DO NOT EAT BACK EXERCISE CALORIES!!!!!

i agree , i always eat at regular intervals and have found it works ,plus whats the point of losing the weight with exercising if your going to eat them back , i tried this for one week and found i put weight on ,but as regards to min calories has we lose weight we reduce the intake we eat it is logic really but i never drop below 1200 cals a day your body needs the fuel to help burn the fat off .i before joining on here now realise that i was eating way below what i should have thinking it would help me lose weight but it never did it did the opposite it put weight on but since joining on here its the only thing that has worked for me

whats the point of losing the weight with exercising if your going to eat them back

That's how I always feel!! I try not to eat too many of them back, or none at all if I can help it. I like my calories to be around 1400 a day.

I do all of this any way, my daily is 1550...

good job going to a dietician.. I think everyone should talk to a professional, at least their doctor about a good place to start in reference to their daily caloric intake, everyone is different and everyones body works differently. This website is great but obvioulsy it cant be perfectly specific to everyone, its all up to the individual to get as specific as they want to.

Good Luck using your new information in your life, I am sure it will make the guessing game disapeare.. you should see results in NO TIME!

glad she helped make things clear for you but your title is misleading. what works or you decide to do for you, doesn't work for me or others. I am diabetic & my dietitian & primary care doctor have all stated I need to eat more on exercise days otherwise I run the risk of low blood sugar & suffering a hypo. not a pleasant experience & incredibly dangerous.

This is VERY accurate. My husband is a type 1 diabetic with extremely fragile blood sugars (easy up easy LOW as in 30's and sometimes 20's and sometimes the meter doesn't read that low...LOW) If he's really working out and he stuck to his 1800 a day..he would just die .... (even if he didn't take his short term insulin shots that day). That is because he'd be burning more than his body could possibly get ahold of and makes a whole lot of sense even with regards to Bank's post about this

He has to take his long term insulin shot in the morning no matter what...he can try to take fewer units but that usually just means his body can't metablolize any energy into his body at all...since he has 0 natural insulin production....

Now I know his is a unique case, but I would guess something in his pitri dish of a situation would reign true for all of us.

I've had so many dr's and dieticians give me conflicting information on so many things, they are human too...and I think the motto of this game is...if it isn't working, try something else...however the logic of eating ones exercize calories makes a lot of sense to me IF ad I mean IF you're already starting at a DEFICIT.

Good luck doing what works for you.
Either follow your dietician's advice, or MFP's diet plan - but they are two totally different approaches to reach the same ends.

Proud of you for going to a Professional and asking for correct information based upon YOUR body.

Not every Diabetic is the same either. I am also a full blown Diabetic and have been for most of my adult life. My Internal Med. Dr., my Cardo Dr., my Endo Dr. and my Registered Dietitian ALL gave me the same advice. Eat 5 meals per day, 1,200 cals per day, 30 carbs per meal. And NO you can not eat 20 carbs per meal and 40 at the next. The point is to maintain your blood sugar throughout the day. Since I starting eating every couple of hours I also found that my blood sugars do not drop to the dangerous levels it did before.

When I asked them ALL about eating back my exercise caloiries they ALL said NO and a couple even laughed about it.

Please keep in mind that your Health Care Professional is basing their opinions upon your own body type and blood work. It is just plain stuipd of people to generalize statements that make it sound what works for one works all. Not true at all.

Well hello all, as some of you know i've been recently diagnosed as 'pre diabetic' , you may be interested to know the opinion of my dietician with regards to eating back exercise calories. As the title here suggests, she told me not too!!! In simple terms while trying to reduce weight i need 1400 cals per day not 1200 as recommended here, otherwise my body will think i'm starving it and hold onto the fat and slow down my metabolism, however if i ensure i eat regular meals, and 1400 cals daily i will lose weight. She was very specific that I must eat every 3 hours approx, and most deffinately not go longer than 5 hours, so breakfast, mid morning snack, lunch, mid afternoon snack, dinner and a light supper at least an hour or two before bed. The old 'grazing' idea seems to come to the fore yet again...

So yes you guessed it, today is 'day one' where i feel armed with useful helpful information. Did i get the answer to the number of grammes of sugar allowed per day, not a clear answer, just be carefull and try not to have more than 5 grammes per meal if poss to give my body chance to process it..., so you could say maybe upto 30 grammes per day, but spread out.

Blimey hope i haven't bored you all to tears with this post, but it has got it clear in my head now lol :laugh:

Keep in mind that your dietician is advising someone who has 90 pounds to lose, so a BMI in the 'obese' range. Folks within the 'healthy' BMI range tend to have better and more sustainable weight loss eating at least some of their exercise calories back because they have fewer fat stores and can't deal as easily with very large calorie deficits.

Just to clarify for everyone saying what's the point of exercising if you're going to eat them back.....MFP has ALREADY figured in your 500 calorie deficit. It's already there. The weight loss is already there...so if you exercise on top of that you are creating a huge deficit potentially if you work out a lot. If you burn a lot, and then have the MFP deficit already built in, you can end up not eating enough if you don't eat some back. This is fine when you have a lot of lose, but when you start getting to a healthy weight you need to decrease the deficit or muscle will be on your body's menu. :-)

I just want to explain a couple of things about training for doctors, dietitians, and the basis for standard recommendations. Typically speaking, doctors do not have any education on exercise and nutrition. At most they may have taken a single basic nutrition class. Dietitians coursework focuses on the average person (IE: sedentary) with various metabolic diseases. They are not typically given education in exercise or how to fuel for it. The average client that either doctors or dietitians work with are sick, sedentary people who need to lose weight. For this type of patient, there is a standard recommendation so that it is easier on doctors and dietitians to work with large numbers of people. Doctors are usually the ones who stick to the 1200 or 1500 calorie recommendations because they haven't been taught how to calculate individual calorie needs. Dietitians have those formulas and can determine individual calorie needs which is why the OP's dietitian said 1400 instead of a standard 1200 calories. Unfortunately, the formula they are taught doesn't usually take into consideration any form of exercise because their standard client is sedentary or in some cases completely bed ridden. They don't need to know how exercise effects calories because they don't usually work with people who exercise. There are specialty courses that can be taken to expand on the knowledge of dietitians into more of a sports nutrition scope of practice so that they can handle the needs of exercising clients or athletes. Unless your doctor or dietitian has taken coursework in sports nutrition, they will say not to eat exercise calories because they are sticking to the recommendations and formulas they know, not realizing the effects of exercise on calorie needs. Sports nutritionists are taught that the 500, 1000, etc. calorie deficits aren't correct for most people who exercise because of having to fuel the activity. We're taught to eat a minimum of 80% of the energy expended, including exercise, so that the body will want to maintain it's muscle mass and release fat stores.

So, while I applaud you for getting advise from a professional, I'd recommend asking the professional you choose about their nutrition and exercise education. If they haven't taken some course work in exercise physiology or sports nutrition, they need to step back and work with the clients they are trained to work with and leave the exercisers to those of us who specialize in their specific needs. Each individual should base their choice of professional on their individual needs. If you aren't going to exercise, then by all means a standard dietitian is the way to go. But if you are going to focus on diet AND exercise, please find a professional in your area that can meet your needs.

The eating back calories made no sense to me before, but after studying it a little more , it actually made very clear sense once i put it on paper.

if you eat 1400 calories and u exercise lets say 400 which is easy to burn, this is how it looks.

1400-400=1000 calories

so your body is working on 1000 calories!!!!! That means ur starving ur body, on days that i am not exercising i worry about keeping it around 1400..plus MFP includes the deficit already in the calculations. I personally like to have all my numbers green so i always leave a few calories left over, but i have quite a few pounds to loose as well.

good job going to a dietician.. I think everyone should talk to a professional, at least their doctor about a good place to start in reference to their daily caloric intake, everyone is different and everyones body works differently. This website is great but obvioulsy it cant be perfectly specific to everyone, its all up to the individual to get as specific as they want to.

Good Luck using your new information in your life, I am sure it will make the guessing game disapeare.. you should see results in NO TIME!

i had a dr tell me that calories dont matter, as long as i eat almost no carbs. i like my carbs sorry. im not going to cut them out all together. id rather work my *kitten* off at the gym and watch my calories than cut out all my carbs.

somedays I do and some days It all depends on what I eat during the day. I exercise different lengths of time each day so I have more calories some days then others. My dietician put me on 1400 a day but I am using the 1200 on here. only two weeks in lost 3 pounds so we will see what happens. I am thinking right now that my exercise allows me a glass of red wine in the evening

Just to clarify for everyone saying what's the point of exercising if you're going to eat them back.....MFP has ALREADY figured in your 500 calorie deficit. It's already there. The weight loss is already there...so if you exercise on top of that you are creating a huge deficit potentially if you work out a lot. If you burn a lot, and then have the MFP deficit already built in, you can end up not eating enough if you don't eat some back. This is fine when you have a lot of lose, but when you start getting to a healthy weight you need to decrease the deficit or muscle will be on your body's menu. :-)

I agree...

I'm not sure why the OP is yelling at us.

If you aim for 1200 calories a day, do a half hour of moderate cardio exercise, burn 200 calories, and eat them back, that's THE SAME as eating 1400 calories and not eating calories back.

It's the same math. It all depends on when you add the deficit and when you add the activity level. The dietitian is taking into consideration what you'll burn through exercise before you do it. MFP just waits until you have done it.

The only difference is that if you hit snooze one too many times, or get home from work too late, and don't do any exercise, you'll still lose at the same rate following MFP's calculations.