Eating Back Calories?

i blv in eating back at least some of your exercise calories. that is what i have been doing and it has done me no harm. alot of people disagree though. perhaps you can try both and see which works for you

Yes you are supposed to as the caloric intake MFP gives you to lose your goal amount of wieght assumes no exercise, once you exercise your body requires more fuel.

Not eating them is only a good idea if you if you increase your activity level setting on MFP, to account for your exercise. changing your activity level will give you more calories so you will be eating enough, without the thought of "eating your exercise calories".

Essentially you would besetting your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) then creating a deficit from that to lose weight. This is what most trainer/doctors/nutritionists do. Most professionals will tell you not to eat your exercise calories back because they added it into your TDEE, whereas MFP ignores exercise and only accounts for it when you perform it. Either way should get you to the same place.

As an example say MFP gives you 1450 calories to lose 1 lb/week, and you plan on exercising 5x/week for an average of 400 cals per workout. well MFP will tell you to eat 1450 on the days you don't workout and 1850 on the days you do whereas a "professional" may tell you to eat 1750 everyday regardless if you workout.

So for the week MFP will have you eat 12,150 (1450*2+1850*5) whereas doing it the other way will have you eat 12,250 (1750*7) almost the same number of cals for the week. The issue in not following MFP is if you don't workout the full 5 days or burn more or less than planned. If that is the case you may lose more or less than your goal, whereas MFP will have you lose your goal amount regardless how much you actually workout.

What many MFPers do is take the low 1450 and not eat back exercise calories which is wrong, if you are not eating them back then your daily activity level should reflect the higher burn with would be covered in the 1750/day above.

As an example your day to day requirements are like a tank of gas. if you use a tank of gas/week going to and from work, if you go on any extra trips or errands you will need to add more gas in order to have enough gas to get to work. So if you need 1450 for day to day stuff (you will lose weight with 1450 cals and no exercise), then when you do extra (workout burn 400 cals) you need to put more calories in your body (1850 total).

You're going to have to figure out what works best for you. Some people eat back all of their calories (me), some people eat back half, some people eat back none.

The idea is that you need to eat back your calories because MFP has already calculated the healthy calorie deficit for you to lose at a good rate. If you go below that deficit then you risk slowing your metabolism -- your body doesn't get enough calories to perform it's maintenance so it starts to burn calories more slowly.

So why exercise at all right? Well because when you lose weight, you lose both fat and muscle -- sorry no way around that. Exercise, especially exercising with weights, builds that muscle back up for you AND has the added bonus of speeding up your metabolism because muscles work harder (and so burn more calories) than fat.

This is a very simplified explanation but the basics are there. You might find that eating back your calories slows your weight loss down because muscle building can cause water retention so be sure to measure yourself AND weigh yourself. In the end it's about how you look and how you feel and your HEALTH rather than the number on the scale. Good Luck!

MFP already has a defecit of calories in your net total for the day (depending on how much you wanted to lose per week), so if you exercise you should be eating back those calories. Some people find that they actually have trouble losing weight unless they eat them back. so eat up!

I eat maybe 50-100 of 'em back, but I'm at 1200 calories a day, so this is pretty proportionate for me.

Someone once posted that you only need to eat them back if you feel tired and need the energy from the food and if you don't need the extra energy than don't worry about eating them back. You only eat to fuel the body.... That made sense to me!

I have a underactive thyroid and a sedintart job- if I eat back my exercise calories...I gain or just maintain my weight.... The only time I eat back my exercise calories is when I actually need the energy boost from the food.

So don't eat the exercise calories because the you have a number of calories to Net.....eat them when you are tired and need them for fuel/energy.

:flowerforyou:

Hi Adam, as you've seen there are those that do and those that don't.

I must admit, I see my general exercise as bonus points because I've so much weight still to lose. I sometimes eat about 100-200 of them back, but don't really think of it much. I'm currently on 1500kc a day for a 1.5lb weekly weightloss and can usually keep to that during the week.

At the weekends, I can burn up to 1000kc on exercise and I probably use 500-700 of them because I go to the pub with our friends and have a few afternoon drinkies :drinker:

Certainly, once you are in maintenance phase, you will need to eat back exercise calories otherwise you will remain in deficit and continue to lose weight (albeit slowly)

I guess what I'm trying to say is that there is no absolute answer but trial and error will hopefully find you a happy medium :happy:

Hi Adam, as you've seen there are those that do and those that don't.

I must admit, I see my general exercise as bonus points because I've so much weight still to lose. I sometimes eat about 100-200 of them back, but don't really think of it much. I'm currently on 1500kc a day for a 1.5lb weekly weightloss and can usually keep to that during the week.

At the weekends, I can burn up to 1000kc on exercise and I probably use 500-700 of them because I go to the pub with our friends and have a few afternoon drinkies :drinker:

Certainly, once you are in maintenance phase, you will need to eat back exercise calories otherwise you will remain in deficit and continue to lose weight (albeit slowly)

I guess what I'm trying to say is that there is no absolute answer but trial and error will hopefully find you a happy medium :happy:

FYI, a 1500 cal/day deficit should equal a 3 lb/week weight loss, 750/day is 1.5lbs.

1500kc is my daily Calorie target... not my deficit, eric :laugh: (Goodness me, I've been good, but I'm no saint :devil: )

I'm on a 400kc deficit (for my target weight) but will be moving to maintenance sometime in the new year, although I'll still not eat back all of my exercise cals until I'm down to about 75kg (165lbs) :happy:

Adam:

First off, Welcome to MFP. I'm still pretty new 'round here too.

You've seen (or will see soon) arguments both for and against consuming your exercise calories, and honestly, I don't know which is more right. Instead of rehashing the arguments, I'll tell you what's worked for me so far. Remember, everybody is different, and so what works for me may not work for you and vise-versa.

Anyhow, Instead of trying to specifically hit a calorie "target" every day, I'm trying to listen to what my body's telling me, so I can train myself to understand those cues. You have to recognize first that I'm a pretty big dude - 6'5" and 260# as of Monday. MFP tells me for my activity level and goal loss rate, I should be eating 1840 calories a day, net.

I woke up pretty hungry this morning, so I had more calories than normal in my breakfast, and extra lean protein at lunch. I also went out and biked pretty hard. MFP estimated (and remember, it's just an estimate) that I burned around 870 calories in my workout. That means my total budget for CONSUMPTION of food is over 2700 calories. As of 5 PM, I have over 1600 calories left in that budget. I have a hard time eating that much without feeling stuffed. So, instead, I try to listen to my body's hunger signals and simply eat when I'm hungry.

Some days, mostly when I don't work out, I get close to my calorie budget in the evening, so I try not to snack during those times. Other days, I feel fine and not hungry even when I'm fairly far below my calorie budget. I'd sum it up this way:

Question 1: Am I hungry?
No = don't eat
Yes = see question 2

Question 2: Do I have calories left in my budget?
No = don't eat
Yes = eat something, but try to have healthy, fresh food instead of processed crap.

Now, if you look at my diary (which is public), you'll see that a lot of days, I'm way under my Net limit of 1840 Calories a day. I'm not finding any problems with my own energy or mood levels, so I'm not going to worry about it. Now, if I start hitting a plateau or feeling lethargic or getting sick, I'll change and try to eat more to make up for it, but until that happens, I'm going to go with what's working for me now. Granted, I started with 60 or so pounds to lose (and truthfully, it may be closer to 80 -- I'll re-evaluate my target weight when I get down to 225 or so).

This is what works for me. It might not work for you. Maybe it's just food for thought.