Exercise calories controversy ???

Good point! I dont understand it either!

I am also confused by this. My doctor suggests keeping calories the same and the more exercise the more you lose and has never told me to eat more if I exercise more. Weight watcher's "allows" you to eat more if you exercise more but only up to a certain amount and also tells you that you don't have to do it.

Top this off with I watch the Biggest Loser and I know those are extreme conditions, but they are certainly not eating all their exercise calories back.... and they lose weight...

I will be watching this thread to see the responses too Thanks for bringing it up.

I agree with this, I have had numerous personal trainers and am one myself now and I have NEVER heard of eating your calories back.

The formula is Calories In - Calories Burnt = Calorie Deficet.

What would the point be eating back all the calories you burnt off? Then you're back at square one. I could see if you wanted to Maintaine, then it would make sense, but if you want to loose I wouldn't touch them. I don't eat mine.

me either.. I do not eat mine. I wait till the end of the day when my calories are down to 90 or under.. and I know im done eating too add my exercise. Because to me.. then I've ate my 1200 calories..and once i add my exercise it wants me to add back 300...why would I want to eat those back?. It's silly! To me it would make you on a 1500 calorie diet then.

I keep think about these exercise calories and how you are suppose to eat them. I find it very controversial because I see some people that swear by it yet I see many people that constantly lose weight from not eating them. I know many people that have lost weight by eating right and walking/exercising while not having a clue about eating calories back. Trust me, I would want nothing more than to be able to eat more calories but everyone I ask such as professionals have never heard of this. SO now, I am more confused than ever. So far I have read the articles on MFP but other than that, what are other resources non-MFP that can back up this information?

That is because professionals don't use the math the way MFP does. MFP tells you you need 1300 calories to lose 2 lbs/week (which is a 1000 cal/day deficit) To keep your deficit at 2 lb goal (1000) you must eat the exercise calories or your deficit will be greater than a 1000 calories. MFP sets you up to lose without exercise.

A professional may tell you to eat 1600 and exercise 30 min/day So the 1600 calories would give you a deficit on the day of 700, using the above numbers, the half hour of exercise they tell you to do burned say 300 calories, now your deficit is 1000 (700+300) whereas MFP says to eat 1300 and you burn 300 now you get to eat 1600 (1300+300). This gets you to the same place as very few professionals will tell you to eat as little as MFP does.

So eating the recommended by professional of 1600 would yield the same results MFP does by telling you to eat 1300. As the professional already would have added an amount for exercise in the 1600 whereas MFP adds the cals to get you to 1600ish, after you actually do the exercise. The professional assumes you will do the recommended exercise whereas MFP will allow you to lose the same amount of weight whether you exercise or not.

yeah! I wanna know, too! My weight drops faster if I don't eat them! WAY faster!

im only allowed to eat 1200 cals a day, so when i exercise i just make sure i eat back enough to have my daily limit. im pretty sure thats all that matters.

It depends on the person also. I go by if I am hungry then I can use the exercise cals but not all of them. I also change the days in which I exercise. I do not exercise officially every day as I know my body does not respond well. I have to switch up eating exercise cals and not and then changing up the exercise days/routine. I know some don't agree but I do not eat anything after 6pm. It works for me.

You just have to experiment and find what works for your body. For me, it's much more complicated than eat them or don’t.

For a while I tried eating around 1/2 of what I ‘earned’. I really think MFP’s estimates are high for me and I didn’t want to over-do it. It worked pretty well for about a month or so. When things leveled out, I found a good estimate of my weekly calorie burn with activity level (BMR) and took a deficit of 4000. I spread out what was left of the week with some days being as low as 1200 and some days as high as 1700. That worked miracles for about two months. When it quit being as effective, I starting eating a pie chart (30% protein, 25% fat, 45% carbs). I hit a slow point and I’ve switched it again. My new focus is around 1400 with a minimum of five fresh uncooked fruits and veggies per day. It’s only been a week so I haven’t see changes yet for that one. I’ll switch it again if I need to.

Also, if I’m hungry, like really honestly genuinely hungry, I eat. I don’t care if I have the calories or not. My body talks to me from time to time and I feel like I have to listen.

I dont eat mine and my trainer said I was fine,my doctor said im fine.Every one I talked to said im fine except people on here.I'll just stick to doing things the way I do them.It works for me.

I agree with this, I have had numerous personal trainers and am one myself now and I have NEVER heard of eating your calories back.

The formula is Calories In - Calories Burnt = Calorie Deficet.

What would the point be eating back all the calories you burnt off? Then you're back at square one. I could see if you wanted to Maintaine, then it would make sense, but if you want to loose I wouldn't touch them. I don't eat mine.

Well said!!!

I agree with this, I have had numerous personal trainers and am one myself now and I have NEVER heard of eating your calories back.

The formula is Calories In - Calories Burnt = Calorie Deficet.

What would the point be eating back all the calories you burnt off? Then you're back at square one. I could see if you wanted to Maintaine, then it would make sense, but if you want to loose I wouldn't touch them. I don't eat mine.

Well said!!!

WRONG WRONG WRONG, MFP already gives you a caloric deficit to lose your goal amount of weight that you chose when you signed up or thereafter. eating your exercise calories just ensures you lose your goal amount, not more, not less, your goal, which should be your goal as you chose it to be your goal. Is you eat 1200 and burn 400 it is as if you only ate 800 (1200-400) and did not workout, this is not enough. your comment about maintaining makes no sense as MFP already has a build in deficit and they are just trying to keep the deficit at your goal, by adding back the exercise calories.

and in your formula MFP already has the deficit at 1000 so it would be 1200-2200 (maintenance calories) = 1000 cal deficit, if you exercise more your calculation would look like: 1200-2200-500(from exercise) = 1500 cal deficit, much larger than the recommended 500 to 1000 so you should eat 500 more and your calc would go to 1700-2200-500=1000.

Heres my take on it:
Before I had massive caloric defects -- the pounds melted away.
I reached my goal weight loss of 65 pounds but felt weak. This was due to the muscle I burned away.

I switched over to a low caloric deficit and added weight and actually ate more
The pounds returned at first
Over time I returned to the same goal weight with a lower bf / higher muscle ratio.
I feel great and I am eating more

So.. A lower deficit will yield better returns but not as quickly bc you will not lose as much muscle. Muscle is a good thing bc it increases your bmr!!

I was struggling with this too. I was eating around 1650 calories a day and exercising like crazy-- sometimes burning 1300 calories a day, but the average was 700-800/ day. My body was changing, but the scale would only go down .5 one week and up .4 the next or so. I made a chart from MFP-- calories in, calories burned= net calories, minutes exercised per day and met with a dietician last week. She told me to go up to 1800 calories everyday. My Basal Metabolic Rate was like 1704 or so with my current weight, etc...so I needed 1704 calories a day to just survive from waking up, working, etc-- not including exercise. She bumped me up to 1800 calories per day-- telling me to do this everyday....not focusing on my exercise calories. She said that my body's been stuck in starvation mode for too long, so it's holding on to the weight with all its' might! If I'm low in calories at the end of the day and not really hungry, eat some nuts. They are high in protein + good fat, but you don't have to eat much to get the good calories. I got on the scale this a.m. and I'm down a couple pounds, we'll see if that holds for tomorrow's official weigh in, and it's only been since Friday that I've been doing the 1800 calories.

I totally agree with ukphd. Also an important thing to look at is how many calories are you really using for exercise. I ran for over two hours out in the cold today - I need a large proportion of my exercise calories. If you ran super slow on the treadmill for 15 minutes reading a book you probably wouldn't need to eat back a single calorie. I don't log my strength training or rock climbing workouts because they aren't very aerobic. I think once you start logging calories for activities such as lawn mowing and then eating them back weight loss may be elusive. Note to serious weight trainers: I know YOU burn calories, my two to three times a week attempts aren't much more than stretching. I am very very happy when I am NOT hungry and am under my calorie allowance ... for me at least exercise demands fuel.