Maintaining an Appropriate Calorie Deficit

MFP doesn't take into account exercise when you enter your activity level, just daily movement.

Enter your exercise into MFP and eat back the extra calories it gives you.

You may want to start with eating back 75 or 50% and adjust up or down as needed. The calorie burns using MFP or any device are only estimates, go by what your results are telling you over time.

2lbs a week, 1000cal deficit, is suitable for a person with 75+to lose. If you have less to lose you may do better adjusting to a lower deficit.

Cheers, h.

TavistockToad wrote: »

marcustechtman wrote: »

Hello, I can’t seem to find a straight answer to my question so I’m turning to the forums for help.

I’m currently maintaining a 1,000 calorie per day deficit WITHOUT exercise. I plan to start excercising next week, but am concerned about the increase in my deficit. I’ll likely have a deficit of 1.5K-2K/day with excercise. Should I be eating these calories back to ensure my deficit isn’t too large? What are the repercussions of have a deficit that is greater than 1K?

yes, you should be eating back your exercise cals.

what are your stats? it depends how much fat you have to lose to whether you can sustain a deficit of over 1000 cals.

Agreed.

Without any other contextual information, the generalized answer is yes, you should definitely be eating back those calories.

Frankly, I wonder where you're looking or who you're talking to such that you haven't been able to get a straight answer...

At your size, you will be burning through as much muscle as fat and therefore not improving your BF% nearly as much as you'd like at that speed

Just imho you should be at more like a 250 -500 calorie deficit and strength training. I'm no expert, but 10% BF without a good foundation of muscle is going to be super skinny, and I don't think you'll get there at 170 lbs without that extra muscle. Hopefully someone with more experience in that area will chime in, but regardless 2 lbs per week is super aggressive and not muscle sparing at your size. You might want to reconsider and slow down.

marcustechtman wrote: »

kimny72 wrote: »

At your size, you will be burning through as much muscle as fat and therefore not improving your BF% nearly as much as you'd like at that speed

Just imho you should be at more like a 250 -500 calorie deficit and strength training. I'm no expert, but 10% BF without a good foundation of muscle is going to be super skinny, and I don't think you'll get there at 170 lbs without that extra muscle. Hopefully someone with more experience in that area will chime in, but regardless 2 lbs per week is super aggressive and not muscle sparing at your size. You might want to reconsider and slow down.

Thanks, I’ve considered that though and am not too concerned about muscle mass loss. I plan to switch gears one I hit my goal body fat percentage and begin building muscle. Of course if this is a bad plan somebody feel free to let me know.

Yes it's a bad plan - it's far easier to retain your muscle than lose and regain it.
Probably quicker to get to your end physique goal too.

Muscle building is a slower process than you appear to believe or you wouldn't risk sacrificing it so casually.

1,000 calories is a very aggressive deficit for someone who only has 20lbs to lose, especially for a male who conceivably also wants to retain/build muscle mass. What type of exercise will you be doing that you think you'll be burning an additional 500-1,000 calories per day? Honestly, if that is a true caloric burn, you should be eating back all of those calories and probably lowering your deficit to 300-500 calories at the most.

marcustechtman wrote: »

kimny72 wrote: »

At your size, you will be burning through as much muscle as fat and therefore not improving your BF% nearly as much as you'd like at that speed

Just imho you should be at more like a 250 -500 calorie deficit and strength training. I'm no expert, but 10% BF without a good foundation of muscle is going to be super skinny, and I don't think you'll get there at 170 lbs without that extra muscle. Hopefully someone with more experience in that area will chime in, but regardless 2 lbs per week is super aggressive and not muscle sparing at your size. You might want to reconsider and slow down.

Thanks, I’ve considered that though and am not too concerned about muscle mass loss. I plan to switch gears one I hit my goal body fat percentage and begin building muscle. Of course if this is a bad plan somebody feel free to let me know.

It's a bad plan...building muscle mass is hard. It's much easier to preserve what you have and to build on that...and you'll very likely have to drop below 170 to achieve your desired BF% without maintaining the muscle mass you have.

At 5'10" you don't really have much weight to lose. You should really shoot for no more than 1% of your body weight loss per week. If you are exercising on top of a 1,000 calorie deficit and not accounting for that by eating more, you're really doing yourself a disservice and definitely entering malnourished territory.

Just for some perspective, my maintenance weight is 180 and I sit right around 15% BF at that weight at 5'10". I am not hugely muscular, but I did work hard to maintain my muscle mass when I was losing my weight. I'm currently trying to drop down to around 170-175 for 10-12% BF. I couldn't do that though without the muscle I already have.