To eat the burned calories or not?!

I get a bit confused by it. MFP tells me my allowance is 1234 (or something like that) calories per day. I burn on average about 500-700 calories a day (two JM workouts and 1+ hours of dancing). I usually end up eating about 1450. Is the recommendation such that you should NET the recommended amount i.e the deficit is built in? My net is probably around 700- 800 on average. I have noticed that losses do slow down when I start tracking food again and weight loss is faster if I stop tracking what I eat for a while - could it be because I'm not eating enough? I don't feel hungry so feel a bit uncomfortable eating more to get to a higher calorie goal.

floridamatty wrote: »

I am 6ft tall, weigh 261lbs and I walked at 3.5mph on a 15 incline in 50 mins and burned 1000 calories today wearing a heart rate moniter.

I hear everybody saying the machine is over estimating her 700 calories for 90 minutes, yet nobody has said how they know this, not one person has asked what treadmill she is using was she wearing a heart rate moniter or anything.

Way to shoot someone down people.

Part of the reason people think calories burned is overestimated is that the portion of TDEE that would be burned during that time anyway isn't taken out. I am 6'5" 241 lbs, so I'm burning about 125 calories per hour during my normal activities. If instead of normal activities I go for a bicycle ride and burn 1000 calories in an hour, I should really only add 875 calories burned to the log. Other than that, I don't see a reason for calorie burn estimates to be off. I wonder if we might be even more sedentary than what the term sedentary implies rather than calorie burn estimates being wrong.

miriams76 wrote: »

I get a bit confused by it. MFP tells me my allowance is 1234 (or something like that) calories per day. I burn on average about 500-700 calories a day (two JM workouts and 1+ hours of dancing). I usually end up eating about 1450. Is the recommendation such that you should NET the recommended amount i.e the deficit is built in? My net is probably around 700- 800 on average. I have noticed that losses do slow down when I start tracking food again and weight loss is faster if I stop tracking what I eat for a while - could it be because I'm not eating enough? I don't feel hungry so feel a bit uncomfortable eating more to get to a higher calorie goal.

MFP gives you a calorie goal with a built in deficit based on your stats. For instance, I am 5' 6", weigh approximately 207 pounds and want to lose about 2 pounds a week. I am fairly sedentary and try to work out for 20 minutes five times a week. With that information, MFP configures how many calories my body would need to maintain it's current weight just based on my height, weight and activity level for my normal day to day activities (home, work and social life). My body needs approximately 2100 calories to maintain. Therefore my deficit if I eat my allotted 1200 a day is 900. At the end of the week, without any exercise my deficit would be 6300. It takes approximately 3500 calories deficit to burn a pound of fat off. So a little under 2 pounds a week is my weight loss projected without exercise. Any exercise I do puts my deficit in further. If I walk enough to burn 300 calories extra in a day then my deficit hits 1100 that day. I can opt to eat those calories back because they are basically extra money in the calorie bank. Or I can (without torturing myself) not use them and burn closer to the full 2 pounds. Like I said before, I eat a portion of them back if I feel the need to due to hunger or being tired but it isn't necessary. That being said if I was doing very extensive and strenuous exercise, I would probably almost always eat a good portion of them back because I wouldn't want my body to suffer horribly.

floridamatty wrote: »

I am 6ft tall, weigh 261lbs and I walked at 3.5mph on a 15 incline in 50 mins and burned 1000 calories today wearing a heart rate moniter.

I hear everybody saying the machine is over estimating her 700 calories for 90 minutes, yet nobody has said how they know this, not one person has asked what treadmill she is using was she wearing a heart rate moniter or anything.

Way to shoot someone down people.

That's wat they love to do on here. Shoot people down. Her post asked a question about eating back calories, not to criticize for how many calories she's burning during a workout smh.

I go to the gym 6 times a week but only do 30 mins and burn around 300 cals according to the elliptical machine. When I put the same into mfp it usually over estimates calories burnt by about 1/3 so I eat back most of my calories some days and others only a few, depending how hungry I am. I and trying to get out of the habit or eating for the sake of it but in general I struggle to stick to 1200 a day. I have lost 10lbs in 21 days so far x

I almost always eat back my exercise calories. To be frank, I often work out so I can eat more. I enjoy food, a lot! That's what got me to MFP first. I ate too much food! It's all about learning to eat the foods you enjoy and know you will encounter in your life in moderation!

Definitely eat back some of them, if not most! It won't slow down your weight loss significantly. I lost close to 30 lbs on MFP eating back most of my exercise calories!