound per week plus the 250 you burned working out = 750 deficit or 1.5 pounds lost per week instead of 1 pound)

What happens when your deficit is too big is that your body essentially responds by down regulating your thyroid hormones along with down (or up) regulating other hormones responsible for hunger, satiety, etc (i.e. ghrelin/leptin).

So, you eat your calories that you burned so that you arrive at the deficit intended to get you to the goal you selected in the first place.

You need to educate yourself on how this site works. If you set yourself up the MFP recommends, you do not include exercise in your daily activity. From there, MFP will calculate a deficit that is already built into your diet; therefore, any calories you burn from exercise create an even larger deficit. This is not always a good thing...for example, if you're at 1,200 calories, you are already at an 800-1,000 calorie deficit from your maintenance level TDEE on average. This is already huge....now if you exercise and burn another 500, you're only netting 700 calories which, unless you have a serious medical condition, I can guarantee you is well below your BMR (Basal Metabolic rate)...THIS IS VERY, VERY, VERY BAD AND EXTREMELY DANGEROUS!!!!!!

Your BMR is what they would feed you in a hospital through a tube if you were in a coma. It is the bare bones calories your body needs to just maintain proper organ function. Eating substantially below your BMR for extended periods of time causes all kinds of issues, the least of which is metabolic stall.

MFP is a tool like any other...to get the most use out of the tool, you need to know how to use the tool.

The sound reason is... that's how this site was designed to work. It gives you a lower calorie goal than another site might, with the expectation that you'll earn more calories from exercise.

For instance, if I used another site to calculate my TDEE (total daily energy expenditure), I'd be told to eat 2300 calories to maintain my current weight. If I wanted to lose one pound a week, I would take 500 calories off that total, which would be 1800 calories.

If I told MFP that I wanted to lose one pound a week, I'd get told to consume about 1350 caloires. With exercise calories, assuming a 350-600 burn most days (about 30-60 minutes of exercise), I would end up with 1700-1950 calories. Right about the same as TDEE - 500.

If I *only* ate the 1350 MFP suggests, I'd have a 950 calorie a day deficit, which, in theory, would suggest I'd end up losing about 2 pounds a week, but experience has taught me that I can't possibly lose that much a week without a stomach flu. A larger deficit just makes me feel like crap and doesn't make weight loss any faster for me.

I lost my weight eating 1350-1700 plus exercise calories, or a total of 1700-2000+. Every past attempt at weight loss had failed because I had too large of a deficit. Weight loss through MFP was almost effortless. I felt great the entire time, reached my goal in 6 months and I've been maintaining for over a year and a half. And maintaining my loss is just as effortless. I never, ever, ever thought being fit, strong and healthy could be this easy.

(The eating part is easy. The exercising... not so easy, but so so worth it!)

To me personally it seems like defeating the purpose, but if someone can give me good, sound reasons to eat them back and prove I won't gain weight or stall out, I'd be more than happy to eat those calories!! :laugh:

if you do a lot of exercise on a calorie deficit diet you are going below the number you set yourself.

so, if you set your cals at 1400, and then ran for an hour every day you would burn 500 cals extra per day, meaning that if you only ate 1400cals you would actually be eating the equivalent of eating 900cals.

thats bad for you.

you are eating back the calories burned so you match you match or get close to your original deficit number, just be careful that your calories arn't set too low, then with exercise on top you are going far to low.


you are supposed to fuel your body with food and eat healthy + exercise to improve it. not starve it off. that doesn't work.

this will probably turn into *kitten* fight.

No s*** fight needed!! You guys spelled it out fairly well for me to understand. I had already checked out the links suggested for the whole TDEE, macros thing but it just turned into reading Greek for me.

Thanks!

PM me if you need help figuring out the TDEE - 20% thing.

In my opinion it's pointless to eat your calories back if you work out. Why waste an hour working out then if you're not going to make any progress? Personally, I don't do it. My calorie limit is 2160 and that's what I stay at regardless if I work out or not.

it's well known why. just read the answers and follow the links above. or don't.

In my opinion it's pointless to eat your calories back if you work out. Why waste an hour working out then if you're not going to make any progress? Personally, I don't do it. My calorie limit is 2160 and that's what I stay at regardless if I work out or not.

Do you really think that working out has no purpose other than burning calories and causing weight loss?

In my opinion it's pointless to eat your calories back if you work out. Why waste an hour working out then if you're not going to make any progress? Personally, I don't do it. My calorie limit is 2160 and that's what I stay at regardless if I work out or not.

Do you really think that working out has no purpose other than burning calories and causing weight loss?

If your goal is to lose weight, yes.

If you're trying to lose weight and you work out then eat your calories back...what's the point of working out?

Just sayin'. Not trying to start any s**t with anyone here. To each his own, I'm not judging or criticizing.

Some days I eat them back, some days I don't, I eat when I am hungry ...and I am still losing even if I go over somedays , I workout for the benefits for my heart and cardiovascular health, as well as my mental health lol.....losing weight is a bonus for me, however I am really trying to lose fat and gain muscle now.

In my opinion it's pointless to eat your calories back if you work out. Why waste an hour working out then if you're not going to make any progress? Personally, I don't do it. My calorie limit is 2160 and that's what I stay at regardless if I work out or not.

Do you really think that working out has no purpose other than burning calories and causing weight loss?

If your goal is to lose weight, yes.

If you're trying to lose weight and you work out then eat your calories back...what's the point of working out?

Just sayin'. Not trying to start any s**t with anyone here. To each his own, I'm not judging or criticizing.

To be fitter?

To preserve your lean body mass?

To have the body you want at the end?

If your net calories for the day ends up being below your BMR (for example: I'm 5'1 with about 35 lbs to lose, so my BMR is listed around the 1400 range, and my TDEE-20% is about 1600), I assume it would be a good idea to eat at least some of your burned calories so that you are not below your BMR.

But if your net calories for the day ends up being above your BMR, and you are not hungry or too far from your TDEE-20%, you should probably not eat those calories back.

Please correct me if I'm wrong - I don't want bad info circulating.