Why exercise if you're just going to eat the calories back?

Well, because you can eat more if you do. Eating things, goood.

Appearance is a consequence of fitness. Eating less doesn't make you fit.

Because my calories are set low, I wouldn't be eating enough if I didn't work out.

Food gives me energy to move. And, when the rest of this fat is gone, I want to be toned and lean and strong.

I could see, MAYBE, if a person's caloric goals were set much higher that they MIGHT not eat the calories back, but at 1200, I need 'em!

YMMV, but all I know is that I didn't start losing weight until I started eating more.

I have MFP set on Sedentary specifically so I can eat back my exercise calories. I'm set to lose 2 pounds a week so I don't feel a need to go further than that, and I feel like I'm keeping my metabolism humming by exercising regularly and eating well in relation to how much I exert.

So far I've lost 2 pounds a week consistently, with some weeks edging up to 3 pounds of loss.

I also have days where I go over my goal, simply because I'm not on a diet. I'm reworking how I eat. My last two big days were Easter Sunday (around 1000 calories over) and this past Saturday (BBQ at friends with booze - 1500 calories over)... both weeks I ended up right at my goal. I don't feel any guilt for these (ok, maybe a little) because life will always have days of overindulgence. The key is to make them rare/special, not regular events.

It's not about depriving yourself for six months or a year at 1000 or 1200 calories to get down to a goal and then letting yourself go - I've gone that route before and gained it all back. It's about finding a way to balance enjoying eating and exercise and trying to eat proper portions and finding a way to keep this up for life. I'm well on my way.

I know my resting metabolic rate is about 1900 calories. This means to MAINTAIN my weight at my current activity level I have to eat 1900 calories. I, however, try to keep my daily intake to 1500 with lots of protein. I still don't always reach this amount. I eat very clean and it is hard to eat enough fruit and veggies to get to this. I FEEL good, am not lethargic and can finish my workouts without getting too fatigued. I would bet that those of you who are trying to only eat 1200 calories are NOT feeling as good as I am. The only reason I use MFP is to keep track of the food I eat and my work-outs and be able to correlate them with allergy flares and pain issues, if you want to safely cut back on calories, do a little research and set your own on here.

When you lose weight 10-20% is going to be muscle. When you hit 40 ish you are going to lose somewhere around 1% of your body weight of muscle per year.

Yo yo diet up and down and lose muscle that you never regain and then add 20 years does not look so good at 60

Yeah, after long runs where i've burned 1500-2000+ calories I want to eat every small child, dog, and other animal I see on the way home until I actually get food in my system. Those days are beautiful...I get to eat twice as much as I normally would an still be at a calorie deficit for the day.

The entire point of exercising for many people is to earn those extra calories so it doesn't feel like "dieting" and it becomes a healthy lifestyle change.

MFP already has a calorie deficit programmed in, so if you eat the right number of calories and do no exercise, you lose weight

if you exercise and don't eat back your exercise calories, you can end up with a deficit that is too big, which can lead to all kinds of problems including: excessive hunger, binge eating, feeling tired all the time, feeling grumpy all the time, loss of lean muscle mass, loss of bone density, and if you keep it up for a long time, your metabolism can slow leading to your weight loss stalling.

The healthiest way to lose weight is slowly and steadily. Exercise helps to prevent loss of bone density and lean muscle mass, which can happen if you're sedentary even if your deficit is not extreme. Exercise has many, many other health benefits, although if you are not eating enough to support the amount of exercise you're doing, that can make your health worse, not better.

Also, change your focus from weight loss to fat loss... the human body can't burn that much fat in a week... big losses in scale weight are mostly not fat, they're mainly water and could be loss of lean muscle or bone density. And change your view of exercise... exercise is to keep your bones and muscles strong, and you need to eat enough to support the exercise, for it to work. The deficit you need for slow and steady fat loss is already built in to your MFP calorie target, so you will still lose weight while eating back exercise calories.

^^^^^^^^^^^ THIS

If your net calorie goal for the day is below maintenance you'll still lose weight eating back exercise calories.

The extra exercise calories are so your body can continue to support intense activity and you won't feel weak the next exercise session.

For cardio it doesn't matter so much.
But for weight training you want some of those extra calories so you can put on lean muscle mass during recovery - or at the very least hold onto the muscle you already have. You won't build anything if you're not eating enough.

If you're using MFP presets then it's because you did more work on the day you worked out and your body needs those calories for the extra work you did. It's already set to help you lose weight by eating fewer calories if you did nothing. That's why it asks you how active you are in general so it can choose a number that approximates how many calories you normally burn and then gives you a number minus some calories based on that, so that you will be eating fewer calories than you burn in a normal day.

Then when you workout though, you need more calories especially if you did not include any workouts in your "how many times do you plan to workout" part. You might be thinking okay so I'm gonna lose weight on the calorie number MFP gave me but now that I worked out and burned calories, I'm gonna lose more weight and faster...#winning! No, not really. All that's gonna happen is you're gonna end up tired and hungry. If not the same day maybe the next day. Some people end up bingeing this way at worst or at best just eating back ALL their calories even the subtracted ones for weight loss and then have problems actually achieving weight loss. You'll find them on these boards and on your newfeeds talking about excessive binges or just all "I don't know what happened to me, I ate so much today", or wondering why they aren't losing weight.

BTW I totally get the whole, oh once I've already eaten my regular calories I'm full and don't want to force feed myself. If you've ever noticed being hungrier the following day though, that might be a good time to make up those extra calories and enjoy eating a little more. It can still work if over the week you are averaging the right amount of "net" cals. It's almost like if the 24 hour day is an artificial contstruct imposed on our tangible bodies that don't necessarily adhere to that time frame for the adding and subtracting of calories and exercise and then fat, weight and muscles. It's almost like that.

Since MFP already builds in a calorie deficit and you need a certain amount of calories just to function, you should eat back at least some of your exercise calories so that you're getting a net of at east 1200 calories per day.
Personally, I use my exercise calories to allow myself to eat the things I want without increasing my net calories. For instance, on days I don't exercise I aim for around 1260 calories. Unfortunately though, that isn't enough calories to always keep me full and doesn't allow a lot of wiggle room to allow for calorie-rich favourite foods like frozen yogurt, spinach dip, or fancy coffees. So, if I want to indulge and have a 400 calorie iced caffè mocha, instead of sacrificing 400 calories of nutritional food, I can just burn 400 calories through exercise.

I do the same thing!!!! haha! )

To tone up?