To lose weight, can you eat back the calories you burned during exercise?

It will depend on how accurate your data that you input is.

-Accurate weekly calorie counting
-Correct activity level category
-Accurate exercise calories logged

It’s rare that these things are accurate hence why some people figure half their exercise calories and some figure no exercise. Way too many people over estimate calories burned and end up eating too much.

Try being as accurate as possible while eating back the calories and in a month or so review your progress or lack of it and adjust accordingly.

If you want to "tone", losing weight too fast is not your best strategy.

If you want to look your best in other ways, losing weight too fast is also not your best strategy.

That's without even getting into the fact that losing weight too fast makes your body fight back (hunger, fatigue, etc.) so it's tough to stay at that significantly-reduced calorie level long enough to lose a meaningful total amount of weight.

Not accounting for exercise risks too-fast weight loss. That's especially true if your calorie goal is based on trying to lose fast in the first place (2 pounds or 1 kg per week, unless well over 200lb/100kg for example).

If you set your MFP activity level as per the MFP instructions, it should be based on daily life stuff before exercise (i.e., job, home chores, non-exercise hobbies). In addition to that, I'd strongly suggest that you eat back at least a fair fraction of carefully estimated exercise calories. That will best support your "lose 10 pounds and tone" goals in a healthy way. (Healthy people look better physically, plus are more vivacious which is also attractive.)

"Toning" is pretty much just having a certain amount of muscularity, and the right amount of body fat so that muscle-shapeliness shows in the way you personally prefer. Losing too fast risks losing unnecessarily much lean tissue (including muscle) alongside fat loss. That won't help with getting toned. (Losing lean tissue aims for a "skinny fat" look.)

What really matters is your actual real-world average loss rate over 4-6 weeks (whole menstrual cycles so you can compare body weight at the same relative point in at least 2 different cycles).
Pick a reasonable starting strategy, then run that experiment. If losing too fast, eat more.

"Reasonable starting strategy" means a sensibly moderate loss rate intention, then a calorie goal that either reflects daily life only (then add and eat back a good chunk of exercise calories), or reflects an activity level that includes your exercise plans. Either one is fine.

For someone with only 10 pounds to lose, and a toning goal, half a pound (quarter kg) loss per week would be a good plan. (It's what I do myself in similar circumstances if up a few pounds in maintenance. Well, actually I usually lose a little slower in practice, because I eat some over-goal treats along the way, but that's just me. I like being slim, but I also like having an overall happy life while I get there. Balance!).

Your best appearance results will come from a calorie goal that takes your exercise into account somehow. Not considering exercise is like putting just enough gas in your car to get to your job and back, and not adding enough gas for your fully intended side trips to the grocery store, post office, mall, etc.

You can easily lose the 10 pounds and come out looking great with this kind of approach.

Best wishes!

Hismione wrote: »

Well, it seems like weight loss is a pretty straight math equation. 1 lb of fat is 3500 calories. So, you need to burn that many more calories than you consume. I don't eat those extra calories unless I am starving then I make sure that I don't go over. But hey, always consult your physician or dietician for the best answer.

Yeah, for weight loss we need to burn more calories than we eat, but that includes all categories of calorie burn.

We burn calories just being alive. (BMR, basal metabolic rate, basically the calories we burn on our back in bed in a coma.) For most of us that's the biggest percentage of our daily burn. Next biggest for most is daily life stuff: Home chores, job, etc. (That's called NEAT, non-exercise activity thermogenesis.) Exercise burns more calories in addition to those.

For someone with a lot of weight to lose**, it can be OK - not too risky - to pick a moderate weight loss, then let some modest amount of exercise help them lose a little faster.

At the other extreme, picking an aggressive loss rate, then doing a bunch of exercise without fueling it - that's a route that risks muscle loss, bone strength loss, hair loss, brittle nails, fatigue, compromised immune system, and more. Guaranteed that bad things will happen? Of course not. But higher risks.

In between those two extreme scenarios, it's a judgement call about how much health and appearance risk the person wants to take. Personally, I value my health. For me, ignoring exercise calories unless "starving" is a non-starter.

YMMV.

(** BTW, we can only metabolize a limited amount of fat daily per lb/kg of fat on our body. The implication is that someone with relatively little to lose, like OP here, will be best served by quite gradual loss.)