Maintaining Weight vs Body Recomp

godlessandglittery · February 2019

Hello! My stats are 163lbs, 5’9”, age 29, 19% BF (for the sake of context).

After reading so many maintaining posts, I think I’ve gotten myself pretty confused. I have a few questions. Because I’m now in a body recomp mode, after setting the tool from Lose Weight to Maintain Weight, should I also be eating back the calories I’m burning in exercise *in addition to* my BMR? Or should I only be eating the BMR it gives me? Does it mostly come down to manipulating macros towards more protein/fewer carbs? I just feel so lost.

(My goal is 16% BF, but I’m indifferent as to if I stay 163 lbs or end up dropping some weight with the fat loss.)

TIA for any advice.

cwolfman13 · February 2019

godlessandglittery wrote: »

Hello! My stats are 163lbs, 5’9”, age 29, 19% BF (for the sake of context).

After reading so many maintaining posts, I think I’ve gotten myself pretty confused. I have a few questions. Because I’m now in a body recomp mode, after setting the tool from Lose Weight to Maintain Weight, should I also be eating back the calories I’m burning in exercise *in addition to* my BMR? Or should I only be eating the BMR it gives me? Does it mostly come down to manipulating macros towards more protein/fewer carbs? I just feel so lost.

(My goal is 16% BF, but I’m indifferent as to if I stay 163 lbs or end up dropping some weight with the fat loss.)

TIA for any advice.

Your BMR is the calories you burn merely existing...you would burn them in a coma. Your maintenance calories (TDEE) are BMR+Day to Day life+Exercise.

If you're using MFP as designed, the exercise part is not included in your activity level and are accounted for when you log it and get additional calories to eat back. If you're getting your calorie target from somewhere else, that may or may not be applicable.

Ultimately, if you're losing weight and want to maintain you eat a little more...if you're wanting to maintain but are gaining, eat a little less. These calculators just give you a reasonably good estimate based on population statistics...they aren't gospel.

Cassandraw3 · February 2019

MFP is set up for you to eat back your exercise calories. Maintaining weight happens when you eat the same number of calories on average that you are burning in a day. Recomp only happens if you are doing strength training to build muscle while maintaining your current weight. It is also VERY slow progress.

sijomial · February 2019

Yes your calorie goal on here means nnnn plus exercise calories, it's only nnnn on a day with no exercise.

BMR is only used as the start point for the calculations (it's calculated from the stats you enter), it's then multiplied by your activity setting and exercise calories are then on top of that to come up with your maintenance goal.

You can fine tune your daily goal manually if you find the numbers given don't result in you staying in your chosen maintenance range over an extended period of time.

Scottgriesser · February 2019

To make maintaining your weight while reconfiguring your appearance extremely simple:

Exercise more (weight training!!!)
Eat back all of those extra burned calories
May need to increase protein intake, but that depends on current macro breakdown

Biggest thing by far in body recomp is weight training.

Maintaining Weight vs Body Recomp

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