Confuse?! Eat back calories or not?

MFP is set up that you are supposed to eat them back. Your daily goal already has a deficit built in - meaning you could eat to goal every day, do zero exercise and you would lose weight. When you add in exercise cals, you're creating an even larger deficit, and that's not good - that's why MFP adds them back into your goal and shows your actual cals and your net cals for the day - they expect you to eat them back.

Eat too little for too long, creating large daily deficits, and you're giving your body a reason to store fat rather than burn it.

I spoke to someone today who made an interesting point. She was petite, 51 and in really good shape. She runs for exercise but doesn't need to lose weight. Gain perhaps, but not lose.

Her advice? Within 30 minutes after a workout - eat something with protein. It helps to repair damage done during the workout and minimizes muscle loss.

Sounded very logical to me. anyone want to weigh in on this? I should have gone on to say - that if you're going to eat back your exercise calories once you've earned them - eat them back with a protein food.

The reason it's confusing is because the answer is different for different weight classes so to speak. For example if you have around 25 pounds to lose then I would say eat them back. It might seem like a lot of weight to be over, but it's really not in terms of how much time it will take to lose it safely and for good. It's a good amount in that you will have a lot of time to adjust your lifestyle and learn what you need to do to lose and maintain and it's not likely to cause a health crisis so time is on your side. But, OTOH I have seen pictures of people over by that much and when they lose it the results are pretty dramatic especially if they have done a lot of exercise. So, for this amount of weight I would say eat them back. Take your time maybe lose a half a pound to a pound a week. It will seem like it takes a long time to get to goal, but you are going to learn so much more if you take the slower route. And you won't have to feel deprived.

But, if you are like me and you have *cough* *cough* pounds to lose. I would say eat very few back, unless you are working out 5 hours a day then obviously you don't want a 3000 calorie or more deficit a day, you would have skin hanging down to your ankles yuck. Most people aren't going to do that anyway, so it's most likely the deficit created wouldn't be more than 1500 calories and that isn't really all that horrible IMO, it's 3 lbs a week which is a bit higher than recommended, but if you are under a doctor's supervision it's probably not dangerous. Most people are going to be a bit more comfortable at a lesser deficit say a 1000 calorie at the most deficit and that's fine too. Losing 2 lbs a week when you are really really heavy isn't unhealthy at all.

Or you could compromise and just eat a portion back. Which is a win win you get a bigger deficit but you probably won't be losing at an unsafe pace.

i eat them back someday but not all if i was to eat all the calories back that i burned say today i would have to add another 850 back and there is no way i will do that so my trainer says to eat some back on BIG cardio days if i am still hungry after my protein shake after my workout i will have a fruit or veggies .