Calling all petite ladies! Which works better? Eating exercise calories or not?

I’m 5’1 and had 1200 cals to lose 1lbs, then 0.5lbs, then less per week.
It took a year to lose 30 lbs, but I couldn’t have done it, and been healthy, without eating back all my exercise calories. I worked out 5 x a week for an hour and earned ~200 extra cals per day (YMMV).

The slow loss made transitioning to maintenance easier for me.
Maintaining at 100-105lbs for ~10yr now.

The good thing about always eating your exercise calories is it is much easier to make educated adjustments when your exercise either increases or decreases.

It also means you are not compromising your NEAT by having too little energy to perform everyday activities, tasks. Nor will your workout be less than optimum because you are underfuelled.

Cheers, h.

I never ate back my exercise calories during my initial weight loss. For an entire 54 lbs I didn't eat them back.
By the end of it, my hair started thinning really bad. I would shower or brush it and come back with handfuls.
Definitely eat your exercise calories back. MFP calculates it like that for a reason.

Mitzigan94 wrote: »

koalathebear wrote: »

I'm five feet tall and I definitely use exercise calories for eating. I make sure I have a deficit every day - around 800 - 1000 calories regardless of how much I've eaten, but the deficit usually comes from exercise calories - a chunk of which I have eaten I've been able to lose 25-26kg so far this week, mostly through additional exercise and being careful what I eat.

Thats sounds great! I might need to stick with 1000 kcals too since Im at 4'11.5 ft though!

First, having a deficit of 800-1000 calories per day is only appropriate for people with about 75 pounds or more to lose. It is not appropriate for everyone.

Second, having a 1000 calorie deficit does not mean eating 1000 calories, which is not a healthy calorie goal for anyone. The size of your deficit depends on the pace of loss you set in your MFP goals, and so you don’t need to calculate it yourself unless you’re just interested in the math. A 1000 calorie per day deficit is equivalent to setting MFP for a 2 pound per week rate of loss—which is, again, only appropriate if you have a lot to lose.

The absolute size of your deficit is not directly related to your height. The number of calories you can eat, and how large a deficit is appropriate for you, vary depending on your height and starting weight.

I am short and i eat back exercise calories which has never hindered my weight loss. I did use a food scale, however, it helped with getting accurate with calories of food.

I am not petite but wanted to weigh in (lol). I opted not to eat them back and if my pedometer and weight loss app were to be believed, I was averaging 800-1000 kcal a day at 5'6" and 177 lbs at the time. Needless to say, I'm 13 days late for my period and am not pregnant (no tubes). Eat them back. Don't make your body have to divert resources, especially if you place importance on your reproductive capabilities.