For people losing over 50lbs

if I am super hungry I will, but usually not really.

I eat every yummy exercise calorie.

Well, it depends. The more body fat you carry, the more "wiggle room" (no pun intended) you have in terms of eating back your exercise calories---I only eat about half of them back now but when I started MFP and started exercising and lifting weights (my body fat was 6% higher back then and I ate very few of them back. As I get closer to my goal body fat percentage (I am currently at 32%---still technically "obese"---and I want to go down to, at least, 25%), I will need to eat more and more of my exercise calories back (taking for granted that I will be increasing my exercise even more, as I get closer to my goal body fat percentage). As I said, I was at 38% BF when I started at MFP but that was after over a year and a half of strict dieting without much exercise at all. While I lost pounds (about 35) I probably lost a higher percentage of LBM than I have since (another 15 pounds) because I have been exercising since I joined MFP. Two years ago, I was at 50% BF (morbidly obese)--my waist was 8 inches larger (another measure of BF).

One of the problems with using the standard scales for calculating lean body mass is that they likely aren't very accurate when there's a LOT of excess fat. Using body fat calipers (available online for about $20) is probably a better idea than just "guestimating" using standard tables because it will likely have you overestimating the amount of LBM. It will thus likely give you more calories than you should eat because lean body mass takes a lot more calories to maintain than does body fat. Think about it---I weighed around 245 when I started dieting two years ago. Some football players weigh that much with only a little body fat. They would obviously need a LOT more calories to maintain their LBM than I did at that weight. They would need to eat back most or all of their exercise calories (and DO). I could afford to avoid eating any of them, at that point. Getting rid of BF is essentially reversing how you got it in the first place by eating more calories than you need and exercising less and less. When I weighed 245, I could barely get off the couch (and I was only eating about 1200-1300 calories at that point). Now, I eat 1600-1700 calories and am still slowly losing because I have built up my LBM. I feel great and many of my health problems have been eliminated or gotten a lot better (I still have arthritis but it feels a lot better).

One more thing that I did was to eliminate sugar and wheat from my diet as I was quite sure that I was addicted to them and, in any case, it was a convenient way to chop calories without chopping nourishment.

Does this make sense or am I wrong here?

MFP has me set at 1380 calories to lose 1 pound a week. I generally eat between 1500 and 1700 calories a day and have been consistently losing. So yes, I do eat some of my exercise calories back. I do wear a heart rate monitor to get a more accurate count of calories burned.

124 pounds in just under seven months can't be done if you are eating back all of your calories. Its good to have them in reserve if you are feeling a bit hungry and want to eat a bit more... but I have not and will not eat them back. I usually stay under my initial calorie goal.

I want to second this !!! 117 lbs CAN NOT be done by eating the exercise cals. I too try and stay under the initial goal.

Ed Davenport lost over 300 pounds eating back all of his exercise calories. To quote him "I never leave uneaten calories on the table". To say it can't be done is just wrong. Look him up

OK, my mistake. I forgot to add my disclaimer "FOR ME" to my post. Everyone is different. If someone can loose 300 a different way, great.

I will say that I personally have changed my attitude from a LIVE TO EAT attitude to a EAT TO LIVE attitude.

Technically, any calorie still on the table is an un-eaten calorie.

But I am going to read into the statement and interpret the meaning to be - If he has went for a walk and burned 700 calories, then by golly he's going to eat 700 calories more than he would have if he hadn't gone for the walk.

Personally, I am not going to do that. Nor am I going to say to myself "I want a candy bar, so let me go walk off <<<let me look at the back ......450 calories>>>> 450 calories so I can eat this candy bar. That, I interpret to be a LIVE TO EAT attitude. Again, everyone is different and should do what works for them.

I think the interpretation might be a little off. For me, it's not so much that if I burn 700 calories on a walk then by golly I'm going to eat 700 more. It's more that if I burn 700 calories on a run (which I frequently do), I'm run-down, tired, cranky and lethargic unless I eat more (the 700 calories I wouldn't have eaten if I hadn't gone for a run). It's not that I'm eating them "just because", I'm eating them because the very act of burning them has made me need more fuel.

And for the candy bar scenario-many of us have decided to not exclude any food from our diets forever as that's simply not sustainable (for us). Again, I don't look at the back of a package and decide that I need to burn x calories so I can eat whatever it is. I run 5 days a week with one of those days being about a 2 hour run (which burns 1000-1200 calories depending on how far I run). If I am looking to fit some naughty food into my diet, I'm going to do it on a day when I have burned a hefty chunk of exercise calories. Those calories will be burned regardless of whether I eat a candy bar or not-but if I'm going to fit a candy bar into my life, it's going to happen the day I have burned the calories to "afford" it.

My disclaimer-I'm not the amazing and inspirational Ed Davenport and I've only lost 75 pounds.

In another example of doing what your body dictates, I personally CANNOT eat my exercise calories back---sometimes I even have trouble eating all my calories on non-heavy exercise days. I look forward to Sundays because I don't do any exercise at all on Sundays.

My stomach simply cannot handle that much food anymore (and hasn't been able to for a long time). Maybe I was kidnapped by aliens and they stapled my stomach?? :laugh: Now, mind you, I eat very nutrient dense food with no sugar and no wheat (I was formerly addicted to both). As an experiment, I tried to eat my exercise calories back yesterday and finally got to 8.p.m. totally stuffed---and still came up 300 calories short of what MFP says I should have eaten if I was to eat my exercise calories back! I spent a terrible night tossing and turning because of heartburn, indigestion and gas! Sorry for the TMI