To add or not to add exercise calories

MFP is based on the NEAT formula, in which you do eat exercise calories back. How many of them is trial and error. I can typically manage to eat about 75% of mine and still lose. Some folks find that they can only eat half. Tweak the numbers as needed, but yes, you should be eating at least a portion of them back to fuel your body.

OP, you're doing it right. If your weight loss is slower than expected, there are two places to look:

1. How long has it been? Sometimes for the first month, your weight loss rate can be wonky. Some people lose really fast then drop off, others it seems like their bodies take a few weeks to catch up
2. Double check your logging. Are you using a food scale as often as possible for everything, even packaged foods? Are you using accurate entries in the database (there are a lot of bad user-entered entries)? Are you logging everything, everyday?

Keep at it, and good luck!

I typically eat about about 65% of the calories burned.

yes, thats why your weight loss is so slow.

I will 'weigh' in here with what is just my experience and opinion and what works for me.

I have pretty much always worked out 5 days a week. 45mins treadmill & 30 mins weights. What got out of control was my eating. My weight crept up and up and I told myself I was exercising, so I must be OK. One day I realised I was nearly 200lbs! OMG! I had been eating good food, but WAY too much of it, and quite a bit of bad food like cakes and chocolate too.

The last 5 months I have eaten at 1200 or less (normally less, and I KNOW many of you will hate that!). I still exercise 45mins treadmill & 30 mins weights 5 days a week. I have steadily lost approx 2lbs a week and I am 50lbs down after 5 months.

I have never had a day where I felt hungry, dizzy, faint, etc. I have tons of energy and feel amazing.

My opinion (and that of my Trainer), if you are making the effort to exercise, unless you are doing high intensity exercise for long periods or training for a marathon or something, DON'T eat the calories back. You are just negating your hard work.

That said, that isn't going to work for everyone, so please don't jump down my throat :-)

CaliforniaAJ wrote: »

I will 'weigh' in here with what is just my experience and opinion and what works for me.

I have pretty much always worked out 5 days a week. 45mins treadmill & 30 mins weights. What got out of control was my eating. My weight crept up and up and I told myself I was exercising, so I must be OK. One day I realised I was nearly 200lbs! OMG! I had been eating good food, but WAY too much of it, and quite a bit of bad food like cakes and chocolate too.

The last 5 months I have eaten at 1200 or less (normally less, and I KNOW many of you will hate that!). I still exercise 45mins treadmill & 30 mins weights 5 days a week. I have steadily lost approx 2lbs a week and I am 50lbs down after 5 months.

I have never had a day where I felt hungry, dizzy, faint, etc. I have tons of energy and feel amazing.

My opinion (and that of my Trainer), if you are making the effort to exercise, unless you are doing high intensity exercise for long periods or training for a marathon or something, DON'T eat the calories back. You are just negating your hard work.

That said, that isn't going to work for everyone, so please don't jump down my throat :-)

As far as the bolded, MFP already figures your deficit into your original calorie goal. It assumes you are not doing any exercise. If you don't eat your exercise calories back, you are undereating. That is how MFP works.

If your trainer gives you a specific number of calories and has taken your exercise into consideration while doing that, then sure don't eat them back. But that's with your trainer, NOT MFP.

I'm not even going to respond to the number of calories you are eating, because for most people that would be incredibly unhealthy.

Debsjeav wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

If your weight loss is slow it's most likely because you have a small calorie deficit - whether that is because your food logging, exercise logging or activity setting are inaccurate isn't possible for anyone to know. Especially as your diary is locked.

Singling out exercise calories is missing the point entirely. Calorie balance determines weight loss.
Remember a little bit of inaccuracy on a big number (food intake) is more significant than a lot of inaccuracy on a small number (exercise).

Did you clearly describe the unusual MFP eat back exercise calories method (NEAT goal + exercise calories) to your "Fitness Trainer & Sports Nutritionist"?
Because typically they work with the TDEE method where the goal already includes exercise calories.

If you do a significant amount of exercise it's clear you should be accounting for exercise using one method or the other. Deliberately introducing inaccuracy by ignoring a significant part of your energy needs doesn't seem to make any sense to me when you are calorie counting.

Worth a read.....
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/818082/exercise-calories-again-wtf/p1

I wasn's sure of what you meant above, but I followed your link and it was much clearer - going by what it states "If you are using an external calculator and then customizing your intake to match that, you should not be eating back your exercise calories" as I used IIFYM to determine my macros etc, I should not be eating back my calories, right?

Correct!

You used a site that asks you your typical exercise and credits you a daily average of those exercise calories.

When you set your goal on MFP you will notice that it doesn't credit you with any exercise calories. That's why you log them and should eat them back.

Say you do 1400 calories of exercise a week, two sessions of 500 and one of 400.

From a TDEE calculator you might eat 1700 cals daily = 11,900 a week.
On MFP you would get different calorie amounts of 1500, 1500, 1500, 1500, 2000, 2000, 1900 = 11,900 a week.
Different methods that end up in the same place.

So back to your original question, by setting your TDEE goal (including exercise) and then eating back exercise calories on the day as well - yes you are double dipping.

Often people doing this TDEE method just log their exercise here as 1 calorie so it doesn't mess with the daily goal.

I'm assuming that the people who are against eating back their exercise calories will change their mindset once they are in maintenance, and no longer have any weight to lose??