Why eat the extra calories you burn?

If I ever find im too low on cals at the end of the day, i just throw back a craft brew or 2. Still gonna enjoy the things I like in life. Ha!

Also, as hard as it is, keep up with minimizing sugar. In fact, whenever possible, eliminate refined sugar, white flower, and processed foods while eating your required cals. The fat will fall off, and safely fast.

Me to I am new to this and found the following posted on here earlier today which explains why we are advised to eat back the calories earned from exercise...Hope this helps

QUOTE:

I still see many people that are confused or "question" the idea of eating your exercise calories. I wanted to try (as futile as this may turn out to be) to explain the concept in no uncertain terms. I'll save the question of "eating your exercise calories" for the end because I want people to understand WHY we say to do this.

NOTE: I'm not going to use a lot of citation in this, but I don't want people thinking this is my opinion, I have put much careful research into it, most of which is very complicated and took a long time for me to sift through and summarize, and thanks to my chemical engineering backgroud I have the tools to read clinical studies and translate them (somewhat) into more human terms. Some of this information comes from sources I can't forward because they are from pay sites (like New England Journal of Medicine), so you can ask for anything, but I may or may not be able to readilly provide it for you (I can always tell you where to go if you want to though).

I'll break it down into 3 sections.
Section 1 will be our metabolic lifecycle or what happens when we eat and how our body burns fuel.
Section 2 will be what happens when we receive too much, too little, or the wrong kind of fuel.
Section 3 will be the steps needed to bring the body to a healthy state and how the body "thinks" on a sympathetic level (the automatic things our body does like digestion, and energy distribution).

Section 1:
Metabolism, in "layman's" terms, is the process of taking in food, breaking it down into it's components, using the food as fuel and building blocks, and the disposal of the poisons and waste that we ingest as part of it. Metabolism has three overall factors, genetics, nutrition, and environment. So who we are, what we eat, and how we live all contribute to how our metabolism works. You can control 2 of these 3 factors (nutrition, environment).
When you eat food, it is broken down into it's component parts. Protein, vitamins and minerals are transported to the cells that need them to build new cells or repair existing cells. Fats(fatty acid molecules) and carbohydrates are processed (by 2 different means) and either immediately burned or stored for energy. Because the body doesn't store food in a pre-digested state, if you eat more carbs and fat then you need immediately, the body will save them for later in human fat cells (adipose tissue). This is important to realize because even if you eat the correct number of calories in a 24 hour period, if you eat in large quantities infrequently (more then you can burn during the digestion process), your body will still store the extra as fat and eliminate some of the nutrients. (Side note: this is why simple or processed carbs are worse for you compared with complex carbs)

Section 2:
The human body has a set metabolic rate (based on the criteria stated above), this rate can be changed by overall nutritional intake over a period of time, or by increasing activity levels also over a period of time (the exact amount of time for sustained increase in metabolic rates is the subject of some debate, but all studies agree that any increase in activity level will increse the metabolism).
It is important to note that obesity does not drasticly change the level of metabolic process, that means that if you become obese, you don't burn a higher fat percentage just because you have more to burn.
The balance of incomming fuel vs the amount of fuel the body uses is called maintenance calories, or the amount of calories it takes to run your body during a normal day (not including exercise or an extremely lethargic day). The metabolism is a sympathetic process, this means it will utilize lower brain function to control it's level, it also means it can actively "learn" how a body is fitness wise, and knows approximately how much energy it needs to function correctly. It also means automatic reactions will happen when too much or too little fuel is taken in. Too much fuel triggers fat storage, adipose tissue expands and fat is deposited, also free "fat" cells (triglycerides) will circulate in the blood stream (HDL and LDL cholesterol). Too little fuel (again, over an extended period) triggers a survival mode instinct, where the body recognizes the lack of fuel comming in and attempts to minimize body function (slowing down of non-essential organ function) and the maximization of fat storage. It's important to note that this isn't a "switch", the body does this as an ongoing analysis and will adjust the levels of this as needed (there is no "line" between normal and survival mode.).
When you're activity level increases, the human body will perform multiple functions, first, readily available carbohydrates and fats are broken down into fuel, oxydized, and sent directly to the areas that need fuel, next adipose (body) fat is retreived, oxydized, and transported to the areas it is needed for additional fuel, 3rd (and this is important), if fat stores are not easilly reachable (as in people with a healthy BMI where adipose fat is much more scarce), muscle is broken down and used for energy. What people must realize is that the metabolism is an efficiency engine, it will take the best available source of energy, if fat stores are too far away from the systems that need them or too dense to break down quickly, then it won't wait for the slower transfer, it will start breaking down muscle (while still breaking down some of that dense fat as well).

Section 3:
The wonderful part of the human metabolic system is it's ability to adapt and change. Just because your body has entered a certain state, doesn't mean it will stay that way. The downfall to this is that if organs go unused over a long period, they can lose functionality and can take years to fully recover(and sometimes never).
As long as there is no permenant damage to organ function, most people can "re-train" their metabolism to be more efficient by essentially showing it (with the intake of the proper levels and nutritional elements) that it will always have the right amount and types of fuel. This is also known as a healthy nutritional intake.
Going to the extreme one way or the other with fuel consumption will cause the metabolism to react, the more drastic the swing, the more drastic the metabolism reacts to this (for example, a diet that limits fat or cabohydrate intake to very low levels). In general terms, the metabolism will react with predictable results if fuel levels remain in a range it associates with normal fuel levels. If you raise these fuel levels it will react by storing more fat, if you lower these fuel levels, it will react by shutting down processes and storing fat for the "upcomming" famine levels. The most prominent immediate issues (in no particular order) with caloric levels below normal are reduced muscle function, reduction of muscle size and density, liver and kidney failures, increase in LDL (bad) cholesterol levels, and gallstones .


Now onto the question of "Eating your exercise calories"

As I have hinted to throughout this summary of metabolic process, the body has a "range" in which it feels it is receiving the right amount of fuel. The range (as most doctors and research scientists agree) is somewhere between 500 calories above your maintenance calories and 1000 calories below your maintenance calories. This means that the metabolism won't drastically change it's functionality in this range, with that said, this is not exact, it is a range based on averages, you may have a larger or smaller range based on the 3 factors of metabolism stated at the top.
On our website (MyFitnessPal), when you enter your goals, there is a prebuilt deficit designed to keep you in the "normal" metabolic functionality while still burning more calories then you take in. This goal DOES NOT INCLUDE exercise until you enter it. If you enter exercise into your daily plan, the site automatically adjusts your total caloric needs to stay within that normal range (in other words, just put your exercise in, don't worry about doing any additional calculations). Not eating exercise calories can bring you outside that range and (if done over an extended period of days or weeks) will gradually send your body into survival mode, making it harder (but not impossible) to continue to lose weight. The important thing to understand is (and this is REALLY important) the closer you are to your overall healthy weight (again, your metabolism views this a a range, not a specific number) the more prominant the survival mode becomes (remember, we talked about efficiency). This is because as fat becomes scarce, muscle is easier to break down and transport. And thus, the reason why it's harder to lose that "Last 10 pounds".

I really hope this puts a lot of questions to bed. I know people struggle with this issue and I want to make sure they have the straight facts of why we all harp on eating your exercise calories.

-Regards,

Banks

So I am new at this so I need some clarification here. MFP has mine set for 1200 calories, which I am usually able to do. Yesterday I burned a little over 500, and ate 42 of those. So in total, 1242 was my intake. I feel guilty for those additional 42 calories.

Why does MFP set you to eat the calories that you burn? To me this makes no sense at all. If I am still hungry and need to eat something additional, it does allow me those extra calories. My point is, I am burning calories to lose weight, I am not burning them to re-eat them. Can someone tell me if my thinking is correct or not? If not, please provide me clarification.

Because if you're using MFP the in the standard way you deficit is already set up even if you didn't exercise. The goal isn't to take in as few net caloires as possible. It's to set up healthy sustainable fat loss. By eating a little extra you are sticking to the program. It's set up that way because building a deficit with exercise it very inefficient, and it keeps you moving toward your goals every day even if you never leave the desk/couch.

I don't know why people get hung up on this. There are basically two scenarios:

Small Workout: The amount you eat back will be something like 100 calories. You won't even be able to detect this in your weekly weight change. Why are we worrying about this either way?

Big Workout: You're likely to be starving and have trouble NOT eating. And having a nutritious snack may be helpful for proper recovery and fitness gains.

MFP works out how how many calories you burn in a day according the information you entered (age, weight, height, activity level, etc.). It then subtracts 500 calories a day for every pound a week you set it to lose (if you set it to lose 1/2 pound a week it will subtract 250 calories, for instance). That's your goal UNLESS that calculation gives a number under 1200, in which case your goal will be 1200 (because MFP sets that as a minimum.

Suppose you burn 1700 calories before exercise. You've set MFP to lose 1lb a week, so MFP subtracts 500 calories. Your goal is 1200. (1700 - 500 = 1200). Suppose you then do 200 calories of exercise. Instead of the 1700 calories you burn without exercise, you've now burnt 1900 calories. To keep the same deficit of 500 calories a day, your goal is now 1400 (1900 - 500 = 1400).

That's the way MFP is designed to work. If you eat back your exercise calories, you should have steady weight loss.

If you don't eat back your exercise calories you can end up with a bigger deficit than you intended (which will make the diet harder to stick to, amongst other things).

Yes. ^^ This
Too large of a deficit is counterproductive.

I don't. The problem with this is that too many people underestimate what they eat and over estimate what they burn. Set up a good 500 calorie deficit and eat that amount. If you burn more through activity, great, because you can safely run a 1000 deficit a day and be fine. I highly doubt you are burning 500 calories extra a day through exercise. If you are, you need to set your calories up a little higher.

You've already had good advice. Regardless, eat at least 1200 calories.

THEN ... if you are trying to GAIN muscle, eat at least 100+ more (high protein). If you don't work to gain muscle, you will simply be small ... but not toned. Also by building muscle your metabolism will increase ... you'll loose more fat, but need more calories to maintain the muscle.

Use mfp calories earned from exercise only as a guideline to eating ENOUGH (1200+100is) and as a guideline of what to stay UNDER to maintain the goal you inputted.

Also, consider going back to the goal setting and change it to reflect your newer activity level.

Maybe I misread your post but eating 100 calories more (so 1300 calories a day) will not allow for muscle gain. In a calorie deficit, you lose muscle mass unless you have a small deficit, lift heavy and consume enough protein.

Thank you .... I read this post the same way..... 1300 is no where near enough to gain muscle.