Who still loses weight by eating back the calories they burned off from exercise?

For purposes of hypoglycemia prevention post workout, yes. I eat what I need and leave the rest on the table. Doctor doesn't have a problem with what I'm doing and I'm still losing.

One thing I want to clarify (underline): What matters is your actual loss rate. Any of the calculators, including the ones built into MFP, just give you an estimate to start out with.

The calculators are based on the average results from large research studies. Most people are close to the average (i.e. there's a small standard deviation, statistically speaking), but a few people - like 1 in 20 - can be quite quite far from the average.

After the first month of consistency (maybe 6 weeks for premenopausal women), ignore the 1st couple of weeks (because water weight is weird at first), look at the average loss per week from the later weeks, and adjust eating to a healthy loss rate.

The question isn't whether you can eat back exercise & still lose weight. Everyone can . . . if their tracking is accurate and their base calories are estimated reasonably accurately in the first place.

P. S. If you're not tiny, are tracking eating accurately and consistently (no unlogged "cheat days"), and can't lose at the MFP minimums (1200 for women, 1500 for men), talk to your doctor.

victorias36 wrote: »

I have actually gained weight eating back my exercise calories. I tried it for a week just to see and I gained weight. I have learned to eat back only a small portion of them because exercise calories are not always accurate. Even my Fitbit gives me too many calories so I just modify. Everyone is different. I wish I was one of those that could eat back all of their calories, that would be awesome!!

I think we all have the issue with apps and fitbit having a lot of variety in calories burned during specific exercises, especially branded classes and things fitbit can't log.

I reiterate that everyone needs to set their activity level on both mfp and fitbit to "sedentary" just to be safe, since it will assume the lowest BMR.

And I added a shortcut to my phone to this chart that has literally every possible activity and calories burned based on weight and intensity. I use it to compare to MFP, Fitbit, and Samsung Health awarded calories to help adjust the averages. It's really comprehensive as a quick reference guide.

http://www.statisticbrain.com/calories-burned-during-exercise/

A person who is nervous or worrying about eating back calories can be assured that if they're anything above "sedentary, but have it set on "sedentary"....they can safely eat back whatever extra calories they've earned from exercise and still lose weight. Some people diet, but don't exercise and their non-exercise level (such as their jobs or chores or whatever) vary greatly day to day. People who have exactly the same activity level at work, school, and home everyday wouldn't be confused about how many calories to eat back anyway.

And I'm well aware of Fitbit's negative calorie adjustments. Those are frequently wrong, too. I can't wear my fitbit when I swim laps or even during heavy punching/kicking sessions. Fitbit often cannot properly log certain workouts or need manual entry (which is all guessing). Even Fitbit lists the many sport's and activities that aren't accurate. Heart rate isn't very accurate and that's all they use to calculate. It doesn't know your workload vs muscle mass to figure out how hard you're working.

Even worse....people who have naturally very low or very high heartrates get bizarre resting readings and changing the Exercise Zones only helps during "moderate to heavy" access. My fitbit tells me that on days I don't exercise, I can only eat a total of 650 calories daily. So no. Trusting the negative adjustments is much more complicated than what I initially suggested.

Which is what virtually every website and forum suggest people do, btw. Set both fitbit and mfp to "sedentary" AND allow negative adjustments and then you're sure you're always safe to eat back 100% of calories and still lose your set lbs goal.

I eat back 50%

I do.

When I first started on MFP, it was the only way I could feel like I wasn't starving. I eat a ton...

MFP had put me at something like 1400 or 1500 calories...and that wasn't going to cut it. I worked out in order to get an extra 200-300 calories a day.

I lost like 25 lbs in 6 months.

I also even upped my calories from what MFP recommended and put it at 1600 or 1700. Some days I even ate all the exercise calories from that as well.

That being said, I also changed the food I ate, going primarily plant based, whole grain, and lean meats. So, there may be a correlation there as well, but I'm not going to debate anyone about it. :P

Most days I eat every single delicious calorie my Garmin gives me an adjustment for, still losing my 1lb per week as intended and haven't thought about quitting once in 7 months.

Pootler74 wrote: »

Could that higher number on the scale have been a blip?
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So, so, so often this.
Your actual weight level cannot always be seen when you weight yourself at a single point of time.
To truly see what your weight level is doing you have to look at how it changes over a period of 4-6 weeks.
Which is why I keep suggesting that people should use a trending weight app, or web site to better evaluate their weight level changes (or their own spreadsheets, of course)
libra -> android
happy scale ->iphone
www.weightgrapher.com -> web (set yourself "to maintain")
www.trendweight.com -> web (my favourite. requires freely available without a device fitbit.com account, OR directly supported equipment)

Yes, most days I have been eating back all of my exercise calories and I've dropped 7 kg in the first 3 weeks.