An objective look at eating "exercise calories"

Lindsay7360 · February 2011

Bump

meagalayne · February 2011

Obese folks, on the contrary, can run much larger deficits than thinner folks for reasons we won't get into here today. But all of these relatively thin folks who are trying to "beat their bodies into submission" by blitzing it full force with calorie deprivation and massive amounts of exercise should probably heed this advice.

I agree with your post for "moderatly fit" people, like you've said. I see a lot of "obese folks" replying here though, do you think you can give us your advice for someone who is obese?

I can totally wrap my head around eating back exercise calories when you're close to a healthy weight, but when you've got 70, 80, 200lbs to lose, it just doesn't make sense. You said, Obese people can run much larger deficits. I think the biggest confusion on this site comes from those who don't understand this point.

For example. I am 5' 3", 216lbs, eating 1200 calories a day and doing a pretty intense workout routine with my trainer 3 days a week, and a mix of strength training/cardio classes on the other 3-4days. On MFP, I get "yelled" at (for lack of a better term) when I don't eat back my exercise calories. Now, I don't starve myself, I'm not hungry, or sluggish, tired, miserable or anything like that... And, if I'm at 1200 and I'm hungry after a workout, you bet your bottom dollar I'm gonna eat/drink something. In my mind there is no reason to be eating back any of my calories though.

I know you said you weren't going into it today, but in your opinion, what should obese people (in general, I know this isn't one size fits all) be doing? Eating back or not eating back? I think it's important for us to hear what the difference is and not assume this post was meant for everyone no matter their weight..

Don't mean to butt in here... but 1200 cals a day at your height/weight is already a large deficit. What do you have your weight-loss goals set to? I would imagine that at 5'3" and 216lbs you are likely targeted to lose 1.5-2.0lbs/week without any exercise at all. Add in exercise every day and that's an additional 300-600 calories a day, correct? That's a LOT of deficit - no matter how much weight you have to lose. Make sure that your goals are within reason and remember that a significant deficit is built into MFP already.

If you want to figure out exactly how much you are depriving your body as it is, figure out your (estimated) maintenance calories, either online or by hand using the formula that stoutman posted, and then figure out how much you are fueling yourself with every day, subtracting what you are burning in your workouts. You may be surprised how little nutrition you're actually getting.

Just my $0.02

hpsnickers1 · February 2011

I will admit I did not read every single reply, just the first page.

Great write up.

One thing I find, if I do not "eat back" my exercise calories, my performance suffers.

If you are in this beyond just wanting to lose some weight, but have fitness goals too, performance is important. It matters. You cannot perform, you cannot GO HARD in a huge calorie deficit, you can only do that in a moderate one, and ONLY if you have some stored reserves.

2 years of GPP conditioning sessions for Muay Thai, weight lifting, and running have taught me that if I lose weight to fast and cut back to aggresively on calories means I crash and burn during anything but modest workouts.

So I would encourage those training for more than just fat loss to consider that. For me, I don't just want to be ripped at 190 pounds, but marathon ready.

This is so true, I upped my calorie intake yesterday (to get ready for some more serious strength training). So I ate quite a bit before my evening workout. I was amazed at the energy I had for the workout. I also increased my weights and still made it through the entire routine.

stroutman81 · February 2011

I agree with your post for "moderatly fit" people, like you've said. I see a lot of "obese folks" replying here though, do you think you can give us your advice for someone who is obese?

Sure.

Let me touch on some of your points. I think that will clear up a lot of my beliefs about obese folks who are dieting.

I can totally wrap my head around eating back exercise calories when you're close to a healthy weight, but when you've got 70, 80, 200lbs to lose, it just doesn't make sense.

I'd reread the original post.

The weight of an individual doesn't dictate whether or not eating back calories expended during exercise makes sense or not. The total energy balance picture is what drives the sense of it or not. Regardless of your weight, if the deficit established from food and exercise expenditure together throw you in "too large" of a deficit, it'd make sense to eat back some or all of your exercise calories or to reduce some of the exercise volume.

What's "too large"?

It depends on the person and it's tough to overlay rigid boundaries here. If I had to though, I'd say 25-35% off of maintenance would be the sweet spot for non-obese folks in most circumstances and 25-50% off of maintenance for obese folks in most circumstances.

Now here's something else to think about.

Most obese folks do not have the capacity to expend large amounts of calories via exercise. Which is why you see all of these articles in notable publications claiming stuff like, "exercise doesn't work for fat loss." Ironically, the people who need help controlling energy balance the most are the ones who don't have the physical and mental capacities to expend a lot via exercise. And the people who don't need help in the energy balance department are typically the ones who can expend the most energy due to their high level of fitness.

You said, Obese people can run much larger deficits. I think the biggest confusion on this site comes from those who don't understand this point.

For example. I am 5' 3", 216lbs, eating 1200 calories a day and doing a pretty intense workout routine with my trainer 3 days a week, and a mix of strength training/cardio classes on the other 3-4days. On MFP, I get "yelled" at (for lack of a better term) when I don't eat back my exercise calories. Now, I don't starve myself, I'm not hungry, or sluggish, tired, miserable or anything like that... And, if I'm at 1200 and I'm hungry after a workout, you bet your bottom dollar I'm gonna eat/drink something. In my mind there is no reason to be eating back any of my calories though.

The focus on exercise calories is uncalled for in my opinion.

Rather, there should be a focus other factors. Namely, let it be known that the stress response applies to all of us. While our bodies will resist large deficits more when we're lean compared to when we're fat.... extreme approaches will still yield more significant impacts on our capacities to manage stress. No matter how you slice it, if you outpace your ability to manage stress, crappy stuff can and will happen.

You can look at it like obese folks how a larger stress management capacity to deal with energy deficits, and in a way, they do. However, that doesn't mean a capacity doesn't exist.

Also, the larger the deficit and the fewer calories you eat, the higher the chances of providing your body inadequate amounts of nutrition. Remember, it's not solely about calories. It's about nutritional requirements as well for health, physique, performance, etc. The higher your energy output, the higher the need for nutritional reinforcements. Which is why the starve and crush yourself with exercise approach generally doesn't last very long. Longer for obese folks, but still, not a permanent solution.

So the lower you go in calories, the more critical food selection becomes to assure you're covering your bases in the nutritional requirements department. When you're eating more, requirements are more likely to be met simply due to the higher volume of various foods being eaten.

Because of this, and the need for a more rigid food selection, the starve and crush approach typically backfires not only for lean people, but also obese people. It's just for obese folks, it's more often psychologically related than physiologically.

Which is why I tend to tell people that if what they're currently doing isn't something they can see themselves sticking with in some form or fashion for the remainder of their lives... well guess what... the results these methods will provide aren't going to stick either.

I know you said you weren't going into it today, but in your opinion, what should obese people (in general, I know this isn't one size fits all) be doing? Eating back or not eating back? I think it's important for us to hear what the difference is and not assume this post was meant for everyone no matter their weight..

Again, it has nothing at all to do with eating or not eating back your exercise calories. It has to do with deep you're tapping into your capacity to deal with stress. Think of it as a bucket. Each bit of stress you apply to your body adds some water to the bucket. The bucket represents your stress management capacity. Once it's full, if you let it overflow, stuff will eventually backfire. The steeper you take your deficit, the greater the volume of water you place in your bucket. The more intense and voluminously you exercise, the greater the volume of water you place in your bucket.

Which is why I'm not a fan of prepackaged diets and exercise programs. In my opinion, how many calories you're consuming and how much you're exercising should vary based on how much stress management reserves you have. And there's no science to this. But look at it like this. If I know my client has been dealing with a lot of stress at work, not eating as well as usual, and having trouble sleeping... I know that these things are eating up some of the stress capacity. A prepackaged program would have him do X exercises for Y volumes and intensities regardless, where I, on the other hand, would modify things accordingly to manage the overall stress environment.

I mean, if eating back your exercise calories keeps you from overflowing your bucket, than it's meaningful for that given person in that given situation. But we can't prescribe rules for all obese people whether they should be eating them back or not - just like we can't for leaner folks. And given the fact that *most* obese folks simply can't expend all that much energy via exercise, we're really talking about a small component of the stress capacity.

I've worked with many obese folks over the years and my approach is never the same for each. Some fair better on steeper deficits. Some do not. The steepest I'll generally take them, as noted above, is 50% of maintenance calories. And most obese folks seem shocked to know what their true maintenance is. When I tell them it's 3500 or 5000+ they say I'm crazy and don't believe me. Mind you, we're talking about 300-400+ lb people.

As a culture, we're so brainwashed into low calorie thinking that when I tell my 400 lb client that it's perfectly okay to eat 2500 calories, she or he is screaming that's way too much. They don't factor in the metabolic cost that being that size entails.

And on the exercise front, I keep things very simple. I don't like high intensity modalities until I've conditioning at a point where I believe it's safe and even then, I avoid all high impact stuff. The conditioning side of things might start out with 2-3 sessions of structured "cardio" per week and as many walking sessions as they can fit in.

I'll also have them weight train too, but it's almost always of the circuit training type for various reasons we won't get into here.

I feel like I'm rambling a bit and I don't feel this is an organized collection of my thoughts on the matter at all. Maybe I'll get around to writing an article about this shortly.

If I had to sum it up though, I'd say when it comes to obese clients, fat loss is much easier. Given their large calorie allotments, there's so much more "wiggle room," which is one of the reasons why I cut calories by a greater relative percentage from maintenance. Even if they mess up, there's such a long way to maintenance that as long as they're not gorging themselves, it's unlikely they'll stall their fat loss.

Pretty much everything works for the obese client. I've my own strategies, but there are many ways of going about it and with all of them, there's a lot less concern about managing the finer nuances. It's more a matter of managing the mental side of things and keeping them positive, consistent, happy, etc.

ladyhawk00 · February 2011

One thing I find, if I do not "eat back" my exercise calories, my performance suffers.

Yup. Not universally, but you're definitely bringing up a very valid point. Often times people take things to extreme ends of the spectrum. As I often say, they attempt to beat their bodies into submission, and on a stress-response level, this tends to backfire.

Even on this forum, there are hoards of women who are eating next to nothing, running serious mileage each week, and lifting weights. Pair all of this with the stress of life, and you've a perfect recipe for outpacing your body's ability to recover from and manage stress.

Once that happens, all sorts of fun things can happen - plateaus, overall feeling like a big pile of turds, lack of desire to train, nagging dull pains at the joints, etc.

It's not even something that only those interested in performance need to concern themselves with. It's anyone. Our bodies are finely tuned machines and the stress response is one of the fundamental biological models that explain how our bodies maintain homeostasis and survive.

Stress an organism too much though, and things go south. Which is why I like to say you want to coax your body in the right direction. Not force it. Dosage matters when it comes to the application of stress (remember stress is accumulative and comes in many forms - psychological and physical - so things like shortage of calories, exercise, illness, problems at home, tough boss, anxiety about something you're dreaming up happening in the future, etc).

In other words, you have to look at it from the big picture, and ultimately the stress response and adaptive process will be the final arbiter of what you do. Thus diet and its cascading effects on the body (leptin most notably) will be a key factor to consider. Even performance-based athletes, who are well fed and have access to regenerative modalities consolidate their CNS-intensive work into a handful of days.

As a rule, the less you eat, 1) the less nutrients you'll have to effect repair and 2) the more likely your body is to respond to that state by down-regulating its metabolic processes.

To make it simple, below around 10-11 cals/lb (which is more or less BMR for most folks), the body's going to be in a state of chronic stress, shutting down "unnecessary" processes. Muscle growth, as a compensatory adaptive process, is one of the first on this list.

This isn't so much a concern with a more sane deficit, mind you, but you still need to account for it simply for lack of nutrient intake.

Which is why it's all about compromises. Since we're dealing with finite capacities to deal, if we want to do a lot of work for performance based reasons or because we're nuts and addicted to exercise which often seems to be the case, we need to adjust the nutrition accordingly.

If you are in this beyond just wanting to lose some weight, but have fitness goals too, performance is important. It matters. You cannot perform, you cannot GO HARD in a huge calorie deficit, you can only do that in a moderate one, and ONLY if you have some stored reserves.

Well put.

If you're going to do more in the gym, you've to fuel it by eating more. Even if you're maintaining a deficit, make sure you're doing so in relative terms.

Love these points! Thanks!

newmeat30 · February 2011

bump!

EmpressOfJudgment · February 2011

Thanks, Steve (and everyone else)! Great advice here. I've been struggling a little with this myself. I workout pretty hard during the week (yoga, strength training, cardio), but my weight loss has been at a turtle's pace. I've been wondering if I'm eating too little or too much. I realize my first step is to get a HRM. I've been relying on estimates from the cardio machines and this website, which I already know are not accurate. I don't want to fuss over perfect calorie counts, but I have a feeling I'm way off somewhere.

Now I'll go search for a thread recommending HRM that are inexpensive, but effective...

abihaila · February 2011

bump

stroutman81 · February 2011

Thanks, Steve (and everyone else)! Great advice here. I've been struggling a little with this myself. I workout pretty hard during the week (yoga, strength training, cardio), but my weight loss has been at a turtle's pace. I've been wondering if I'm eating too little or too much. I realize my first step is to get a HRM. I've been relying on estimates from the cardio machines and this website, which I already know are not accurate. I don't want to fuss over perfect calorie counts, but I have a feeling I'm way off somewhere.

Now I'll go search for a thread recommending HRM that are inexpensive, but effective...

Yea, to see if you're too low or too high on the calorie front, you need to get a clear picture of where your net calories stand. Frankly, most people are too high. But around here (MFP), I've come across quite a few people who are too low.

It should be noted though that even if they're too low, if they stay low long enough, they'll lose weight. I mean, look at anorexics. They starve themselves and they don't hit these "dreaded plateaus." It's just that the body can resist enough to slow things down considerably and often times that's when people will rebel by eating more out of spite of frustration. In other words, they typically don't take things to the extent anorexics do. Instead, they enter this terrible cycle where they diet far too rigidly until their body resists just enough to frustrate them, then they give up, then they repeat once they start feeling sorry for themselves.

ladyhawk00 · February 2011

Bumping, as there seem to be a lot of questions out tonight....

lizzybedizzy · March 2011

I just stumbled upon this thread while trying to figure out the whole goal calories, exercise calories and net calories but still losing. I'm in my first week of being on this site and for the first time in my life counting calories of what I put in my mouth. It's been a learning curve to say the least but am encouraged that this is something I can see myself doing for the rest of my life (once I get the hang of it).

I want to thank you for posting this as this is the simpliest and most understandable post I've found on this topic. I do have one question though, you had mentioned back a ways about post training eating. Would you recommend a balanced smaller meal of protein, veggies, carb or protein, veggie or protein? and why please.

Thanks
Liz

stroutman81 · March 2011

I just stumbled upon this thread while trying to figure out the whole goal calories, exercise calories and net calories but still losing. I'm in my first week of being on this site and for the first time in my life counting calories of what I put in my mouth. It's been a learning curve to say the least but am encouraged that this is something I can see myself doing for the rest of my life (once I get the hang of it).

I want to thank you for posting this as this is the simpliest and most understandable post I've found on this topic. I do have one question though, you had mentioned back a ways about post training eating. Would you recommend a balanced smaller meal of protein, veggies, carb or protein, veggie or protein? and why please.

Thanks
Liz

If you're just starting out, I wouldn't worry too much about post workout nutrition. In fact, I could make an argument that pre-workout nutrition is more important. But the general idea is that after a workout (especially weight training or high intensity cardio) the tissues are most sensitive to partition calories favorably. Which is just a fancy way of saying that body composition can be enhanced.

But again, it's hair splitting in my opinion. If you're hitting your net calories and nutrient targets, that's the majority of the battle.

If you're going to sweat the small stuff though, ideally your post workout meal would include protein and carbohydrates. The former promotes protein synthesis and the latter inhibits protein breakdown.

lizzybedizzy · March 2011

Thanks!!

Pre-workout I try to get the best balanced meal I can in me, still working out some of those kinks in that area

helps to know what would be best if I do end up with calories that I need to eat post-workout

Liz

stroutman81 · March 2011

You're welcome!

ladyhawk00 · March 2011

Bump

patattheshire · March 2011

great post

robin52077 · March 2011

definitely bumpworthy
(I think I just made up a word)

PNCTink · March 2011

Makes sense! Thanks for bumping.

ladyhawk00 · March 2011

definitely bumpworthy
(I think I just made up a word)

Sounds naughty :bigsmile:

Celo24 · March 2011

Very nicely put.

autumn13 · March 2011

So glad we are friends...Well said!

locomotion · March 2011

great post! :flowerforyou:

tryinghard2012 · March 2011

Thanks Steve!

stroutman81 · March 2011

Thanks for keeping this thread bumped guys. I still see a lot of confusion about this topic... too bad this thread can't be stickied..

EmpressOfJudgment · March 2011

You always deserved to be stickied. Uh wait, that came out all wrong. Well, you know what I mean.

Lyadeia · March 2011

One issue that seems to be related to MFP more than any other forum I post on is the question of "to eat or not to eat" the calories one expends exercising. I'm assuming it has something to do with the logging and calculations used on MFP, which I am admittedly unfamiliar with. However, suffice it to say that I get this question in my inbox a few times each week, so it's obviously worth mentioning on the forum.

First, let it be known that there are no universally accepted rules regarding eating them back or not. The reason being is because there's no magic to it - it comes down to energy balance. Nothing more. Let me explain...

Let's try to make this real simple:

Maintenance calorie intake is where calories in = calories out, right?

We know that a calorie deficit is required if fat is to be lost, so calories in < calories out.

Large deficits can have negative effects such as increased cravings, muscle loss, irritability, unsustainability (I made that word up), etc.

So we want a moderate deficit, which I'd label as 20-35% off of your maintenance. There's latitude here, mind you.

So if your maintenance is 2000 calories, anywhere from 1300 to 1600 calories would be realistic for fat loss.

That's a deficit of 400-700 calories per day.

Said deficit, in theory, could come from a number of combinations.

On one end of the spectrum you could simply eat 400-700 calories less per day. This assumes the energy out side of the equation stays reasonably static.

On the other end of the spectrum you could keep eating 2000 calories but increase calories expended via exercise to 400-700 calories per day.

If you went with this latter scenario, you wouldn't have to eat back your exercise calories because the expended calories from exercise put you in the sweet spot, calorically speaking.

Now if you cut calories by 400-700 AND increased activity by 400-700, then you'd be running too large a deficit unless you ate back your exercise calories. I can't express how general this is, but it's something many should listen to. Obese folks, on the contrary, can run much larger deficits than thinner folks for reasons we won't get into here today. But all of these relatively thin folks who are trying to "beat their bodies into submission" by blitzing it full force with calorie deprivation and massive amounts of exercise should probably heed this advice.

In real terms, most people establish their deficits partly by cutting calories and partly by increasing activity. But for those of you wondering whether you should be eating back your calories expended exercising, you need to look at your calories in net terms. Where does your deficit stand without eating back your exercise calories?

I'll note that personally I don't worry about any of this with my own training or my clients. I set what I consider sane and productive volumes of various exercise (strength training, energy system development, conditioning for fat loss, etc.). From there, there's really not a lot of variability in energy expenditure since I know, by and large, what volume of exercise is required to drive the adaptations I'm shooting for.

Therefore, the only thing to really manipulate is calorie intake. It's a much cleaner approach but to each his own. Do what you're happy with and what makes the most sense for you.

There are too many posts in this thread to read through them all right now, but I did want to respond to original post.

Before MFP, I was aiming for a specific calorie goal regardless of exercise calories and losing weight doing it. I had never heard of "eating back exercise calories" until coming to this website!

When I joined, I used the MFP calculations which turned out to be really, really OFF for me. First of all, my BMR is 1350 and MFP said I should eat 1200. You shouldn't EVER eat below your BMR. So, I already had to "eat back my exercise calories" just to be healthy and normal.

I struggled with the calories because of the above issue and was confused as to what to do. And then I discovered that if I eat between 1450-1575 calories per day, guess what happens? I lose weight AND I have butt loads of energy and feel great.

So I re-entered my goals here on MFP to put the calorie goal at 1575. I don't try real hard to get there, because that is my MAX amount that I allow myself. I do NOT enter my exercise into MFP, because that messes up the macro ratios automatically. I need to take in at least 138 g of protein per day for my goals. But adding in exercise calories makes my goal go up which is just weird, to say the least. I simply type my workouts in the notes section under the diary for food and deal with the fact that people can't tell me "good job" for logging exercise.

And now I am losing weight and inches without sacrificing muscle, and I no longer stress out about "eating exercise calories."

Just my .02 cents.

ladyhawk00 · March 2011

There are too many posts in this thread to read through them all right now, but I did want to respond to original post.

Before MFP, I was aiming for a specific calorie goal regardless of exercise calories and losing weight doing it. I had never heard of "eating back exercise calories" until coming to this website!

When I joined, I used the MFP calculations which turned out to be really, really OFF for me. First of all, my BMR is 1350 and MFP said I should eat 1200. You shouldn't EVER eat below your BMR. So, I already had to "eat back my exercise calories" just to be healthy and normal.

I struggled with the calories because of the above issue and was confused as to what to do. And then I discovered that if I eat between 1450-1575 calories per day, guess what happens? I lose weight AND I have butt loads of energy and feel great.

So I re-entered my goals here on MFP to put the calorie goal at 1575. I don't try real hard to get there, because that is my MAX amount that I allow myself. I do NOT enter my exercise into MFP, because that messes up the macro ratios automatically. I need to take in at least 138 g of protein per day for my goals. But adding in exercise calories makes my goal go up which is just weird, to say the least. I simply type my workouts in the notes section under the diary for food and deal with the fact that people can't tell me "good job" for logging exercise.

And now I am losing weight and inches without sacrificing muscle, and I no longer stress out about "eating exercise calories."

Just my .02 cents.

What was your loss per week goal at 1200? With as little as you have (or had) to lose, it shouldn't have been more than 1/2 lb per week, which should have put it over 1200 once activity level is factored in. Your BMR may be 1350, but of course that doesn't include activity level. It sounds like your loss goal may have been set too high.

MFP is great, but (as Banks says) it's a "dumb" tool - even if you shouldn't be trying to lose 2 lbs per week, it will try to get you there, with the exception of not taking you below 1200.

MFP increases macro goals when you log exercise because it adds cals for that exercise - and those cals are expressed as protein/fat/carbs - they have to be one of those, right? So when you increase cals, it's just allocating where those extra cals should come from as a percentage.

thumper44 · March 2011

Bump.
Thanks Steve. Great information in this thread.

Lyadeia · March 2011

There are too many posts in this thread to read through them all right now, but I did want to respond to original post.

Before MFP, I was aiming for a specific calorie goal regardless of exercise calories and losing weight doing it. I had never heard of "eating back exercise calories" until coming to this website!

When I joined, I used the MFP calculations which turned out to be really, really OFF for me. First of all, my BMR is 1350 and MFP said I should eat 1200. You shouldn't EVER eat below your BMR. So, I already had to "eat back my exercise calories" just to be healthy and normal.

I struggled with the calories because of the above issue and was confused as to what to do. And then I discovered that if I eat between 1450-1575 calories per day, guess what happens? I lose weight AND I have butt loads of energy and feel great.

So I re-entered my goals here on MFP to put the calorie goal at 1575. I don't try real hard to get there, because that is my MAX amount that I allow myself. I do NOT enter my exercise into MFP, because that messes up the macro ratios automatically. I need to take in at least 138 g of protein per day for my goals. But adding in exercise calories makes my goal go up which is just weird, to say the least. I simply type my workouts in the notes section under the diary for food and deal with the fact that people can't tell me "good job" for logging exercise.

And now I am losing weight and inches without sacrificing muscle, and I no longer stress out about "eating exercise calories."

Just my .02 cents.

What was your loss per week goal at 1200? With as little as you have (or had) to lose, it shouldn't have been more than 1/2 lb per week, which should have put it over 1200 once activity level is factored in. Your BMR may be 1350, but of course that doesn't include activity level. It sounds like your loss goal may have been set too high.

MFP is great, but (as Banks says) it's a "dumb" tool - even if you shouldn't be trying to lose 2 lbs per week, it will try to get you there, with the exception of not taking you below 1200.

MFP increases macro goals when you log exercise because it adds cals for that exercise - and those cals are expressed as protein/fat/carbs - they have to be one of those, right? So when you increase cals, it's just allocating where those extra cals should come from as a percentage.

I wasn't losing anything at all at 1200. I was hungry all the time and binged often because I was starving myself and didn't know it. I had my goal set at half a pound per week.

I started out at 191 pounds. Every time I saw any kind of loss since then, I was eating between 1450-1575 calories which is what I went back to this year after I came to a complete stop following MFP's advice.

ladyhawk00 · March 2011

I wasn't losing anything at all at 1200. I was hungry all the time and binged often because I was starving myself and didn't know it. I had my goal set at half a pound per week.

I started out at 191 pounds. Every time I saw any kind of loss since then, I was eating between 1450-1575 calories which is what I went back to this year after I came to a complete stop following MFP's advice.

In that case it sounds like your activity level setting was off. I say this because if your BMR is 1350, and you add in activity level of sedentary, that adds at least another 150-200, which could leave you at 1200. But from what I've seen you say on other posts, you're not sedentary. And if you had activity level higher than sedentary, then MFP shouldn't have you at 1200 with 1/2 loss goal. Not that MFP can't be "wrong" - but it does work with averages and estimates, so if you fall outside the curve, the numbers may need to be tweaked.

One thing I would say, though, is that if you aren't logging exercise and aren't eating extra on those days (which from other posts I've seen you're a PT? - lots of exercise?), then you probably still aren't eating enough at ~1500 cals. Just a thought.

An objective look at eating "exercise calories"

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