2 lb per week weight loss

2

Replies

  • EricaH7
    EricaH7 Posts: 74 Member
    EricaH7 wrote: »
    Thank you guys for the clarification. I was under the impression we weren't supposed to eat back our exercise calories unless we were really hungry? I've been exercising longer most days so that's where it's 500-800 instead of 400 like it is on the day I posted.

    If your calorie goal comes from MFP, it's designed for you to eat back the calories you burn through exercise. Why do you think MFP would give you calories you aren't supposed to eat?

    Depending on how you estimate your calories burnt, some people have found that the extra calories are an overestimate. Some database entries seem to be too high, others seem to be right on. To ensure you aren't eating back too much, some people eat back just a portion of the calories -- like 50-75%. But if you're losing faster than you expect, that means you can eat back more of them.


    I am losing 2 lbs. per week doing as I am now without eating back my exercise calories.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    edited September 2016
    EricaH7 wrote: »
    EricaH7 wrote: »
    Thank you guys for the clarification. I was under the impression we weren't supposed to eat back our exercise calories unless we were really hungry? I've been exercising longer most days so that's where it's 500-800 instead of 400 like it is on the day I posted.

    If your calorie goal comes from MFP, it's designed for you to eat back the calories you burn through exercise. Why do you think MFP would give you calories you aren't supposed to eat?

    Depending on how you estimate your calories burnt, some people have found that the extra calories are an overestimate. Some database entries seem to be too high, others seem to be right on. To ensure you aren't eating back too much, some people eat back just a portion of the calories -- like 50-75%. But if you're losing faster than you expect, that means you can eat back more of them.


    I am losing 2 lbs. per week doing as I am now without eating back my exercise calories.

    Is your goal to lose 2 pounds a week? It sounds like you might not weigh enough to have a 1,000 calorie deficit safely through diet alone and your exercise is pushing you into the 1,000 calorie deficit, which is why you are still losing two pounds a week.

    This may be sustainable for a short period of time, but you run the risk of not meeting your nutritional needs, low energy, etc if you do it over the long term. You may want to consider adjusting your goals to something more reasonable and properly fueling your activity. Faster isn't always better.
  • EricaH7
    EricaH7 Posts: 74 Member
    The thing is I don't feel hungry to eat those exercise calories. I went from eating 3 meals a day, mainly eating out or eating junk to now eating 3 meals plus snacks when I'm hungry and eating all kinds of veggies and fruits and protein. If I was starving after a workout I would eat something but usually I workout at night and the last thing I would want after a workout is food so I just shower and go to bed.
  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,455 Member
    OP what are your stats and overall goals? 2 lbs/week resulting in a 1000 cal/day deficit is already a very aggressive deficit, and then to not eat back exercise calories you are creating an even larger deficit. 2 lbs/week is usually only recommended for those with more than 75 lbs to lose, is that accurate for you?

    While it may sound good to lose weight as quickly as possible, and to get even faster results by not eating back exercise calories, you can actually be doing yourself some harm with this approach. First, that big of a deficit may not be sustainable for you. Many people start out balls to the walls and see immediate results, but find it too difficult to stick with and give up altogether. Or they fall into a binge/restrict cycle. Others may be able to stick with it, but in creating too large of a deficit, you risk loss of lean body mass in addition to fat loss, ie the dreaded skinny fat look. You may find you start to lack energy for your workouts, or just become fatigued in general. Additionally, not taking in enough calories overall can result in hair loss, sallow skin, brittle nails, etc. None of which is a good thing!

    Have you taken some time to read the stickied "most helpful posts" at the top of the forum threads? In particular, check this one out as it has links to many other commonly asked questions here at MFP about how best to be successful using this site, why it is important to eat back exercise calories if you are using the MFP calculated goal, how to log accurately, etc.

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10260499/i-like-old-posts-and-i-cannot-lie/p1

    This one is my favorite for new members though...
    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1235566/so-youre-new-here/p1
  • RoxieDawn
    RoxieDawn Posts: 15,488 Member
    edited September 2016
    EricaH7 wrote: »
    The thing is I don't feel hungry to eat those exercise calories. I went from eating 3 meals a day, mainly eating out or eating junk to now eating 3 meals plus snacks when I'm hungry and eating all kinds of veggies and fruits and protein. If I was starving after a workout I would eat something but usually I workout at night and the last thing I would want after a workout is food so I just shower and go to bed.

    Did we answer all of your questions?

    I am not sure if your calories are actually setup to lose 2 pounds or if it is setup for example 1.5 pounds and not eating back exercise caloires balances out to 2 pounds..

    However, unless you have a good amount of weight to lose, 2 pounds can be pretty aggressive and will only get more difficult as you lose weight in the future. You are aware now from all of us "seasoned" MFP members on what is considered the best approach, the healthy approach and the sustainable approach. As you get closer to goal consider your plans for moving into maintenance. 1200 calories is the lowest you can go you may bottom out on this amount eventually during your weight loss.. Just keep that in mind.
  • EricaH7
    EricaH7 Posts: 74 Member
    Thanks for all the advice and help. I definitely learned a lot. As far as my stats go I started at 184.4, currently I am at 175.2. My goal is to be somewhere between 130-150. Right now I have been averaging losing 2 lbs. per week eating as I do which obviously I have not been eating back the exercise calories, however I do not find this amount of calories I am eating hard to maintain which is confusing to me when everyone is saying it should be? I have been eating like this for over a month now and I really have not been hungry. I have been maintaining this amount just fine. If you guys believe this is unhealthy then I will listen to suggestions and up the amount I am eating, but to be honest I have not changed the quantity of foods I am eating at all. I have only changed the quality.
  • EricaH7
    EricaH7 Posts: 74 Member
    Also, one of the above comments is correct about my food measurements probably not being exactly correct. I do not have a food scale and have been guessing on the amount I am eating. I try to do a high guess instead of low, but maybe I am doing the opposite since my weight loss coincides with the weekly goal.
  • EricaH7
    EricaH7 Posts: 74 Member
    edited September 2016
    EricaH7 wrote: »
    The thing is I don't feel hungry to eat those exercise calories. I went from eating 3 meals a day, mainly eating out or eating junk to now eating 3 meals plus snacks when I'm hungry and eating all kinds of veggies and fruits and protein. If I was starving after a workout I would eat something but usually I workout at night and the last thing I would want after a workout is food so I just shower and go to bed.

    Yep, I was afraid to eat my exercise calories when I began MFP and it worked fine for a while. Then my energy crashed, I struggled to complete daily activities, and I got really hungry. Just be aware that if you use MFP other than as designed and you create a larger than recommended deficit for yourself (as it sounds like you may be doing), there may come a time when you won't be able to comfortably continue.

    Once I realized what the problem was, I adjusted my plan and began eating back my exercise calories. I continued losing, but my energy and workout performance got much better.

    Your body can handle a lot for just a month. You want to be thinking of the long term because presumably long term success is what you want -- not just a month or two. Even higher quality foods won't make up for not eating enough to fuel what your body truly needs.




    Thanks! I needed to hear that! That explains why I feel fine doing what I am doing right now. As my body tells me I need more I will eat more! I am glad that I figured out how the exercise calories and calorie deficit worked now instead of later down the road when I started to feel deprived!
  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,455 Member
    EricaH7 wrote: »
    Also, one of the above comments is correct about my food measurements probably not being exactly correct. I do not have a food scale and have been guessing on the amount I am eating. I try to do a high guess instead of low, but maybe I am doing the opposite since my weight loss coincides with the weekly goal.

    If you aren't using a food scale (and not everyone does - I actually never did while losing or maintaining) then it is possible that you are already eating more than you think and so your statements that you feel full at this calorie level are correct because you are eating at a slightly higher level than your log reflects. That is consistent with the fact that you aren't eating back exercise cals and losing at 2 lbs/week, if your log were accurate then you would be losing more than 2 lbs/week by increasing your deficit with exercise.

    As @janejellyroll mentioned, many start out and feel great when they begin eating higher volume, more nutrient dense foods than what they previously consumed. However, after a period of time the total energy starts to wane and motivation can decrease - which is why the more moderate deficit is recommended, as well as not being too restrictive with the food choices. Leaving room for some favorite things like ice cream or pizza is important for long term adherence and can be perfectly healthy in the context of an overall balanced diet.

    I do recommend reading through those stickied threads.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    EricaH7 wrote: »
    EricaH7 wrote: »
    The thing is I don't feel hungry to eat those exercise calories. I went from eating 3 meals a day, mainly eating out or eating junk to now eating 3 meals plus snacks when I'm hungry and eating all kinds of veggies and fruits and protein. If I was starving after a workout I would eat something but usually I workout at night and the last thing I would want after a workout is food so I just shower and go to bed.

    Yep, I was afraid to eat my exercise calories when I began MFP and it worked fine for a while. Then my energy crashed, I struggled to complete daily activities, and I got really hungry. Just be aware that if you use MFP other than as designed and you create a larger than recommended deficit for yourself (as it sounds like you may be doing), there may come a time when you won't be able to comfortably continue.

    Once I realized what the problem was, I adjusted my plan and began eating back my exercise calories. I continued losing, but my energy and workout performance got much better.

    Your body can handle a lot for just a month. You want to be thinking of the long term because presumably long term success is what you want -- not just a month or two. Even higher quality foods won't make up for not eating enough to fuel what your body truly needs.




    Thanks! I needed to hear that! That explains why I feel fine doing what I am doing right now. As my body tells me I need more I will eat more! I am glad that I figured out how the exercise calories and calorie deficit worked now instead of later down the road when I started to feel deprived!

    Good luck! Sounds like you're doing a good job of monitoring how you feel and your hunger level.
  • RobD520
    RobD520 Posts: 420 Member
    EricaH7 wrote: »
    Also, one of the above comments is correct about my food measurements probably not being exactly correct. I do not have a food scale and have been guessing on the amount I am eating. I try to do a high guess instead of low, but maybe I am doing the opposite since my weight loss coincides with the weekly goal.

    If you have been steadily at 2 pounds per/week you probably have been underestimating your calories since you don't measure. Food scales are inexpensive and make this all a GREAT DEAL easier. (My electron scale was under 15 bucks....)
  • nikkons017
    nikkons017 Posts: 6 Member
    buy a food scale and use it to measure out your food in grams to get accurate calories. Never count exercise calories towards what you can eat. You burn very little calories from exercising, just consider the calories you burn as a bonus.

    if you are near the 1200 calorie mark, do not go below. 1200 calories is the calorie intake of like a 10 yr old and you are bordering on malnutrition. You need to be lifting weights to build muscle so it increases the calories that you burn.

    build more muscle = higher metabolism = easier to burn fat = able to eat more food and still lose weight

    Most fitness girls I know eat around 1800 calories if not more for their "cutting"/fat loss

  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,455 Member
    nikkons017 wrote: »
    buy a food scale and use it to measure out your food in grams to get accurate calories. Never count exercise calories towards what you can eat. You burn very little calories from exercising, just consider the calories you burn as a bonus.

    if you are near the 1200 calorie mark, do not go below. 1200 calories is the calorie intake of like a 10 yr old and you are bordering on malnutrition. You need to be lifting weights to build muscle so it increases the calories that you burn.

    build more muscle = higher metabolism = easier to burn fat = able to eat more food and still lose weight

    Most fitness girls I know eat around 1800 calories if not more for their "cutting"/fat loss

    To the bolded, as was explained upthread, the calculation of a calorie goal from MFP excludes exercise, it is a NEAT goal, so the system is actually designed that if you exercise you should eat back at least a portion of those calories.

    I'm not sure how on one hand you are stressing the need to eat at an adequate minimum level yet on the other dismissing the idea of eating back exercise calories... isn't that kind of the same thing? If OP exercises and burns 400 calories, and eats those back increasing her total calorie intake to 1680, how is that different than your recommendation to just increase her calorie goal?
  • nikkons017
    nikkons017 Posts: 6 Member
    WinoGelato wrote: »
    nikkons017 wrote: »
    buy a food scale and use it to measure out your food in grams to get accurate calories. Never count exercise calories towards what you can eat. You burn very little calories from exercising, just consider the calories you burn as a bonus.

    if you are near the 1200 calorie mark, do not go below. 1200 calories is the calorie intake of like a 10 yr old and you are bordering on malnutrition. You need to be lifting weights to build muscle so it increases the calories that you burn.

    build more muscle = higher metabolism = easier to burn fat = able to eat more food and still lose weight

    Most fitness girls I know eat around 1800 calories if not more for their "cutting"/fat loss

    To the bolded, as was explained upthread, the calculation of a calorie goal from MFP excludes exercise, it is a NEAT goal, so the system is actually designed that if you exercise you should eat back at least a portion of those calories.

    I'm not sure how on one hand you are stressing the need to eat at an adequate minimum level yet on the other dismissing the idea of eating back exercise calories... isn't that kind of the same thing? If OP exercises and burns 400 calories, and eats those back increasing her total calorie intake to 1680, how is that different than your recommendation to just increase her calorie goal?

    if you can find any reliable way to accurately measure energy consumed by exercise as all the machines and trainers give you bogus numbers. The amount you burn depends on lots of factors like height, weight, age, gender, muscle mass, muscle adaptation etc... I know people like to look on their cardio machine and it gives them a nice 400 number but it is complete bs. Those formulas also include a portion of bmr which is what you would burn if you did absolutely nothing and just existed, which is near half of that number. This is why they can magically calc your calories burned from just entering your weight knowing nothing else about you (lol). You are not buring 1k+ calories in your body pump/combat/yoga/whatever class, its marketing. If you really wanted to burn over 1k calories you would have to almost full out sprint continuously for 2.5hrs straight with no breaks, then you might get close. Again this doesn't factor in age, weight, etc... We are physically adapted to be efficient when doing exercises/work/hunt and we eat calorie dense foods. This is why humans survived.

    So you can't estimate accurately how much calories you are burning so you can't accurately determine how much "extra" you could theoretically eat. However it is fact that if you are not in a caloric deficit, you will not lose weight according to thermodynamics. So you get 3 options, eat a caloric deficit, eat at maintenance, eat above maintenance. 2/3 of those, you will not be losing weight. I'd rather not guess when the odds are already against me.

    Muscle take up more energy to maintain then fat does on your body. As when you crash diet, you are mostly losing muscle/water as its the first thing to go in terms of keeping you alive, thus how you get skinny fat people who are thin but still look frail. If you put on more muscle, you require more energy for your body to maintain that muscle. Thus you are increasing how much you can eat. The amount is determined by your goals and how much previous muscle mass you have. You adjust accordingly by your progress pictures and long-term scale moving averages.

    This works the same for exercise. But the key point for exercise/activity level is that is has to be consistent week over week, which is really hard for most people as stuff just happens. If you can do it, great; watch the scale and photos and increase your cals, working towards you goal.

    But this is the catch. A pound of fat is about 3500 calories. So for you to lose even 1 pound per week you need to be in a deficit of 500 calories each day for 7 DAYS (minimum). If you cut that to 250 cal deficit then it takes you around 2 weeks to lose 1 lb. So if you mess up your calories adding them back in, you could be losing weight but extremely slow. So if you decide to cheat; 1 medium pizza is ~2k calories, bar of chocolate is around ~900 cal, a normal combo meal from a fast food place is like ~2k cals, its extremely easy to erase what little deficit you had and erase 2 or more WEEKS of progress.

    The minimum level is for safety. 1200 is extremely low and it is hard to eat a wide variety of foods to get adequate macro and micro nutrients at that level. If you want to go below that, this is your choice but be warned that you will probably develop nutrition deficiences, you body will go into panic mode cause your starving yourself and will make fat loss near impossible. It will also lower your metabolism to further conserve energy making weight loss harder/slower. You will also be eating mostly muscle and not the fat you wanted to lose.
  • Jruzer
    Jruzer Posts: 3,501 Member
    nikkons017 wrote: »
    You burn very little calories from exercising, just consider the calories you burn as a bonus.

    I couldn't disagree with a recommendation more. I frequently hit 1000 kcal per day of exercising; that's close to half of my maintenance calories.

    The best part of the NEAT method, to my mind, is that you get explicitly rewarded for exercising. When I discovered this method, I started exercising to earn more calories. I have been able to eat more and fit in more foods that I love, all the while getting fitter and healthier. I have kept going for almost 5 years.

    If someone had told me that I shouldn't count those calories, I would have become discouraged very early on and would likely have not been successful.
  • RobD520
    RobD520 Posts: 420 Member
    nikkons017 wrote: »
    WinoGelato wrote: »
    nikkons017 wrote: »
    buy a food scale and use it to measure out your food in grams to get accurate calories. Never count exercise calories towards what you can eat. You burn very little calories from exercising, just consider the calories you burn as a bonus.

    if you are near the 1200 calorie mark, do not go below. 1200 calories is the calorie intake of like a 10 yr old and you are bordering on malnutrition. You need to be lifting weights to build muscle so it increases the calories that you burn.

    build more muscle = higher metabolism = easier to burn fat = able to eat more food and still lose weight

    Most fitness girls I know eat around 1800 calories if not more for their "cutting"/fat loss

    To the bolded, as was explained upthread, the calculation of a calorie goal from MFP excludes exercise, it is a NEAT goal, so the system is actually designed that if you exercise you should eat back at least a portion of those calories.

    I'm not sure how on one hand you are stressing the need to eat at an adequate minimum level yet on the other dismissing the idea of eating back exercise calories... isn't that kind of the same thing? If OP exercises and burns 400 calories, and eats those back increasing her total calorie intake to 1680, how is that different than your recommendation to just increase her calorie goal?

    if you can find any reliable way to accurately measure energy consumed by exercise as all the machines and trainers give you bogus numbers. The amount you burn depends on lots of factors like height, weight, age, gender, muscle mass, muscle adaptation etc... I know people like to look on their cardio machine and it gives them a nice 400 number but it is complete bs. Those formulas also include a portion of bmr which is what you would burn if you did absolutely nothing and just existed, which is near half of that number. This is why they can magically calc your calories burned from just entering your weight knowing nothing else about you (lol). You are not buring 1k+ calories in your body pump/combat/yoga/whatever class, its marketing. If you really wanted to burn over 1k calories you would have to almost full out sprint continuously for 2.5hrs straight with no breaks, then you might get close. Again this doesn't factor in age, weight, etc... We are physically adapted to be efficient when doing exercises/work/hunt and we eat calorie dense foods. This is why humans survived.

    So you can't estimate accurately how much calories you are burning so you can't accurately determine how much "extra" you could theoretically eat. However it is fact that if you are not in a caloric deficit, you will not lose weight according to thermodynamics. So you get 3 options, eat a caloric deficit, eat at maintenance, eat above maintenance. 2/3 of those, you will not be losing weight. I'd rather not guess when the odds are already against me.

    Muscle take up more energy to maintain then fat does on your body. As when you crash diet, you are mostly losing muscle/water as its the first thing to go in terms of keeping you alive, thus how you get skinny fat people who are thin but still look frail. If you put on more muscle, you require more energy for your body to maintain that muscle. Thus you are increasing how much you can eat. The amount is determined by your goals and how much previous muscle mass you have. You adjust accordingly by your progress pictures and long-term scale moving averages.

    This works the same for exercise. But the key point for exercise/activity level is that is has to be consistent week over week, which is really hard for most people as stuff just happens. If you can do it, great; watch the scale and photos and increase your cals, working towards you goal.

    But this is the catch. A pound of fat is about 3500 calories. So for you to lose even 1 pound per week you need to be in a deficit of 500 calories each day for 7 DAYS (minimum). If you cut that to 250 cal deficit then it takes you around 2 weeks to lose 1 lb. So if you mess up your calories adding them back in, you could be losing weight but extremely slow. So if you decide to cheat; 1 medium pizza is ~2k calories, bar of chocolate is around ~900 cal, a normal combo meal from a fast food place is like ~2k cals, its extremely easy to erase what little deficit you had and erase 2 or more WEEKS of progress.

    The minimum level is for safety. 1200 is extremely low and it is hard to eat a wide variety of foods to get adequate macro and micro nutrients at that level. If you want to go below that, this is your choice but be warned that you will probably develop nutrition deficiences, you body will go into panic mode cause your starving yourself and will make fat loss near impossible. It will also lower your metabolism to further conserve energy making weight loss harder/slower. You will also be eating mostly muscle and not the fat you wanted to lose.

    Part of doing this correctly involves learning what your actual net calorie burn is for exercise as many resources are unreliable. This involves keeping good records as well as trial and error. This is one reason why some suggest start by eating back half calories.

    My solution is to adjust everything down. Taking my BMR into account and then calculating from my heartrate monitor readings I find that:

    1 Hour of moderately intense cardio (not a race or anaerobic workout)=~600-(hourly BMR)
    -running, bicycling, Taekwondo, Racewalking, spinning class

    1 Hour of moderate cardio=~500-(Hourly BMR)
    -Walking 4-4.3 MPH, bicycling at a "touring pace"

    Any time I log an activity and MFP wants to give me more calories than this for my workouts and I adjust down. I have used this system to lose 8-10 pounds before a marathon or Bicycle race; and I have used this system (sadly) to lose 70 pounds. I find it to be quite accurate.

    But it did take some trial and error to get there.
  • nikkons017
    nikkons017 Posts: 6 Member
    Jruzer wrote: »
    nikkons017 wrote: »
    You burn very little calories from exercising, just consider the calories you burn as a bonus.

    I couldn't disagree with a recommendation more. I frequently hit 1000 kcal per day of exercising; that's close to half of my maintenance calories.

    The best part of the NEAT method, to my mind, is that you get explicitly rewarded for exercising. When I discovered this method, I started exercising to earn more calories. I have been able to eat more and fit in more foods that I love, all the while getting fitter and healthier. I have kept going for almost 5 years.

    If someone had told me that I shouldn't count those calories, I would have become discouraged very early on and would likely have not been successful.

    That is great. If you are doing what you enjoy and its working for you them be all means continue. But there is also other ways.

    So your maintenance is around 2000-2200 and you have to exercise enough to burn 1k calories (alot)

    My maintenance is around 2800 and i only workout 3x/week for 45min-1hr (I probably only burn like 300ish maybe if i'm lucky each time) and sprinkle in some cardio occasionally when I feel like it. I lift heavy weights. I built a solid muscle base. I get to eat more food. I don't have to work out 5-6 days a week. This works for me. When I started, my maintenance was around 2200.
  • bethannien
    bethannien Posts: 556 Member
    nikkons017 wrote: »
    WinoGelato wrote: »
    nikkons017 wrote: »
    buy a food scale and use it to measure out your food in grams to get accurate calories. Never count exercise calories towards what you can eat. You burn very little calories from exercising, just consider the calories you burn as a bonus.

    if you are near the 1200 calorie mark, do not go below. 1200 calories is the calorie intake of like a 10 yr old and you are bordering on malnutrition. You need to be lifting weights to build muscle so it increases the calories that you burn.

    build more muscle = higher metabolism = easier to burn fat = able to eat more food and still lose weight

    Most fitness girls I know eat around 1800 calories if not more for their "cutting"/fat loss

    To the bolded, as was explained upthread, the calculation of a calorie goal from MFP excludes exercise, it is a NEAT goal, so the system is actually designed that if you exercise you should eat back at least a portion of those calories.

    I'm not sure how on one hand you are stressing the need to eat at an adequate minimum level yet on the other dismissing the idea of eating back exercise calories... isn't that kind of the same thing? If OP exercises and burns 400 calories, and eats those back increasing her total calorie intake to 1680, how is that different than your recommendation to just increase her calorie goal?

    if you can find any reliable way to accurately measure energy consumed by exercise as all the machines and trainers give you bogus numbers. The amount you burn depends on lots of factors like height, weight, age, gender, muscle mass, muscle adaptation etc... I know people like to look on their cardio machine and it gives them a nice 400 number but it is complete bs. Those formulas also include a portion of bmr which is what you would burn if you did absolutely nothing and just existed, which is near half of that number. This is why they can magically calc your calories burned from just entering your weight knowing nothing else about you (lol). You are not buring 1k+ calories in your body pump/combat/yoga/whatever class, its marketing. If you really wanted to burn over 1k calories you would have to almost full out sprint continuously for 2.5hrs straight with no breaks, then you might get close. Again this doesn't factor in age, weight, etc... We are physically adapted to be efficient when doing exercises/work/hunt and we eat calorie dense foods. This is why humans survived.

    So you can't estimate accurately how much calories you are burning so you can't accurately determine how much "extra" you could theoretically eat. However it is fact that if you are not in a caloric deficit, you will not lose weight according to thermodynamics. So you get 3 options, eat a caloric deficit, eat at maintenance, eat above maintenance. 2/3 of those, you will not be losing weight. I'd rather not guess when the odds are already against me.

    Muscle take up more energy to maintain then fat does on your body. As when you crash diet, you are mostly losing muscle/water as its the first thing to go in terms of keeping you alive, thus how you get skinny fat people who are thin but still look frail. If you put on more muscle, you require more energy for your body to maintain that muscle. Thus you are increasing how much you can eat. The amount is determined by your goals and how much previous muscle mass you have. You adjust accordingly by your progress pictures and long-term scale moving averages.

    This works the same for exercise. But the key point for exercise/activity level is that is has to be consistent week over week, which is really hard for most people as stuff just happens. If you can do it, great; watch the scale and photos and increase your cals, working towards you goal.

    But this is the catch. A pound of fat is about 3500 calories. So for you to lose even 1 pound per week you need to be in a deficit of 500 calories each day for 7 DAYS (minimum). If you cut that to 250 cal deficit then it takes you around 2 weeks to lose 1 lb. So if you mess up your calories adding them back in, you could be losing weight but extremely slow. So if you decide to cheat; 1 medium pizza is ~2k calories, bar of chocolate is around ~900 cal, a normal combo meal from a fast food place is like ~2k cals, its extremely easy to erase what little deficit you had and erase 2 or more WEEKS of progress.

    The minimum level is for safety. 1200 is extremely low and it is hard to eat a wide variety of foods to get adequate macro and micro nutrients at that level. If you want to go below that, this is your choice but be warned that you will probably develop nutrition deficiences, you body will go into panic mode cause your starving yourself and will make fat loss near impossible. It will also lower your metabolism to further conserve energy making weight loss harder/slower. You will also be eating mostly muscle and not the fat you wanted to lose.

    You're acting like the stakes are super high if someone is wrong about how much they burn. Frankly, they're not. Assuming that the person who is eating back their exercise calories is also regularly checking their weight, they'll pretty quickly see a trend of no weight loss or weight gain and adjust accordingly.

    And the common advice around here is that if you're using the NEAT method and not TDEE-20%, you should be eating back 50-75% of exercise calories. Most people here acknowledge that the burns given on machines and by MFP are far too generous. But you still expend energy when exercising.

    I just think it's kind of irresponsible to be recommending to someone already cutting down to 1200 not to eat back ANY exercise calories.