Should i really eat back lost calories??

Naeou · June 2013

I exercise when i wake up, before i eat anything. I then eat for the rest of the day and dont exercise again.

If i exercise before i eat, then i'm burning storage. According to my body size and age i need around 1600-1800 calories to function properly a day. After logging in everything today, i've eaten a bit over 1700 calories, which leaves me 800 more calories to eat for today due to my exercise this morning.

So since i havent burned anything i've eaten, then my body will depend on mostly what i have eaten instead of what i've stored in the past (i eat small portions every 3 to 4 hours), does that keep my body from entering starvation mode? Or does not eating back what i've burned put me in starvation mode, even though my body has gained all the calories it needs for a day?

So in the end i dont understand why i should eat burned calories back. Can somebody teach me the biology?? Haha

I just want to do what is healthiest for my body so i can lose weight effectively! Thank you!

IamDianna · June 2013

I can't teach you the biology, just the fact that most people here have lost weight because they enter in food and exercise daily, and treat everything as a daily net. I don't know if you can reason out not having enough calories in the day that way. If a lot of experts say you should look at your weekly intake and outtake rather than daily, then to me, it would be obvious that no matter what time of day you do something, it matters in the long run.

I assume someone out there can justify not eating them back, but that's my take on it. Keep tracking and good luck!

LiftAllThePizzas · June 2013

Your body stores and un-stores food all the time. It doesn't matter when you time your meals or exercise, at the end of the day a deficit of 500 calories is a deficit of 500 calories. Any deficit must come out of storage because there's nowhere else for it to come from.

Naeou · June 2013

Okay thanks guys! I guess if i end my day without feeling like i'm starving and with a bit off a deficit, thats not too bad!

Mcgrawhaha · June 2013

i dont eat back my exercise calories, but thats me.

yarwell · June 2013

I exercise when i wake up, before i eat anything. I then eat for the rest of the day and dont exercise again.

If i exercise before i eat, then i'm burning storage. According to my body size and age i need around 1600-1800 calories to function properly a day. After logging in everything today, i've eaten a bit over 1700 calories, which leaves me 800 more calories to eat for today due to my exercise this morning.

you don't give much away about your stats and goals, so I'm going to assume you have a fair amount of excess fat to lose and won't run out of "fat from storage" for a while.

1700 calories of healthy food is easily enough to provide the necessary nutrients, if you actually burned 800 calories then I would take that from the fat you're trying to lose rather than buying it and eating it. Win win.

800 does seem high though, fasted exercise is good for fat loss. As you get closer to goal weight you may want to add in some of the exercise cals as extra food but 30 lbs of fat tissue can supply you with at least 900 cals a day.

Naeou · June 2013

I exercise when i wake up, before i eat anything. I then eat for the rest of the day and dont exercise again.

If i exercise before i eat, then i'm burning storage. According to my body size and age i need around 1600-1800 calories to function properly a day. After logging in everything today, i've eaten a bit over 1700 calories, which leaves me 800 more calories to eat for today due to my exercise this morning.

you don't give much away about your stats and goals, so I'm going to assume you have a fair amount of excess fat to lose and won't run out of "fat from storage" for a while.

1700 calories of healthy food is easily enough to provide the necessary nutrients, if you actually burned 800 calories then I would take that from the fat you're trying to lose rather than buying it and eating it. Win win.

800 does seem high though, fasted exercise is good for fat loss. As you get closer to goal weight you may want to add in some of the exercise cals as extra food but 30 lbs of fat tissue can supply you with at least 900 cals a day.

I didnt think stats and goals were relevant to my question, but now thinking about it it sorta is. I'm not over weight, im 19, 5ft 4in, and before university is was 118lb and after uni i didnt weigh myself, but there is definately fat in places there wasnt before! My weight fluxuated through highschool due to how effective P.E was for me, and comparing my body to before i would say im around 122lb. The girls with the body type i want that are my size are 110lb so thats my goal. In the end i dont care about how much i weigh, i just want a tight bod haha but first i have to get rid of all that fat! 1600 is my calorie goal.

And u made my point, since i didnt eat before, i used up calories i already had in my body, not ones that i had put in, and then i put in calories afterwards for my body to use as it functioned through out the day so that it would have to use the stored fat in higher amounts because it feels not enough is being put in. I eat whenever i get hungry,
My BMR is about 1400, and i ate 200 more than that today, and i had almost reached all of the nutrient goals. I had stopped at an 800 deficit and i wasnt hungry and forcing myself to eat didnt seem right, thats why this came to my head and i was hoping someone knew the biology to prove to tell me what to do.

I'm thinking that if i eat my exercise calories after i exercise plus the amount of calories my body need for a day, then those eaten exercise calories will become excess. If i had eaten my exercise calories before my exercise then yeah i would have to replace with food, my body would prefer to replace them with fresh food than with storage.

yarwell · June 2013

so you don't have much to lose and maybe have a limited amount of fat stores to draw from, compared to say an obese person. This would argue in favour of eating back a portion of the calories to avoid an excessive deficit that can result in the "eating nothing, working my *kitten* off and not losing anything" syndrome.

55in13 · June 2013

Your body stores and un-stores food all the time. It doesn't matter when you time your meals or exercise, at the end of the day a deficit of 500 calories is a deficit of 500 calories. Any deficit must come out of storage because there's nowhere else for it to come from.

This is supported by science. This idea that you can time eating versus exercise to somehow change this is not supported by science. Time your meals and exercise so they fit your schedule best and create something that you can stick to. Then stick to it (that's the hard part).

bonelessskinless · June 2013

so you don't have much to lose and maybe have a limited amount of fat stores to draw from, compared to say an obese person. This would argue in favour of eating back a portion of the calories to avoid an excessive deficit that can result in the "eating nothing, working my *kitten* off and not losing anything" syndrome.

yea eat back

susannamarie · June 2013

It can come out of fat storage, but if the deficit is too high it will also come out of muscles. This is much more likely to happen with someone who is already pretty lean. Someone who's very obese can afford a much higher deficit.

aTallLiam · June 2013

I exercise when i wake up, before i eat anything. I then eat for the rest of the day and dont exercise again.

If i exercise before i eat, then i'm burning storage. According to my body size and age i need around 1600-1800 calories to function properly a day. After logging in everything today, i've eaten a bit over 1700 calories, which leaves me 800 more calories to eat for today due to my exercise this morning.

So since i havent burned anything i've eaten, then my body will depend on mostly what i have eaten instead of what i've stored in the past (i eat small portions every 3 to 4 hours), does that keep my body from entering starvation mode? Or does not eating back what i've burned put me in starvation mode, even though my body has gained all the calories it needs for a day?

So in the end i dont understand why i should eat burned calories back. Can somebody teach me the biology?? Haha

I just want to do what is healthiest for my body so i can lose weight effectively! Thank you!

MFP assumes you did no exercise. So you can sit there eat the calories MFP gave you and you will lose weight. Once you add in exercise you're burning too many calories which can put you in starvation mode(this term is no correct, but i put it here for consistancy). So eat your calories to keep you out of starvation mode...

So even if I ate 1,800 calories, but exercised for 1 hour, burning 400 hundred, I would have to eat another 400 anyway? What would be the point in exercising then?

Phrick · June 2013

I exercise when i wake up, before i eat anything. I then eat for the rest of the day and dont exercise again.

If i exercise before i eat, then i'm burning storage. According to my body size and age i need around 1600-1800 calories to function properly a day. After logging in everything today, i've eaten a bit over 1700 calories, which leaves me 800 more calories to eat for today due to my exercise this morning.

So since i havent burned anything i've eaten, then my body will depend on mostly what i have eaten instead of what i've stored in the past (i eat small portions every 3 to 4 hours), does that keep my body from entering starvation mode? Or does not eating back what i've burned put me in starvation mode, even though my body has gained all the calories it needs for a day?

So in the end i dont understand why i should eat burned calories back. Can somebody teach me the biology?? Haha

I just want to do what is healthiest for my body so i can lose weight effectively! Thank you!

MFP assumes you did no exercise. So you can sit there eat the calories MFP gave you and you will lose weight. Once you add in exercise you're burning too many calories which can put you in starvation mode(this term is no correct, but i put it here for consistancy). So eat your calories to keep you out of starvation mode...

So even if I ate 1,800 calories, but exercised for 1 hour, burning 400 hundred, I would have to eat another 400 anyway? What would be the point in exercising then?

Because MFP assumes we're lazy slobs who won't exercise and figures out our calorie goals based on the "eat this much and do NO exercise and you'll lose weight" model. It has already included enough of a caloric deficit to lose without lifting a finger toward exercise. So if you exercise anyway on top of that you are increasing your deficit by burning those 400 calories (your number). Too great a deficit can quickly lead to a stall out in weight loss and even in some cases people will start to gain again as their bodies panic and begin to store calories eaten for fear of famine, instead of letting them go. To ensure weight loss and sufficient-but-not-too-much caloric deficit you eat back those 400 calories.

Edit: The point in exercising is cardiovascular health, fitness, etc. Exercise actually has nothing to do with weight loss. Weight loss is determined strictly by whether or not you burn off more calories (through daily living, not through necessarily exercise) than you take in.

chanel1twenty · June 2013

Don't eat back, lose.
Eat back, maintain.

In the April 2013 issue of Fitness Rx, there was a very interesting article about exercising in the morning before breakfast. This is called Fasted Cardio, and it has been shown to be very beneficial, primarily for people on a low GI diet who don't eat a lot of carbs later in the day. It is only effective, however, when you do low-moderate intensity workouts for at least 60min as opposed to high-intensity 20min. This is because the process of using your fat storage for energy takes an hour to start...unless you're higher trained. It takes less time for higher trained individuals to deplete glycogen and start using fat than it does for new exercisers.

"Fasted Cardio works because it helps you to become more efficient at using fat for fuel and because your hormones and metabolism are all in the perfect alignment for fatty acid mobilization."

So yes, there is science to show that working out in the morning before breakfast is extremely beneficial. It's just not recommended for hypoglycemics.
It is also great for causing EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption), which is the phenomenon of your body burning calories even after you're done exercising. You need to perform at a decent intensity level for this to occur.

bajoyba · June 2013

Don't eat back, lose.
Eat back, maintain.

Not true, if you're following MFP. This is because there is already a deficit built into the calorie goal that MFP gives you based on the information you plug into the site. If you're using MFP to lose weight, your calorie goal is designed for weight loss, not maintenance. If you do no exercise and eat that number, you should lose weight. If you exercise and eat those calories back, the number is the same, and you should lose weight. It's basic math. I eat back most or all of my exercise calories, and it hasn't hindered my weight loss at all.

To respond to the original post, your body doesn't know what day it is. You burn calories around the clock, whether you're sleeping or awake, because food is fuel, and calories are what your body uses to function. Sometimes I like to exercise first thing in the morning on an empty stomach, but my calorie needs won't change depending on when I decide to exercise. Lots of people choose to go by a weekly deficit rather than a daily one for this reason. A deficit is a deficit.

With so little weight to lose, you should definitely be eating back most or all of your exercise calories. As others have said, too large of a deficit can cause you to lose lean body mass, which will only leave you looking softer. You want to burn fat while keeping as much muscle as possible. You may even want to build some muscle. That will give you the lean look I think you're going for.

Should i really eat back lost calories??

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