Has anyone had success with eating half of their calories back?

Down 17lbs and eat back about half each day... sometimes more if I'm hungry

Eating 100% of exercise calories back (and losing weight) is the way My Fitness Pal is designed, because you got your calorie deficit before exercise.

However calorie burns are guesstimates so many people start by eating back 50%. Then as weight loss progresses - slower or faster than expected - users increase or decrease this 50%.

The problem people encounter with not losing weight is that everything is an estimate. So if 1200 is "not working" for you (if you mean little or no weight loss) eating more calories is not the answer.

Do you weigh all solids and semi-solids using a digital food scale, do you measure liquids using a measuring cup? Have you double checked your database entry selections....some of them are inaccurate. Do you put your recipes in MFP? Do you log every bite, every taste, every lick?

Your activity level is a range.....but MFP has selected one number as a starting point. Exercise (if you are logging it) should not be included in your activity level or you will be double counting.

I eat back between 25-50% of my exercise calories. That gives me a cushion in case the actual burn isn't as high as my Fitbit + MFP calculate. I have lost 20 lbs in about 2 1/2 months so it works.
1200 is minimum calorie intake for a female and usually the more you weigh the more calories you burn during exercise. If you are relatively new to calorie restriction going from 2500 or so a day to 1200-1300 a day is going to be extremely hard and the harder it is to maintain long term the easier it is to quit. I have mine set to 1200 but I have an aggressive target and know the right foods to eat to get 1200 really good, nutritious calories and can maintain that for an extended period of time until I get to my goal.
I would put your info into MFP and set your weight loss goal for .5 lbs/week and see what they come up with as your suggested caloric intake. Do that for a week or two and then adjust it to 1 lb a week once you are finding it fairly easy to hit that and not feel overly deprived. If you want to get more aggressive after 4 weeks of success then set it to a higher loss per week.

gabriellax92 wrote: »

I always thought "eat less, excercise more" so that's what I did. I tried to eat around 1200 calories a day and never ate any of my calories burned. It doesn't seem to be working for me though. I've seen a lot of people recommend to eat half of your excercise calories back and I'm going to start trying this. I've reset my calorie intake according to MFP at 1320. Can anyone tell me about their success with eating back excercise calories?
BTW I'm 24, 5'3 and 255 pounds.

I eat back 50% of MFP calories given and closer to 75% of what my fitness tracker gives me. My average loss has been on target.

I started out eating back 50% of everything and was losing too fast so I started eating back more. YMMV

I eat all of mine back (Garmin HR watch) and losing as expected. 22lb off so far

RuNaRoUnDaFiEld wrote: »

What do you mean by 1200 isn't working for you?

@RuNaRoUnDaFiEld & @mlinci
If I remember correctly from her other thread, she is struggling to stick to 1200. Usually binge eating at the end of the day.
People suggested that she eat back some exervise calories and that maybe a goal of 1200 was creating to large of a deficit for her.

Hi there! I put the information you provided into a TDEE calculator as Sendentary- just to maintain your weight, you should be eating 2842 calories. To lose weight, subtract 250-500 calories from that number, and you should start seeing a loss. As you lose weight that number will go down, and you might want to re-evaluate every 10 lbs or so. If you earn excersize calories, you can eat some back and I agree, I usually eat about 1/2. Just give this a shot- try it for a few weeks and if you don't see a change, then change back- but I promise that you will. I'm 47, 5'5" and started at 215.6- im now 291 eating between 1800-2200 calories a day! I walk about 10k step a day and workout a 1/2 hr. with weights 4 days a week. Add me as your friend !!!!!!

If you're not losing by sticking to 1200 calories a day and NOT eating your exercise calories back, either you are eating way more than you think you are or you have a very messed up metabolism.

Did mfp give you 1200 calories, or did you override the setting? Even set at sedentary, given your current weight and age you should be able to lose weight on upwards of 1700 calories a day. Looking at your diary, you have some days where you've only partially tracked--what's going on on those days? Also--your calories burned coming from your fitbit seem rather huge--I definitely wouldn't eat back 100% of those--check your settings and make sure that what is coming into mfp as exercise calories is what is above and beyond your BMR.

Yes! 33 pounds gone eating 75-100% back. The best thing about doing this is that I am not tempted to binge. I could never stick to a diet before I started doing this.

Down 45 lbs and now eating back half my exercise. (I will admit that when I first started, I didn't, but 1) my initial calorie allotment from MFP was 1710 and 2) my exercise was mostly 30-60 minutes walking at a leisurely pace 6 days a week, a bit over 2 hours on the seventh, as I'm about 60 minutes each way from where I do my grocery shopping. At first, I was just using them as a cushion because it's one thing to tell me "You will lose weight if you are in a deficit, even if you eat high-calorie foods" and another to recognize it as fact. The first couple of weeks, I needed to see for myself that having pasta for supper four nights a week and a cookie for dessert one day weren't going to impede weight loss and I thought having a little more room would stop me from stressing. I also wasn't hungry on 1710.)

Over the last 5 months, as the weight has come off, MFP has cut my calories to 1470 and I've upped my exercise to minimum 60 minutes of walking or 50 minutes on a fitness glider, plus resistance training with fitness tubes every other day. Sometimes I do a short walk and the glider, though that's rare and generally when I need to run an errand, not just for the heck of it. Bottom line, I need those fitness calories!

gabriellax92 wrote: »

When I was eating around 1200 calories a day I wasn't seeing any weight loss. No I wasn't binging. And yes, some days I don't always complete my diary. I'm not perfect. Here's what I was doing.
My calories were set around 1200, I ate at or around, most of the time I went over 1200 by a couple hundred calories. According to MFP synced with my Fitbit, I was burning between 800-1000 calories a day. I was not eating anything of those burned calories back. This week I have upped my calorie intake according to MFP recommendation (as I did override it before). I am going to start eating back at least 50% or my calories burned. I am also going to start logging more accurately with my food scale(as I was a bit lazy before). I've lost about a pound within the past week, even having a bad day food wise so I'm starting to see improvement just increasing my calories. Thanks for all of your feedback

At 255 pounds, it's impossible to not lose weight while eating @1400 calories, let alone plus burning 800-1000 calories from exercise. Try weighing and logging scrupulously for a month and prepare to be astounded.

gabriellax92 wrote: »

mlinci wrote: »

I have had success with eating about 80-90% of my (Fitbit synced) calories back.

What concerns me is that you are saying 1,200 calories isn't working for you. You have to be more specific than that.

Is it not working for you because you are losing weight but you are massively hungry all the time? Yes, eat some/most/all of you exercise calories back, that's exactly what you should be doing.

However, if you by any chance meant that 1,200 calories wasn't working for you because you were not losing any weight, then we need more information before we can give you any useful advice, but the most likely starting point would be to take a careful look at your calorie counting and logging. At 255 pounds you should be losing significant amounts of weight at 1,200 calories, and you could almost certainly still be losing while eating significantly more.

Unfortunately I'm not losing a significant amount of weight. I had hoped to. My logging hasn't been perfect, but even so I think I should have lost more then I have by now.

Studies show that people are just awful at estimating their consumption. You'll get more accuracy and results if you put more effort into weighing and logging.

Machka9 wrote: »

gabriellax92 wrote: »

According to MFP synced with my Fitbit, I was burning between 800-1000 calories a day.

Doing what?

An 800 calorie burn, for example, would be about a 4 hour walk.

Are you taking 50% off? When I put in her stats from her OP I get 802 calories for a 126 minute walk at 3 MPH.

I know MFP is designed for you to eat back all exercise calories, but I found eating back 50% works better for me. I am a nibbler (I'll weigh out everything and then stick some of what I'm measuring in my mouth without thinking about it). Also when I do longer, endurance cardio in the summer the calories burned don't seem to have the same "effect".

Start by eating back 50% and see how it works for you. If it works try eating 2/3 or 75% back. See how high you can go and still reliably loose. If you are accurately measuring your food and exercise calories burned then 1200 plus eating back should work. I imagine if you are down around 1200/day exercise is a must to give a buffer for any extras.