Eating Exercise Calories?

A big part of it depends on what your daily calorie goal is. You don't want to eat fewer than 1200 net calories. So if your calorie goal is set at 1200 and you exercise you need to eat those calories back. Otherwise you risk eating to little and sending your body into starvation mode. However, if you have a higher daily calorie goal, like 1500, and you only burn 200-300 calories from exercise, you don't need to eat those calories if you don't want to.

A big part of it depends on what your daily calorie goal is. You don't want to eat fewer than 1200 net calories. So if your calorie goal is set at 1200 and you exercise you need to eat those calories back. Otherwise you risk eating to little and sending your body into starvation mode. However, if you have a higher daily calorie goal, like 1500, and you only burn 200-300 calories from exercise, you don't need to eat those calories if you don't want to.

I completely agree!

My calorie goal is set to 1200. I am 5'0 and 125 and my goal weight is 115. He said it's good to get into starvation mode because my body will start using up my fat storage, hence causing weight loss. That doesn't sound right to me!

That's because it isn't right. Starvation mode is when your body starts to cannibalize it's muscle tissue and organs, reserving the fat for last.

At your size, you will most likely get more success using a smaller deficit, or in other words, eating all or most of your exercise calories.

Here's a post that explains it better than I can.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/61706-guide-to-calorie-deficits?hl=deficit

Mine depends on how hungry I am or sometimes I will purposely throw in an extra work out in so I can have a treat (like coing up this weekend is my daughters birthday so I'll exercise more, to offset the cake I know I will eat)...Most days I do eat a few of mine, it depends on my appetite . And I'm still loosing weight about a pound a week

Girl, im so w/ ya. My hubby sounds like your man. He blinks and burns millions of calories..oh to have his metabolism! haha

I def never eat all my calories, i eat and I work out. I burn alot of calories sometimes and maybe I'll eat a tad more but never ALL of them. I def think it's hard to lose weight especially for those w/ little to lose, which totally sucks! haha
Keep going girl, you'll start to notice soon. I just had to get it out of my head that it will magically happen and so I stopped lookin a myself everday measuring and lookin at every piece of flab. I know my excercise and eating right will pay off eventually

I used to think that it wasn't good to eat the exercise calories back...but my first month here, I didn't lose a pound and that was when I was NOT eating them back.

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been eating some of them back...not all, but probably about half or maybe a little more than that...and I have lost 3 pounds which means I have been losing at a rate of a pound and a half a week since I started eating more.

SHBoss 1673 - I enjoy your posts and concede that you are much more informed than I! I am in the position of being a small person who is just looking to lose those final 5 pounds and struggling. My diet was wonderful until my husband returned from overseas after an absence of 3 months and then hosting guests for about 3 weeks. Trying to get back in the swing of things and was wondering if I need to approach this differently that people that want to lose 20+ pounds. Thanks for your help!

SHBoss 1673 - I enjoy your posts and concede that you are much more informed than I! I am in the position of being a small person who is just looking to lose those final 5 pounds and struggling. My diet was wonderful until my husband returned from overseas after an absence of 3 months and then hosting guests for about 3 weeks. Trying to get back in the swing of things and was wondering if I need to approach this differently that people that want to lose 20+ pounds. Thanks for your help!

yep, what viv wrote.

But it's mostly about intuition and common sense. If you don't have much to lose, then logically, your body is already close to where it thinks it should be, so it's not going to work hard at using fat as a fuel source (of course the body doesn't think per say, it's all about hormones and chemicals). Think about it like this.
the human body is an efficiency engine. When ever it can it's going to try to use the least amount of energy from the most easily accessible fuel source. Normally the majority of that energy comes from food, but if you're creating a deficit, the rest has to come from somewhere. If you create a big deficit, but don't have much fat to fill in that deficit, the difference has to come from somewhere else (usually that is lean tissue). So the body does a couple of things, first it determines which muscles are being used least, and starts yanking protein from them, making them smaller, and less productive. This in turn lowers the metabolism, because muscle is an active tissue and burns calories even at rest. Next (through hormone release) it gradually begins to slow down metabolic processes. After a period of about 72 hours of moderate to high levels of calorie deficit, the body will start reducing the amount of energy we burn for TDEE (shown to be true in multiple studies), how much less we burn is dependent on multiple factors, genetics, weight, activity levels, age, sex...etc. all play a big roll, but to make it simple large deficits for people who don't have a lot to lose means burning more lean tissue, less fat, and lowers your resting maintenance calories. Lastly the body sends out hormones to trigger increased fat storage. So not only are you reducing your energy burn, you're reducing your muscle mass, and increasing fat stores. The "triple whammy" of bad stuff for weight loss.

Not to say that this all happens right away, it's pretty gradual. The bad aspects of "starvation mode" don't really begin until about 3 days in, and it's a slowly building ramp. It snowballs for weeks, eventually your body get's to the point where it feels like you're doing everything right, but still you are tired, not losing any (or much) weight, and can't seem to get motivated. It's a slippery slope.

the 100,000 dollar question is how do we avoid this, right? Well, that's not an easy question to answer. It's different for everyone. Generally I tell people who are looking to lose "vanity" pounds (lets face it, that last 5 or 10 lbs isn't physically causing you health issues, it's all about what you want to be at, it's ok to want to remove them, but it's really not for health reasons), that they need to be methodical, dynamic, and disciplined.
By methodical I mean, it's going to take time, don't expect to see weight loss weekly on the scale. The amounts you will be losing will be minute, expect that. By dynamic I mean, change up your routines, make sure you add in different workouts so you don't fall to the muscle memory demon that can significantly reduce the amount of calories you burn from a workout. And by disciplined I mean, stick to the plan, when you have a lot of fat to lose, it's relatively easy to have a "cheat" day and continue to lose weight, but when you get down to the final stretch, cheating can set you back significantly. There's a price to pay for a great looking body, it's up to you to decide whether you want to pay it. But thinking that you can still "have your cake and eat it too" is a little naive. Not to say you can't do it, just be prepared that it may add a bit of extra work on to your plan.

hope this helps

-Banks

i only eat about half or a bit less than that and i have been losing weight consistently.not a lot but still losing. i am close to my goal weight so its a bit slower losing the pounds. everyone is different so just try it out for a month or so and see where you are from there. i do think that as long as you hit your base calories (1200) you should be fine. also, if you are not hungry and have extra exercise calories, don't eat just to eat, kwim? listen to your body and go from there. hth!

Starvation mode is when your body starts to cannibalize it's muscle tissue and organs, reserving the fat for last.

Never heard starvation mode described like that, that's an EXCELLENT way to put it! It kind of puts the fear back into the “starvation mode” phrase especially since people started to say 'preservation mode'. Neither is wrong but I like the use of cannibalization, creates some fear to make you eat enough

My recommendation as a nutritionist is to eat no less then 80% of your total energy expenditure (that's basal metabolic rate + normal activity level + exercise) so that you avoid starvation mode.

That makes perfect sense, I agree.

My BMR is 1400 (5'8, 27 yof, 138 lbs), an average week-day I burn 250 calories (100 cals walking and 150 doing 30-day shred circuit training) so 80% of that is 1320 calories which is what I usually eat. My body burns about 1900 a day just existing so that means my deficit is 580 calories

actually, your calculation is a bit off. it's BMR PLUS daily activity, plus exercise. You did just BMR plus exercise.

Essentially it's TDEE (maintenance calories) plus exercise multiplied by .8 is what she is saying.

so for example, my BMR is 1830, add to that my daily activity calories (about 820 or so) and my exercise calories which is usually between 300 and 500 (so lets call it 400) and it comes to 3050 calories. Multiply that by .8 and the minimum I should be eating is around 2450 calories. Now for someone who has a lot of fat to lose, you could probably drop that by a couple hundred and still be ok. But generally that's the rule of thumb.

but remember, on days you aren't exercising, don't add the exercise calories into the equation.

i ate some of mine, not all.