Do you eat back the calories you exercise off?

I eat back most of my calories from working out. I usually leave about 100 or so though for margin of error on both my part (estimated burns and potential weighing errors) and MFP part (general assessment of burns cannot accurately tell you what you are actually burning ).

I've lost 21 kilos following that format.

I eat half my exercise calories back but most of my exercise is badminton, not steady state. I see you do pilates, not necessarily steady state, I would think. I would start out eating at least half back and see how you feel and how fast you lose. If you lose too fast, not good( counter intuitive, I know, but muscle loss is not what you want), if you start to feel run down, hair loss, brittle nails, want to binge like crazy every few days, you probably need to up your calories. It's all about what is sustainable, healthy, and gets you results.

And no, always make sure you are netting 1200 calories.

I do not eat my exercise calories back, but I have also had my Dr. tell me I don't have to. I eat between 1300 and 1500 calories a day and burn at least 500 calories (the calories are based on my BodyMedia armband, so I know they are not being over estimated). So, I net way less than 1200 calories a day. I do have about 70 pounds to lose, though so maybe that's why she says there is no need to eat my exercise calories back.

I used to, but after 'black Friday' I'm trying something different now.

I usually guesstimate my exercise calories and eat all of them back. It has worked for me, but now starting today, I will eat my exercise calories back once a week.

I have to keep changing things so I'll stay on track. My methods have worked for me so far.

leeanncflood wrote: »

I'm on a 1200 calorie diet (5'0 female here) but I find I'm typically eating around 1600-1800 calories. I exercise them all off through my job, pilates, and running, but I've read people saying that myfitnesspal overestimates the amount you burn. Should I be trying to keep below 1200 even though I'm fairly active?

Are you counting your activity at work as exercise? If so, then you should bump up your activity level.
Are you losing weight? Yes? Keep going. No? Unless you're wearing a HRM, then you should eat back 1/2 (ish) .. MFP does tend to overestimate some things.

MFP has a deficit built in already., so you'd lose weight even if you didn't exercise. Diet = weight loss. Exercise = health.

It doesn't really matter if you eat back the exercise calories or not but you should always have a NET calories at the end of the day of at least 1200, this is what your body needs to function. Any less and your body slowly goes into starvation mode and your metabolism slows down. I've been on MFP for 154 days and have stuck to this method and have lost 13kg so far. Consistency is key in keeping your metabolism up and losing weight

If you are losing weight as fast as predicted, then MFP is not overestimating anything. The MET calculations used by MFP are averages based on population studies. By definition, an average overestimate the calories for half of the population and underestimates for the other half. This is also true of your TDEE calculation from which your 1200 comes from. The real number for the individual you is something a little more or less.

I sometimes do. But I work out in the evenings so often I'm just ready for bed after and I don't want to eat.

I don't. What I DO, however, is track my weight loss over time against my caloric average. My target is to lose about a pound a week. If I am losing less than that over a ten day average, I will lower my intake. If I am losing a lot more than that (say 2 lbs a week) I increase my intake. I'm training for some swims, so I do want to fuel my exercise ability while taking off weight.

Does this mean that functionally, my caloric intake increases with my exercise capacity? It does a bit! I was eating at 1500 calories a day and I've bumped it up to 1700 and am losing about at the rate I want to. While I do need to take off quite a bit of weight, I'm wanting to lose it relatively slowly both to avoid loose skin issues and to avoid issues that you can run into from long-term caloric deprivation. And because I want the strength to do the swims I want.

So, this novel of a reply is because I think that the only real way to know what you should be eating is to track it against how you are losing averaged over a longer period of time and tracked against average intake. Counting 3500 calories as a pound of fat is a decent approximation, but fat loss is slower than other sorts of variation, which is why to get a better approximation than simple weight loss is to track it against a moving average over a period of no less than ten days.

if youre working out that day i would eat 1200 and some more to cover. tbh 1200 sounds kinda low anyway.

No. I use TDEE and have exercise accounted for in my activity level.

leeanncflood wrote: »

I'm on a 1200 calorie diet (5'0 female here) but I find I'm typically eating around 1600-1800 calories. I exercise them all off through my job, pilates, and running, but I've read people saying that myfitnesspal overestimates the amount you burn. Should I be trying to keep below 1200 even though I'm fairly active?

Is eating between 1600-1800 causing you to lose weight? If so, I'd keep doing it. Don't go below 1200, as it's not considered to be healthy.

I eat back some of my exercise calories if I have a day where I really want something that will cause me to go over my regular 1600.