Eating Back Exercise Calories

MFP is setup to eat your calories back. As long as you don't fall below 1200 consistently you should be fine.

Its all trial and error and finding what works for you personally. Maybe eat back your exercise calories for the next four weeks and if you are not happy with the results try eating back only half for the following four weeks. Everyone responds differently, its about finding what works for you xx

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1082940-eat-exercise-calories-back-or-not
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/948747-do-you-eat-exercise-calories-back-are-you-successful
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/855374-so-do-you-eat-the-calories-back-or-what
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/909172-do-you-eat-your-calories-burned-during-exercise
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1019565-eat-exercise-calories
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1066801-eating-exercise-calories

also...
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/383956-exercise-calories-explained
and
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/818082-exercise-calories-again-wtf

.

From someone else who was fat for a long time.....
Yes please do eat back your exercise calories - I've eaten mine back at an average of 5,400 calories a week.
The method does work.

Be patient, go for slow, sustainable, weight loss and use it as a motivator to get fitter and healthier.
I would always choose lots of food, lots of exercise over being starving hungry and less active.

At the weekend I was watching the biggest looser couples that is running on a Sunday morning and one of the guys on there put two pounds on and the trainer suggested it was because he was eating his exercise calories.

If an individual gains weight after starting to eat calories burned through exercise, that is because: (1) the individual was miscalculating his or her maintenance needs; (2) the individual was failing to properly log his or her intake; and/or (3) the individual overestimated calories burned during exercise.

I blame a combination of (2) and (3) primarily.


OP, it's really pretty easy. You're probably lightly active now. Look up what the lightly active TDEE is for your size, age, and sex. http://www.fitnessfrog.com/calculators/tdee-calculator.html

Now subtract some calories from that. You have 70 to lose, so you can have a pretty big deficit. Adjust your intake based on scale trends over time (using more data points than one week, especially if you are female). If you follow this method, ignore calories burned when planning your intake.

I always eat at least half and usually most of them.

If your car gets 30 MPG and you put 1 gallon of gas in it you are going to be hard pressed to drive 40 miles

But if your car's gas tank was 'healthy' holding 110 'gallons' but was holding 180, you could and probably should drive that 40 miles without adding more gas on top of the minimum daily requirement.

If your car gets 30 MPG and you put 1 gallon of gas in it you are going to be hard pressed to drive 40 miles

This analogy makes no sense at all for someone losing weight.

Cars do not have an extra fuel tank; your body does. It's called body fat.

The entire goal of weight loss is to force your body to drive 40 miles instead of 30 miles on 1 gallon of gas. That's precisely what a deficit does.

Since your body is quite different than a car, you do require fuel (food) regularly. But you cannot lose weight if you give your body exactly what it needs in a day. That would be maintenance.

That's true... but there is a limit as to how much fat the body can metabolize, and how quickly. So relying heavily on fat stores for fuel isn't always the best approach.

That's why I said you do require food regularly. Body=car is not an apt analogy. We lose weight by using our fat stores to fuel activity.

I was eating my fitness calories, but only because I love to eat.... a lot...

At the weekend I was watching the biggest looser couples that is running on a Sunday morning and one of the guys on there put two pounds on and the trainer suggested it was because he was eating his exercise calories.

This might be why I have not really moved much in my weight. This week I have not exercised and I am trying to stay in my calories and my plan it to try not eating them and see what happens then.

Well, they finally ate enough carbs for the body to store more, which always stores with water.

For you, you will lose weight.

But what is the weight that you lose?
Fat, muscle, or glucose with water?

Guess which is the only one to very minorly affect your metabolism?

So I'm guessing you blindly accepted MFP's calorie suggestion for eating level.
So why are you going to now not accept their higher eating level when you actually do more?

That's why I said you do require food regularly. Body=car is not an apt analogy. We lose weight by using our fat stores to fuel activity.

Well, that is a gross over simplification too that is not correct either.

Your activity is going to be fueled by some ratio of carbs to fat depending on how intense it is, more intense, more carbs. In fact until you get to higher reaches you burn the same quantity of fat, until none going anaerobic.

You not eating enough to have enough carbs available doesn't change that ratio in any substantial way, all it causes is protein to be converted to glucose to be used as fuel along with the fat.

Hence the reason you lose muscle mass when you diet, unless you do several things right to prevent or minimize it.

Your phrase would be closer to reality to say we use our fat stores to fuel inactivity.

That's why I said you do require food regularly. Body=car is not an apt analogy. We lose weight by using our fat stores to fuel activity.

Well, that is a gross over simplification too that is not correct either.

Your activity is going to be fueled by some ratio of carbs to fat depending on how intense it is, more intense, more carbs. In fact until you get to higher reaches you burn the same quantity of fat, until none going anaerobic.

You not eating enough to have enough carbs available doesn't change that ratio in any substantial way, all it causes is protein to be converted to glucose to be used as fuel along with the fat.

Hence the reason you lose muscle mass when you diet, unless you do several things right to prevent or minimize it.

Your phrase would be closer to reality to say we use our fat stores to fuel inactivity.

If you eat at maintenance, you will not lose weight.

If you eat at a deficit, you will (for 99% of healthy people without hormonal or metabolic issues)

"If your car gets 30 MPG and you put 1 gallon of gas in it you are going to be hard pressed to drive 40 miles" suggests maintenance-level eating and ignores the body's energy stores. The goal is to get 40 miles out of one gallon of gas if your goal is to lose weight.

OBVIOUSLY it's more complex than that. I know this. I lost 130+ pounds, have been maintaining for over a year, and engage in endurance activities.

Despite complexities of fat burning, glycogen usage, and weight loss, the car/fuel analogy is a bad one.

The end.

My philosophy is that the bigger deficit you create through exercise, the more you should consider eating those back. I wouldn't worry about it too much with your walking, but I wouldn't feel guilty at all for eating back those calories if you have a day where you feel you need some extra calories. If you start doing more intense exercises, however, I would recommend eating those back at least partially so you're not fatiguing your body through not giving it enough energy (in the form of calories).

^^This. I walk about 4-5 extra miles per week, but I don't think it's enough to qualify for eating my calories back.

You should burn 500 more calories than what you eat to see changes

Just no.

I actually asked my health professional this question. She is the one who recommended MFP to me and has used it to lose 60+ lbs herself. Since I have so much to lose, her recommendation was not to eat my exercise calories back, but to try to get close to the recommended MFP base calories. Since that is about 1500 calories per day, that seemed like a lot to me, but I admit it is working. Most days I eat between 1200 and 1500 calories. On days when I exercise 2x per day and get an 800 or 900 calorie exercise bonus I am likely to eat some of them.

So far it has been working for me. I recognize I might have to change when I've lost some of the excess weight and my body doesn't have so much readily available fat to burn.

I think you need to figure out what works for you. If you feel like you are starving when you don't eat your exercise calories back, then eat them back.

When you create a bigger than the recommended deficit by using MFP wrong - what exactly do you think the weight is that you are losing?

And why wouldn't you even reach that daily goal you've set? Are you willing to stop trying to lose weight that far away from goal weight too?

So when your body has gotten used to eating at 1500 (if you even reach that) with this level of exercise - where exactly do you go when it stops. Eating 1200 for that level of exercise after 20 lbs?
And where would maintenance be for that if that stops being effective?

Might want to read up on the future consequences of your decisions now. If you think you'd enjoy eating at maintenance 300-400 less than that goal weight would otherwise have as TDEE, then fine.
But for most, that spells failure having to always keep such a fine line on their eating levels.

This is more of an explanation of what is generally meant by starvation mode, ie adaptive thermogenesis, not starving, as many in the world are doing.
Plus the studies as to what you can do to yourself that you may have wished you had not done and how long that negative effect may last - more studies brought out in the thread too as to possible long term consequences.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1077746-starvation-mode-adaptive-thermogenesis-and-weight-loss?

One of those situations of how you can effect your ease of maintenance in the future by your choices now.

You can actually be more informed than your health care professional, who may not keep up on recent research. Which in the US if it's a Dr, their required knowledge on nutrition is 1 class 1 semester, unless they pursued that direction more. GP recommended nutritional advice can be very outdated and non-informed.

When you create a bigger than the recommended deficit by using MFP wrong - what exactly do you think the weight is that you are losing?

Do you really believe MFP has the magic recipe for losing only fat and sparing LBM? And medical professionals haven't yet caught on? Even weight loss specialists?

So when your body has gotten used to eating at 1500 (if you even reach that) with this level of exercise - where exactly do you go when it stops. Eating 1200 for that level of exercise after 20 lbs?
And where would maintenance be for that if that stops being effective?

When what stops? Weight loss at 1500 calorie intake? I think you vastly overestimate adaptive thermogenesis.

I never can understand with the people who think MFP's 'eating back' method is some magical LBM sparing secret how they can account for the person who burns 2000 calories sedentary and eats 1500. He's not 'eating back' and he's fine with a 500 calorie per day deficit, right? But if someone with an RMR of 1600 who does 400 calories of 'exercise' a day, they have to eat more than the sedentary guy. A deficit is a deficit, whether your RMR is burning up the deficit calories or your 'exercise' is. Why would there be any need for one person to 'eat back' but not the other?

MFP has no magic way of doing it - mainly because people keep shooting themselves in the metabolism using the tool wrong. But at least there's a chance if you do it right. Though even there, the protein goal is too low to help.

You can easily see with experience vast majority select sedentary, true or not, they want the "safe" side of the decision, lower is better.

2lb weekly weight loss, they want faster and it's an option (though not recommended). Lower is better.

They see the notice of "in 5 weeks" when they undereat to their goal calories, and figure that's even better so undereat more often and /or bigger gaps.

They don't understand why after exercise is logged the goal went up and don't think about it because of never really understanding what's going on, and really love the 5 weeks notice now, so don't eat back exercise.

No - by no means is MFP a LBM sparing tool by the majority of users.

And weight loss specialists stay in business by showing big results - who is going to keep paying for their services without getting the results they think they should see, especially compared to weight-loss claims they see everywhere else.
And in fact they benefit when they cause the negative long term results, because the customer remembers they lost really well with this person in the past, and figures it'll be good to pay them to help them lose it again after regain.
Follow the money.
Also, they don't even use MFP style, they usually use the traditional TDEE charts that includes exercise, then take off a deficit.
Apples and oranges comparison. Or cake and cookies.

When weight loss stops at 1500 was indeed my comment.
And no, studies have shown up to 20% reduction in TDEE NOT based on all the expected reasons of less LBM and moving around less mass daily. You will literally have to eat up to 20% less than if you were already at that weight without weight loss.

So yes, it can stop at a higher number like 1500. Then you gotta move on down. Now you have to keep the suppressed TDEE at higher numbers by exercising, if you want any kind of calorie level you could maintain and allow you to enjoy food. You stop exercise for a week, sick, vacation, ect, and now your suppressed TDEE is 1200. Bummer if on vacation eating more, now everything above that is surplus, and not while exercising to really use it to benefit the body.

Your last paragraph is using some incorrect comparisons and terms and shows you don't understand what MFP is doing. RMR is resting metabolism, right, not maintenance, calorie burn?
So I'm assuming you meant person has sedentary maintenance of 1600, and then exercises 400 calories. Meaning their TDEE for the day is the same 2000 as the sedentary person with a TDEE of 2000. Guess what happens in both cases with 500 cal deficit?

So you do realize that in both cases, their eating goal already has a deficit in it matching the goal they selected.
Well, if you don't exercise, that is lower TDEE, and lower eating goal.
If you do exercise, that is higher TDEE, and higher eating goal.

Better way to lay out what you are trying to say using 1 person.

Monday
2000 sedentary maintenance no exercise (1600 BMR)
1500 daily goal given and eaten

Tuesday
2400 maintenance because of exercise of 400+2000 normal sedentary
1900 daily goal given and eaten

Same 500 cal deficit each day.

And you are very correct that if the person was sedentary all the time, this would NOT be LBM sparing, but they would probably be burning the typical 15-20% LBM along with fat mass.