I would like to see who eats all of their calories back

Most of the time I do but if I've had a major ride, i can't eat an extra 3000 calories. Sometimes I just don't want to, I go by what my body tells me. I'm staedily losing weight so I'm ok with that.

The calories you burn during exercise are just estimates so I always figure they are on the high side and I only eat back half the calories that I gain back from exercise.

I've tried to eat back most or all of my exercise calories and I ended up gaining 11 pounds, so I started to eat between 1300-1400 calories and not eat any workout calories but that doesn't seem to work either as I have not lost any weight in 3 months. So I'm kind of at a loss of what to do now.

I eat all of mine back, have been doing so since Feb, and lose weight. I plateau now and again but an increase in exercise intensity seems to shift it.

Way I look at it is that I've cut my base calorie intake for the day a lot already (down to about 1400 from about 2400) as I aim to lose 2lb a week, I don't want to go any lower than that so I eat the lot back.

I eat half to all my exercise calories back everyday. I lose 1-2 pounds a week. I generally eat as many of my exercise calories as it takes for me to feel full.

Make sure you're eating your exercise calories back with good food. I haven't looked at your diary, but when I ate the calories back with junk food, I didn't lose weight.

I do eat some of mine back, but not all. Also if I'm not hungry, I don't eat them back. If you are hungry, you should eat them back, but probably not all of them. MFP tends to estimate on the high side of what you would actually burn, so eating all of them back probably isn't necessary.

I almost always eat mine back and haven't had a problem losing weight. I recommend taking into account your BMR, which your HRM doesn't do. For example, I burn about 49 calories an hour by simply existing. For the sake of simplicity, I rounded that to a calorie a minute, which I subtract from the number of calories my HRM says I burned. It said 111 for 22 minutes of playing soccer with my kids yesterday, so I logged it as 89. That way, you can still enjoy some extra food without eating back more than you should.

Me! Even when I burned over 1000 calories on a 15K hike, I ate them that day and the next.

I find MFP gives pretty good estimates, which I improve if I have gym equipment of CardioTrainer readings, though these are of course estimates too. I wouldn't have the energy to work out the next day if I didn't! I also sometimes work out a bit more to earn indulgences, like a nice glass of red. Mmmm! Amazing though it is, the weight steadily goes down.

You do have to be honest with yourself about how hard you've worked or how fast you've run/walked though, and round up or down accordingly. Being slightly conservative will always err on the safe side.

I'm "pro" eating back your exercise calories, but when you have a lot of weight to lose, you aren't going to go into starvation mode (because your body has enough saved energy (fat)) to pull from).

I had been trying to do 1200 calories AND eating my exercise calories (it took close to 2 months to lose 8 lbs - healthy I guess, but I have 65 more to lose. It's not like I'm on my last 10 - it should be going at least twice that fast). Turns out I didn't have my calories set high enough (my body wanted more). I just posted a similar answer in another thread, so I hope this might help you too.

~ ~ ~

"What are your settings? I'd [not been losing weight for frickin MONTHS!]. The other day, I found this:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/61706-guide-to-calorie-deficits

Turns out, my settings were wrong. I had set myself at sedentary (because I sit at my desk all day... BUT, I also work out for 3-4 days per week at 1 hour each. As such, I SHOULD have been set to very active - I bumped it down to active, because sometimes it's only 3 times.)

Now, add on top of that, I went out for a nice dinner on my anniversary . Ate WAY more than I should have. Within the next 2 days, I dropped 2 lbs. Since then, with higher calories (and nothing else changed) I've continued to drop. All I can figure is that I was eating too little at 1200 calories (even though I've ALWAYS eaten my exercise calories).

I would advise you to read the article, adjust your settings and eat all of your exercise calories. Give it TWO WEEKS (not just 1 day).

**Oh... and believe me, I was scared as heck when I saw how many calories it wanted me to consume. On days that I run (burning 600 calories each time), I'm eating 2000! BUT... that's where my body lets me lose weight. *totally weird, but I'll take it!*

A lot of people want to question starvation mode, etc. - but from what I've seen (and witnessed), we need to take the advice of MFP and the EXPERIENCED losers (they've been through it). I realize it totally contradicts what we THINK we should be doing, but if it works, it works!

I don't eat all mine back. I think MFP does a pretty good job of tracking calories, but it seems a little on the high side for estimating calories burned, IMO. I try and stay at least 500 calories under what it says I can eat back (never going below 1200).

Also, I think it's been shown in several places that most people drastically underestimate how much they're consuming. Make sure you do your best to accurately gauge your intake. You're only doing a disservice to yourself otherwise.

If you are eating your exercise calories back (based on an accurate HRM) and not losing, then the issue is probably one of the following:

You aren't being exact in logging your food. Most people underestimate their portions quite a bit and forget to add things like the cooking oil, a handful of nuts here and there, bites of their children's food or the dish their preparing.

Or

Your activity level isn't accurate in your setup. Maybe you put active, but you are really lightly active or actually sedentary. If this isn't correct and set too high, it will give you more calories than you need, which will reduce your deficit or even eliminate it.

Or

You are counting things as exercise things that are already included in your daily activity level. Exercise, as it pertains to eating back the calories on MFP, consist of purposeful, sweat-inducing, for fitness purposes, exercise. Daily living is already included in your activity level above. If, for example, you put down grocery shopping as exercise, you're double counting it, because it's not for fitness purposes and generally doesn't induce sweat.

Check these things and then, be patient! It takes a couple of weeks for your weight loss to catch up to your changes.

I guess this question confuses me. Why would you want to consume the same amount of calories that you just burned? If trying to lose weight, isn't the goal to have a calorie deficit at the end of the day?

I don't have time to respond to this now but I'm curious to read more of this thread later when I get out of work. Great topic! I really need advice on this

I do this quite frequently, but I don't eat all of the calories back. Last night I burned 407 Calories walking and had almost 300 calories left to begin with so I had a total of 700 calories left to eat. I ate all but 101 calories. I ended up losing 3/4 of a lb from yesterday morning until this morning when I weighed. Remember you have to burn after 3500 calories to lose 1lb.

I eat most of mine back, just depends on if I'm hungry or not, yesterday i think i had 400 left because i just wasn't hungry. Sometimes i only have 4 or 5 left, if any. Just depends