I dont eat my exercise calories...

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That makes sense, but let me ask you this...would i be able to just ease into eating my calories back? Like, after iv'e gotten closer to my goal weight? Say when i hit 200lbs......can I slowly start to eat my calories back?

Yes, this would work fine. Just keep an eye on your weight loss and if you are losing at a steady rate then keep doing what you are doing. But, if you find you are just too hungry and are finding it too hard to stick to low calories or your weight loss slows down you might want to have a bit of a break and eat more. As long as you have a deficit you should keep losing weight, just not so fast. Though, lots of people find that when they eat a little bit more (healthy food!) they actually lose weight faster.

You should also check that your activity settings are set accurately (sedentary if you have a desk job, lightly active or active if you have a job where you are doing lots of standing/walking or are a stay at home mum).
And, as you get closer to your goal weight you will probably need to change your rate of weight loss (from 2 pounds a week to 1 pound or half a pound a week).

All of these things have an effect on your daily calorie allowance, the important thing is to find something that works for you and your body and that lets you continue to lose weight while staying healthy.

i dont eat my calories either but then again I set my MFP to sedentary even though I am not sedentary.

For example, it says my caloric needs are 1650 and to lose some weight ( no matter if I enter 2lbs per week loss or 1 lbs per week loss) my minimum is 1200 leaving me only a 450 deficit so I try to make sure I have some calories left every day. So I can just lose 1 lbs per week, per my Bodymedia Fit, I burn an average of 1835 calories per day on a non-workout day, Still not that much of a deficit (635 cal) . I just make sure the amount remaining does not end up equally more than 1000 calories,

I hope that make sense

I was really confused on this subject as well. I joined in June and my calories were set at 1300 a day and sometimes it was hard to hit that. ( I too believe its a mental thing) Once I lost 10lbs it went to 1240 a day. I also some days have a hard time hitting 1200 calories a day. I never eat my workout calories back. After about a month or so I stop loosing weight. So I picked up and started eating some of my exercise cals back on some days and not on others and the weight loss picked up again.

I really believe it is dependable on the person.

So a couple thoughts, but first I wanted to post a quote from SleepyTexan ( a memeber on this board) who has made one of the best quotes I have seen regading this subject.

SleepyTexan


You may encounter many people who will tell you NOT to eat exercise calories, but when you encounter those people, check to see if those are people who are at goal and have been at goal for an extended period of time. Find out if they are athletes, or if they have been fit throughout their lives. Chances are, the people who will tell you not to eat exercise calories are in fact NOT fit and healthy, and unfortunately, they just don't understand.

Next, you have to be careful with larger than necessary deficits. When you create large deficits (especially over 1000 calories or when you fall below 1200 net calories) you can run into several problems. First, you may be losing weight, but I can almost guarentee you, it's a lot of muscle you are losing instead of fat. If you want to test this theory, get body calipers and test yoru body in 10 spots and write them down, then do your method for 90 days and then re test. See how much body fat you have lost. Now, the next 90 days, figure your caloric needs by utilizing basal metabolic rates and total daily energy expended. I bet the second method will provide better results.

Also, please check out the thread below, it has some good information in it. And lastly, just because something is provide results, doesn't mean it doesn't adversely affect others (such as metabolism, and brain/organ function). There are two things Iive by, food is fuel and muscle burns fat. It's the reason I can eat 3000 calories and still turn fat into muscle mass. And if you are having trouble getting calories, there are plenty of healthy ways to get more, such as; nuts, avocado, protein bars, protein powder, smaller meals more frequently. The way I look at it, you train your muscles to grow so why not train your stoamch to eat more.




http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/311640-confused-about-the-magic-1200

Very good arguement! My boyfriend is a personal trainer, and he says eating workout cals back is a no-no for us who want to shred that weight! If we want to maintain like you said, then yes we could use some for a nutrient dense snack! Keep up the good work, and I hope I have the same success as you!

I think it may be a closer to goal thing. Though I'm still far from my goal. I went 9 months (into this diet) without eating my exercise calories. Then recently my loss stalled and so I decided to try eating more (not necessarily my exercise calories) and so far it is working for me.

Very good arguement! My boyfriend is a personal trainer, and he says eating workout cals back is a no-no for us who want to shred that weight! If we want to maintain like you said, then yes we could use some for a nutrient dense snack! Keep up the good work, and I hope I have the same success as you!

Does he understand MFP already gives you a deficit to lose weight before exercising? So when you exercise you take a healthy deficit (say 500/day) and make it a potentially dangerous one for your health (such as 1000/day - unhealthy unless you have a LOT of weight to lose)?

its all about switch up at some point you will stall i lost 30 of my lbs before i stalled (which used to be of my 44 lbs but currently is of my 38lbs) (my own damn fault of not caring do to stress) not eating back any excercise calories then i had a months of not eating them back and not losing so i ate them back and i started losing alittle again now im back to not eating them so all about the switch up if you stall eat back more for alittle (in hind sight i wouldnt have done it as long as i did eating them back i mean) if you stall eat them back for a week or so then dont and it should flow again

this is a good thread. i started on MFP last year, lost about 30 pounds and then gained some back (some depper issues)...so i am on here starting all over again in a sense. and i never understood the whole eatting back exercise calories, calorie deficiency, etc. but finually the light bulm came on......:bigsmile:

i found out what my BMR is: with my age, height and weight i got 1539.
then i took that number muliplied it by another number that gave me my TDEE, which was how active i am. i work out 5-6x a week and mostly moving around at home when i'm not workin out. that number was 2385!<

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so this is the number i should be consumning to maintain my weight. they say you should have NO more of 1000 calorie deficiency. and those who have a lot to loose and high body fat can go up to but no more than 1000. take 2385-1000= 1385. now is that the 1200 mfp gave me, no...but am i eating my exercise calories back too, no. i am sticking with the BMR tool rather than eating my exercise calories a day. i roughly burn about 600 a day. so that would allow me to eat 1800 on MFP. but with my calculated BMR with already how active i am, to loose 2lb i would have to consume 1385. to loose 1lb i would have to consume 1885 (2385-500deficient=1885).
right now i have a body fat of 27%. thats in the high range. and in the "overweight" area. so i am allowing myself to be a deficiency of 800 allowing myself to eat 1585 everyday. regardless if you eat your exercise cals or not, you will run into the platau and change something, even those maintaining and close to goal do that. but being that 1200 is the LOWEST anyone should ever eat, if you are highly over weight, and on top of that working out, i dont think that is very healthy for you. find your BMR and find your TDEE and then take that number and take no more than 1000 from that to loose weight. i have to agree with the comment earlier, most liekly you are burning muscle too and yes you see fast results, but is it the healthiest??
hope i could have helped. it really is a trial and error kind of thing. find out what works best for you, but anything more than 1000 calorie deficiency is not healthy. and the only way you can find that out is by finding your BMR.

oh and it is realllllllllly easy to eat extra calories. yes its hard to eat 1200 calories if you are only eating lettace lol, but nuts, peanut butter with whole wheat bread, protein shakes, smoothies, etc have high cals and are good for you and get your body the fuel it needs.....

:drinker: check this website out to calculate your bmr and tdee:
http://www.shapefit.com/basal-metabolic-rate.html

if you ask for advise, dont be so stuborn to think they are wrong because you might not understand it...have an open mind

It just depends on the workout day for me. If I burn TONS of calories (over 1000), then I usually eat 200-300 calories extra/day. And if I burn less than 600 calories, I usually try to stay around 1200 calories for the day. I try to vary my caloric intake b/t 1000-1600 calories throughout the week so my body will never think it's going to run out of food! For example, 1000 cal. Mon., 1500 cal. Tues, 1200 cal. Wed., etc...This has worked VERY well for me. I've been doing this since July 25th and have lost 3 pounds every week. Oh, and I always drink 8 oz. of 2% chocolate milk after intense workouts (and I'm hardly ever sore the next day). Good luck on your weight loss journey!