Eating back calories burned

MFP gives you a calorie goal that puts you at a deficit before you do any exercise. If you exercise, you increase the size of this deficit. A deficit that is too high can impact your health and energy -- your body needs appropriate fuel to run. So when you increase the size of your deficit through exercise, you should consider eating some or all of those calories back so you maintain your health, energy, and muscle mass.

ronniejolley494 wrote: »

Your body requires a certain level of intake to keep from going into "starvation mode," which will cause your metabolism to crash to a screeching halt. MFP adjusts your caloric deficit to keep you within safe limits.

While metabolic adaptation is real, "starvation mode" in the sense you're using it isn't going to be an issue for the vast majority of people. The real danger is that a large deficit, if sustained, can lead to low energy and losing too much muscle. It can also lead to health consequences like hair loss or gallbladder issues. And if one gets too hungry and isn't able to sustain it, it can lead to binges and lack of progress.

So there are good reasons to avoid a large deficit, just not "starvation mode."

Because food = good

Plus if you really want to exercise effectively, you have to fuel it properly.

TaraTall wrote: »

Yeah, depending on how my day goes, I don't generally eat back my calories. Sometimes I do but my target is based on my lifestyle as is. So if I burn 200 cal, i might not eat it back but if I burn 500, I'm usually hungrier and will eat it back.

I set up myfitnesspal as sedentary. My job is somewhat active but, i don't feel like bumping it up to lightly active. Lightly active 1.5 pounds a week is the equivalent of 1lb a week sedentary for me so as long as i'm losing somewhere between the 2 i'm happy. Of course i've generally been over 2lbs a week without particularly trying so i'm trying to make adjustments by eating all allotted calories and I bought a heart rate monitor which i can hopefully get working properly on my android phone.

Because the more I exercise, the more I can eat while still staying at mfp's deficit.

napilibay wrote: »

I emailed mfp about this today and they told me not to eat less than 1200 net calories. So if I'm given 1200 food calories, burn 400, I need to eat that all back to stay above 1200 net and avoid starvation.

If you're getting your exercise calorie burn from the mfp data base or exercise machines it is usually recommended to eat back 50% of those calories due to overinflation of their numbers.
Fitbit etc etc are more accurate, but still not spot on for some.