Do I need to eat back calories burned?

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nicdddd
nicdddd Posts: 15 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I’m trying to lose weight. I’m 20 yo female, 167cm

I have been eating about 1700 calories, but my fitness watch says I’ve burned about 600 active calories

Will this provide a healthy weight loss? Or should I eat more if I’m exercising a lot?

Replies

  • glovepuppet
    glovepuppet Posts: 1,710 Member
    edited August 2019
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    Most watches overestimate calories.

    It depends. If you have your MFP activity level set sedentary, you can eat some or all back. If it's set to a higher activity level to include exercise then it includes the assumed exercise calories in its calculation, so eating them back would put you over your intended deficit.
  • shaumom
    shaumom Posts: 1,003 Member
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    The thing to remember is this: the idea of 'extra' calories burned- the active categories - being a separate category than 'maintenance' calories doesn't really give a good idea of what they actually are.

    In the beginning, when you plug in your weight and activity level, etc... to calculate how many calories you burn daily, so how many you should eat? That's just a combination of calories burned, you know? Calories to digest food, to pump blood, to breathe, as well as calories needed to move around a person your weight for the level of activity you do.

    The 'active' calories is just an addition to the amount of 'calories needed to move you around.' Because you moved in a way that day that was different enough from your average normal that the calculated average isn't as accurate.

    But in the end, ALL the calories burned should be considered what is needed for you to eat to maintain your weight, which means that it needs to be considered as part of your calorie calculations.

    So yeah, if you are eating 1700 calories, and burning 600 more than your usual, than that means you are getting a net 1100 calories, and that's typically not enough to maintain a healthy body, even if you are trying to lose weight, you know?

    I've heard anywhere from 1200-1700 as what is needed to still be healthy while losing weight - and nobody is going to be able to tell you where you fall there (different countries' governmental bodies on health and nutrition have made different decisions about how many calories are healthy, so there is not agreement here, world-wide). So I'd say, you probably need to eat more. If you eat and get enough nutrients, and it's 1200 or over, and you aren't starvingly hungry or losing weight too quickly, i myself would assume I was fine, at that point. But if you are losing weight too quickly, or if you are too hungry, or if you can't get enough nutrients, then you may want to up the food (and then calories) of your meals.
  • 1BlueAurora
    1BlueAurora Posts: 439 Member
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    I typically eat back the calories burned as listed in MFP every day. I don't know how accurate other methods are, so since I'm logging with MFP, I use their numbers. I eat back 50% to 75% of the "earned" exercise calories. I've lost weight doing this, and I find the earned calories help keep my energy up. I look at it as if when I burn calories, it's like having your fuel tank burn gas. You need to add back some more fuel.
  • sefajane1
    sefajane1 Posts: 322 Member
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    Wotan48 wrote: »
    besides, if you have too much of a deficit, you could go into starvation mode...

    B.S.!!! 🤬

    "STARVATION MODE" ISN'T REAL!!!
  • jayemes
    jayemes Posts: 865 Member
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    Wotan48 wrote: »
    So if the 600 cal is from running around all day, I wouldn't worry too much. If you burned 600 cal during a HIIT class or lifting heavy weights

    OP isn't burning 600 calories lifting heavy weights.
    And starvation mode isn't a thing.

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