Eating all your calories vs. coming in under your daily target...

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3bucs
3bucs Posts: 1
in Health and Weight Loss
I'm working to drop 15-20 pounds. My daily caloric intake is 1,850, which then gets adjusted based on my workout activity. I usually do 300-500 calories worth of activity on my work out days. My question is on those workout days, should I be trying to eat more calories (good ones of course) to keep my metabolism going strong? Or should I still try and keep my calories around 1,850 regardless? I've been doing the latter, but it hasn't seemed to result in any greater gains. Just curious if I'm going about this the wrong way...
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  • orianneanne
    orianneanne Posts: 1
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    I have the same doubt
  • queenliz99
    queenliz99 Posts: 15,317 Member
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    Eat back most of your calories burned. Read this:

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1080242/a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants/p1

    Best wishes :)
  • ana3067
    ana3067 Posts: 5,623 Member
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    1850, assuming the correct activity level was selected, is your deficit goal without accounting for exercise. Meaning on exercise days, eat 1850 plus at least half of hte exercise calories you've logged. That's how MFP works if using its default method.
  • lcooper327
    lcooper327 Posts: 112 Member
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    I'm sure I am in the minority here. BUT my calories are set at sedentary and maintenance. Instead of worrying about eating back or whatever I just log what I eat and I log my exercise and as long as I am in a deficit of 300-500 calories by the end of the day I am happy.
  • ana3067
    ana3067 Posts: 5,623 Member
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    lcooper327 wrote: »
    I'm sure I am in the minority here. BUT my calories are set at sedentary and maintenance. Instead of worrying about eating back or whatever I just log what I eat and I log my exercise and as long as I am in a deficit of 300-500 calories by the end of the day I am happy.

    This is definitely a fine way to do it, especially if you exercise regularly or you don't have a set time-table for how much you want to lose every month.
  • clambert1273
    clambert1273 Posts: 840 Member
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    i eat all that I am allowed to eat... more food trumps less food... every time :)
  • Randy11475
    Randy11475 Posts: 6
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    I've been losing weight fast. I never eat all my calories.
  • SergeantSausage
    SergeantSausage Posts: 1,673 Member
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    Some days I eat. Some days I don't. Some days I leave calories on the table because I'm not hungry and there's calories in the quota...

    ... and I still lose weight.

    Imagine that.

    Just keep a reasonable deficit, and you'll stay on target.

    Disregard the whole "metabolism going strong". You are misinformed on that.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
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    Lets do the math.

    With my activity level and stats WITHOUT exercise being included in that activity level, I get a maintenance of around 2300 calories...which means that when I select to lose 1 Lb per week, I get a goal of 1,800 calories.

    That's cool and all, but I'm an avid cyclist and ride around 80 miles or so per week...more when I'm actively training. I also lift 3x weekly and still walk about 3 miles on my rest day. Through trial and error and about 2.5 years experience here, I've determined that I burn around 3,600 calories per week in exercise alone...those calories are completely unaccounted for in my activity level...that's an extra 515ish calories per day.

    So really, my maintenance with exercise would be around 2,800 calories per day and I can lose that same 1 Lb per week eating 2,300 calories or so (even though that's my non-exercise maintenance number). For me, it is important to performance and even more important to recovery and protecting myself from training injuries.
  • williams969
    williams969 Posts: 2,528 Member
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    clambert1273 wrote: »
    i eat all that I am allowed to eat... more food trumps less food... every time :)

    ^^This. I use an activity tracker that helps to get a better estimation of my exercise calories. I pretty much eat every calorie I'm given (well, within a range of +/- 50 calories or so).

    I worked for me whether my goal was 1lb/week loss, 0.5lb/week loss, and it works now that I'm in maintenance. More food = happy body.
  • VanillaGorillaUK
    VanillaGorillaUK Posts: 342 Member
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    You need to recalculate your daily caloric intake with activity level included. This number is the calories you eat everyday, regardless of when you exercise.
  • Ellaskat
    Ellaskat Posts: 386 Member
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    lcooper327 wrote: »
    I'm sure I am in the minority here. BUT my calories are set at sedentary and maintenance. Instead of worrying about eating back or whatever I just log what I eat and I log my exercise and as long as I am in a deficit of 300-500 calories by the end of the day I am happy.
    can you help me understand why such a big deficit? MFP gives me 1220 cal a day. At 500 cal deficit, I would only be eating 720 cal?

  • ana3067
    ana3067 Posts: 5,623 Member
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    Ellaskat wrote: »
    lcooper327 wrote: »
    I'm sure I am in the minority here. BUT my calories are set at sedentary and maintenance. Instead of worrying about eating back or whatever I just log what I eat and I log my exercise and as long as I am in a deficit of 300-500 calories by the end of the day I am happy.
    can you help me understand why such a big deficit? MFP gives me 1220 cal a day. At 500 cal deficit, I would only be eating 720 cal?
    1220 IS your existing deficit, which is likely too low btw. A goal of 1lb/week is usually enough for most people as a goal. So if MFP says you can maintain on say... 2200 calories, then it would give you a goal of 1700 calories to lose 1lb/week. So you'd eat 1700 calories, and then if you exercise you'd llog and eat back at least half of those calories (e.g. now eating 1900 calories) to stay at the same deficit.

    Whereas the person you quoted is already eating at that 2200 calorie maintenance every day, and when exercise occurs that creates a deficit so that you'd now be netting 1700 calories.
  • Pootler74
    Pootler74 Posts: 223 Member
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    Because the calorie burn estimates in the database are over-generous for most activities, I manually enter HALF of what MFP says I've burned. And then I eat all those delicious calories back because I bloomin' love food. :-)

    It makes it really clear at a glance how many calories I have left. It also means that my diet doesn't feel like a diet. My actual deficit in my settings is 400 calories.

    Doing it this way I'm probably making the deficit a bit bigger - I doubt the burn is really as low as I'm entering. I'm losing at least a pound a week this way, often more. (About 50 pounds total to lose, and currently about 30 pounds to go.)

    I tried not eating the calories back but I lost too fast, and I tried eating all of them back and didn't lose fast enough. Besides that I didn't feel like I had consistency. I've got into a nice rhythm now.

    This is what works for me. It took me a while to work it out. It works differently for other people. Give yourself a few weeks to experiment and see what feels comfortable and effective.
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    edited January 2015
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    I set to sedentary, my fitbit adds more for step-based / daily activity, my workouts are logged separately using my HRM (sometimes all of them and sometimes cutting calories entered to about 75% of burn to account for types of activity)

    I eat generally very close to my calorie allowance from MFP (initial cut plus exercise burns) across the week .. some days I might be under by a few hundred, some days over .. but generally I end the week around 300 - 500 calories under my weekly allowance (occasionally about 1000 under).. never over though .. as my goal is set to 0.5lb per week I'm happy with this

    At the end of the day the one who eats the most and still loses weight, wins :grinning:
  • cincysweetheart
    cincysweetheart Posts: 892 Member
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    I eat enough that I feel satisfied and enough that it will keep me satisfied until my next meal. And so that I have enough energy to get through my day and my workouts. If that cuts into my exercise calories so be it. If it doesn't… I don't try to make myself eat more just because there are calories left.
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
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    cincysweetheart wrote: »
    I eat enough that I feel satisfied and enough that it will keep me satisfied until my next meal. And so that I have enough energy to get through my day and my workouts. If that cuts into my exercise calories so be it. If it doesn't… I don't try to make myself eat more just because there are calories left.

    I don't find it's about making oneself eat more in terms of volume .. for me, it's about diversity in my diet and eating foods I fancy when I fancy them

    for example I've just snarfled a bag of crisps (chips) just because I wanted to .. and I can fit them in my defecit

    it's what makes it not feel like a diet but just how I live my life
  • cincysweetheart
    cincysweetheart Posts: 892 Member
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    rabbitjb wrote: »
    cincysweetheart wrote: »
    I eat enough that I feel satisfied and enough that it will keep me satisfied until my next meal. And so that I have enough energy to get through my day and my workouts. If that cuts into my exercise calories so be it. If it doesn't… I don't try to make myself eat more just because there are calories left.

    I don't find it's about making oneself eat more in terms of volume .. for me, it's about diversity in my diet and eating foods I fancy when I fancy them

    for example I've just snarfled a bag of crisps (chips) just because I wanted to .. and I can fit them in my defecit

    it's what makes it not feel like a diet but just how I live my life

    Sounds good to me! I'm all about eating whatever I want and fitting it into my goals. I do it everyday! I was simply responding to whether or not OP should eat back his (or her?) exercise calories or not. I'm just saying that I don't worry about it. If I want to eat and I can fit it in my goals… then I will. If I don't, then I won't.
  • Sweepypie
    Sweepypie Posts: 161 Member
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    I am allowed 1,580 calories a day, but I never eat that much. I am disabled and can't do much exercise and I am still losing weight! At the moment I have lost 21lbs in 12 weeks. I am happy with that.

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