Why Eat MORE calories?

I think people like to use it as an excuse to make themselves feel better for eating just under their BMR. I also don't get people eating exercise cals back? I'd rather not exercise!

I am a die hard 1200 cal girl and Im going strong, and loosing at a great rate.

:huh:

If I didn't eat back exercise cals, I could net under 1000 calories....does that make sense? MFP designs your caloric deficit as if you weren't exercising outside your daily routine. When you exercise, it makes that deficit even bigger. In many cases this deficit would now possibly drop individuals below BMR, or be at a rate that is unsustainable, or keeps the individual from properly fueling the body.

Mostly people don't say eat more in order to lose more weight. They see eat more to lose mostly fat (instead of mostly muscle) and to be healthy. But there is some evidence that eating at a more severe deficit leads to moving around less (to conserve energy). Eating more calories can provide the necessary energy to workout harder as well as increase daily activity like taking the stairs or walking to work.

^^^^^ this - and all the points made above about adherence

there are many pitfalls from eating too little:

- in the long term it can lead to physical and mental health issues, decrease the metabolism and make body composition worse (lower bone density, less muscle, high body fat percentage)

- in the short term it can make you hangry, lacking in energy (so you move less and therefore burn less) and prone to compensatory overeating or even bingeing, which basically undoes all the benefits of a larger deficit

If the goal is fast weight loss, then ask yourself if you want to stay at goal weight for life, because if you revert back to your old habits, or start cycling between undereating and overeating, you're likely to gain it all back again. So by making the goal long term maintenance rather than how fast you can lose the fat you focus more on making lifestyle changes you can sustain for life, figuring out what size portions you can eat so you can enjoy all the foods you want while staying within your calorie goal, and also on maintaining your bone density and muscle mass and just losing fat, rather than trying to reach a number on a scale in a short time.

So, by "eat more" what people are actually saying is "don't starve or deprive yourself" and "you can still lose weight and actually have better health, more energy, be stronger and fitter, and have an easier time maintaining your goal weight if you eat more than the people who are aiming for fast weight loss." More is relative... it means more than what you get on a fast weight loss diet. It doesn't mean "eat more than the amount you did that made you fat" (unless you drasticallay increase your exercise levels to be able to do that, which is a legit way to lose weight and be healthy if you really want to eat tons of food and still lose weight)