Eating back exercise calories?

Well, I don't know. The scale was stuck for me for the past 2+ weeks ... it simply would. not. budge. I was on-plan, I was exercising, eating right, eating back about 75% of my exercise cals. A couple of days ago I looked at my average cal intake and exercise burn. MFP has my bmr at 1330. I was eating, on average, 1580 cals/day and burning 290 via exercise. Again, the scale would not budge, not up not down, nothing. Two days ago I stopped eating back so much, hitting 1400 cals/day instead. Finally dropped a lb.

Maybe I'm just dense but .... I don't get the "eating back today's burned cals to fuel tomorrow's workout". Aren't the cals you consume today fueling today's workout and the cals you consume tomorrow fueling tomorrow's workout?

I've posted this in other threads, the whole "net cal" thing just confuses me. I seem to be able to lose weight if I stick within a certain small range of cals rather than eating back what I've burned. I have my food deficit set to lose 1 lb/wk and any cals burned on top of that via exercise might bump that to 1 1/4, which is all I want to lose in any given week. Also, I view the exercise cals as a "buffer" to keep me in that 1 lb/wk range, in case I do eat more, Oh, does that make any sense? lol It does to me.

First, the calories MFP gives you is not "BMR". MFP gives you BMR based on your age, height, weight PLUS a bit more for every day activity (but not exercise). So, nevermind this BMR name.

As GuitarJerry said, once it calculates your needs for everyday life, it then subtracts a flat rate depending on how many pounds per week you say you want to lose. Since you have it set to 1 pound/week, then it is subtracting 500 from your daily needs (not including exercise).

So, here is some math

1330 (the amount MFP says to eat)
-290 (the amount of burn for exercise)
+290 (the amount more you eat for that fuel)
=1330 NET

All together, with the above, you would eat 1620. However, if you think that exercise calculation is off, eat a little less.

According to these numbers, your TDEE would be 2120. (1330 MFP calories +290 exercise calories +500 deficit MFP gave to lose 1 pound per week).

If your TDEE is 2120, and you are eating 1330 - 290 = 1040 (net calories), then your calorie deficit is over 1,000. This is way too steep unless you have more than 75 pounds to lose.

If you are truly measuring food correctly, you should be losing 1 pound per week at about 1600 total calories. I think if you consistently eat between 1400-1600 you will see progress.

According to IIFYM , my TDEE is 1913, bmr is 1308, MFP says eat 1330 per day.

All I know is over a little over 2 wk period I was weighing/measuring all my food, averaging 1580 cals per day, averaging 290 exercise burn per day and the damn scale did not budge. At all. Not up, not down, no wiggle. Yes, it should have but it didn't. I cut back to 1480 (1209 net cals) Wed, 1424 (992 net cals) Thurs and the scale was down a solid lb this morning. It seems my body will let go of weight if I eat at the lower end of 1400-1600. Thx for the info/feedback, appreciate it.

So then the above probably reflects an inflated calorie burn, especially if the average 290 exercise burn is coming from the MFP app.

Also, I wonder if you chose the correct activity level when using the TDEE calculator. Did you choose "sedentary"? It sounds like you do at least "light exercise".

I have asked my doctor and nutritionist the same thing.. they told me that typically the rule of thumb is if you burn over 400 calories, you can eat half of those back if you find yourself being hungry. so if you burn an average of 500 calories, you should go ahead and eat 250 of those back to avoid hunger.. they also told me to plan out my calories and protein better throughout the day..

**as for the person complaining that you asked this question, that's a bit silly. MOST all of these questions on this forum can be searched on google.. if that were the case, then no one would be asking questions at all and only search.. i think sometimes people like to hear others experience on the topics. and i agree, they should probably not click on the topic if it bothers them that much, unnecessary anger there..

Did you explain to your nutritionist how MFP works?

the rule of thumb doesn't really answer the correct question. Your nutritionist is answering, if I'm eating normally, and burn 400 calories in exercise, should I eat those calories? the answer is no.

I am the one who said to do search. Since this is an everyday question, yes, one should search. I don't understand why it is rude to tell someone that is new that this is asked all the time and a search would answer the question.

If people used search, they would find most of their answers. In fact, you're right, you can probably find every answer on Google. So, no need for this silly place.