should you really eat ALL your calories from excercise back?

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  • fitnessfoodtravel
    fitnessfoodtravel Posts: 32 Member
    MFP OVERestimates the calories you burn by about 25% so I eat back only 25%. I wear a heart-rate monitor and track the calories I burn that way; more accurate than MFP. The rule of thumb is that you should eat an extra 150-250 calories of clean foods the days you work out VS the days you do not.
  • Sarauk2sf
    Sarauk2sf Posts: 28,072 Member
    Interesting, I've never heard that you should eat back the calories that you burn. I thought the point was NOT to eat them in order to create a calorie deficit.

    MFP is set up differently than many sites/programs in that it already created a deficit in the base number.
  • LiftAllThePizzas
    LiftAllThePizzas Posts: 17,857 Member
    If you don't eat enough to fuel your body it is going to catch up with you at some point. When you start getting weak, tired, foggy-brained, getting dizzy spells, or panic attacks you might change your mind about eating back exercise calories. The fact that you said you had some sort of self-starving ED and screwed up your hunger signals suggests that if you try to rely on your hunger levels, you're gonna have a bad time.

    All this depends greatly on your weight. At 300lbs I could have a huge deficit. Your body will burn fat if your very big. Now at 214lbs and I eat 1700. My TDEEs are regularly 3000+ the lower your weights gets the more you need to eat. That's a hard concept but true.
    I suspect it may have something to do with the energy stored in your body fat becoming "less accessible" as your BF% becomes lower and lower. There is some kind of limit (I'd guess based on your liver's capacity) to how much body fat can be converted over to usable energy in a day, and while that might be able to keep up with energy needs, you still also need to keep up with the essential vitamins and minerals by eating. I'm sure the more well read members here know something about it.
  • Sarauk2sf
    Sarauk2sf Posts: 28,072 Member
    If you don't eat enough to fuel your body it is going to catch up with you at some point. When you start getting weak, tired, foggy-brained, getting dizzy spells, or panic attacks you might change your mind about eating back exercise calories. The fact that you said you had some sort of self-starving ED and screwed up your hunger signals suggests that if you try to rely on your hunger levels, you're gonna have a bad time.

    All this depends greatly on your weight. At 300lbs I could have a huge deficit. Your body will burn fat if your very big. Now at 214lbs and I eat 1700. My TDEEs are regularly 3000+ the lower your weights gets the more you need to eat. That's a hard concept but true.
    I suspect it may have something to do with the energy stored in your body fat becoming "less accessible" as your BF% becomes lower and lower. There is some kind of limit (I'd guess based on your liver's capacity) to how much body fat can be converted over to usable energy in a day, and while that might be able to keep up with energy needs, you still also need to keep up with the essential vitamins and minerals by eating. I'm sure the more well read members here know something about it.

    There is a maximum amount of fat you can oxidize in a day - I cannot recall the amount off the top of my head but it is pretty high. The main point is that the more fat you have the more your energy deficit will be partitioned to take from body fat - which was your point you were making with the 'less accessible' comment.
  • TriciaLB
    TriciaLB Posts: 24
    Thanks, I didn't realize! I've been beating myself up anytime I eat back the calories I've burned, and I'm always SO hungry.
  • NCVF
    NCVF Posts: 83 Member
    According to my trainer, No. I dont have to eat them back. The point is to have a deficit. I guess the question I finally had to ask myself is, what deficit did I want at the end of the day and how could I accomplish that without going hungry.
  • LiftAllThePizzas
    LiftAllThePizzas Posts: 17,857 Member
    There is a maximum amount of fat you can oxidize in a day - I cannot recall the amount off the top of my head but it is pretty high. The main point is that the more fat you have the more your energy deficit will be partitioned to take from body fat - which was your point you were making with the 'less accessible' comment.
    Yeah, that. (My guesses were that it would be because of changing concentration levels affecting diffusion rates, surface area vs volume changes, or some "active" cause, or some combination thereof. Thus the vague "less accessible" there. LOL)
  • jellybeanasmommy
    jellybeanasmommy Posts: 60
    According to my trainer, No. I dont have to eat them back. The point is to have a deficit. I guess the question I finally had to ask myself is, what deficit did I want at the end of the day and how could I accomplish that without going hungry.

    And as has been stated several times in this thread - MFP already calculates a deficit into your daily calorie goal (unless you've set your goals to "maintain" and not "lose X lb/week") so if you are going by MFP's calculations of your calorie needs then you DO need to eat back at least a good portion of the calories burned from exercise.
  • fatladysings72
    fatladysings72 Posts: 64
    I started a thread like this about a week or so ago. I got so many different responses. At the end of the day, if I am hungry I eat, if I am not I don't. Some days I burn a lot and I am not hungry other days I feel like I am starving. I think it all balances out at the end. As long as you are logging, exercise and food and staying on track almost every day, you will lose and heal.
  • ladyraven68
    ladyraven68 Posts: 2,003 Member
    According to my trainer, No. I dont have to eat them back. The point is to have a deficit. I guess the question I finally had to ask myself is, what deficit did I want at the end of the day and how could I accomplish that without going hungry.

    Most people who say this, haven't explained to their trainer exactly how MFP works, and that they already have a deficit.

    Most trainers would agree that it is not good to have too large a deficit.
  • mfpcopine
    mfpcopine Posts: 3,093 Member
    a
    "half of what you burn". so arbitrary. why not .67123 of what you burn?

    thanks. that contributed greatly to the discussion :p

    I think his point was that there's no magic number. You have to see what works. As most people don't know with certainty what they're burning or eating, it's good to leave a large margin for error.
  • mfpcopine
    mfpcopine Posts: 3,093 Member
    According to my trainer, No. I dont have to eat them back. The point is to have a deficit. I guess the question I finally had to ask myself is, what deficit did I want at the end of the day and how could I accomplish that without going hungry.

    And as has been stated several times in this thread - MFP already calculates a deficit into your daily calorie goal (unless you've set your goals to "maintain" and not "lose X lb/week") so if you are going by MFP's calculations of your calorie needs then you DO need to eat back at least a good portion of the calories burned from exercise.

    MFP's calculation is too high for me. As a result, I make adjustments.

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