Eating Back calories burned

It depends on how your daily caloric coal is calculated. To lose weight you need to be in a healthy caloric deficit. There are 2 ways to accomplish that:

Set your daily caloric intake at a deficit
This is what most people do, and is how MFP is designed to work. You figure out your daily caloric need (TDEE, or total daily energy expenditure), then set your calorie goal lower than that. For example.. if your TDEE is 1800, you might set your daily calorie goal to 1400. That puts you in a caloric deficit and you will start to lose weight*. When you exercise you burn additional calories. These burned calories are not accounted for in your TDEE or the calorie goal you set based on your TDEE. So exercising increases that caloric deficit. The thing to watch here is how big that deficit gets. Every body responds differently, but the larger the deficit the worse it is for your body (the assumption is that the larger the deficit gets the harder it is to properly fuel your body). And this is why people recommend eating back exercise calories.

Use exercise to create the deficit
With this method you set your daily caloric intake to equal your TDEE. Then you exercise and burn calories. Those burned calories are not accounted for when you set your daily goal equal to your TDEE, and thus you end up in a deficit. The size of that deficit is dependent on your workouts. You burn 75cals walking the dog and your deficit is 75 cals. You burn 500 cals running and the deficit is 500.



*This is VERY simiplified and makes A LOT of assumptions, but is good enough for this conversation.

I have been wondering the same thing... I currently have been eating back my exercise calories but I only have 10 pounds to loose. My body at this point is EXTREMELy resistant to any loss so I think I need to stop eating my calories back. I think Jacksonpt is right on with the calculations. I'm still new to the system also and have not quite figured out how to adjust my settings. I'm currently set at 1200 also. Look forward to seeing some more responses on how people deal with eating calories back too:)

To simplify this even further, click on "My Home" tab. Then "Goals" tab, and click on "Guided" option and then My Fitness Pal will create a deficit for you to allow you to lose the weight you chose you choose to lose per week which includes the calories burned. So to sum it up, in order to reach your goal (ex: 2 lbs loss per week), then eat all your calories including your exercise calories burned. Your goal should be to 0 out in calories at the end of the day - which will be a deficit since MFP accounted for it. Hope this helps!

Thank you for the great information!! So helpful! I did lower my TDEE, which I set to 1200 calories. I may be under estimating my daily activities. I may have to play around with it and see what is best for my body I guess.

Just for the clarity's sake... your TDEE is probably much higher than 1200. 1200 could be your BMR, but TDEE is probably closer to 2000, depending on how active you are on a day to day basis.

NEVER eat below your BMR (at least not for any prolonged time)... that's when you'll get into problems as you're not giving your body the calories it needs to do the most basic functions (breathe, pump blood, etc). TDEE is what your deficit should be based on. Either set your daily net to equal your TDEE and DON'T eat back your exercise cals (option 2 of my previous post), or set it to something less than your TDEE and eat back the cals (option 1).

I have been trending in the red with protien, everything else in the green. Can the protien be bad for me and slow my weight loss?

What is the daily goal that you are exceding? MFP's default protein goals are REALLY low. Seems like most of the experts are suggesting something close to .75g per lb of lean body weight as a starting point.

I know your right... I stay within my calorie range but my problem is calorie content. Even though they say if you stay within your TDMM you should loose I think thats only if you make wise choices. At least that is the case for me. I've been having trouble with sweets and I know if I can get that under control alone I probably would be losing very quickly even with eating back my exercise calories... BUT thats an entirely different topic, lol

Hi

I've been using MFP for 3 weeks now, have been exercising everyday and eating back my calories burned through the exercise I'm logging and am losing weight steadily, 3lb the first two weeks and 2lb this last week. My levels for protein are always well over recommended on MFP and also too low on vitamins /carbs and fat but I take a multi vit supplement everyday so it doesn't allow me to calculate that.

I am also way over on my sugar, but I don't eat sweets, treats or drink fizzy drinks, so can't work out why my sugar always goes over, average day meal is 2 scrambled eggs and salmon for breakfast, 2 fruit portions mid morning, tin of soup for lunch, 1 fruit afternoon + yoghurt/salad portion and fish, boiled rice and at least 3 steamed veg for dinner, with a low cal hot choc and maybe snack a jack for treat in the evenin + 4 semi skimmed milky cups of tea with sweetner per day.... any ideas?

What are you questioning?

Your diet plan looks good. You're losing consistently. What's the problem?

As for the sugar... it's all the fruit. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

^^^^^^
THIS

How many cals were you consuming daily when not eating back your cals? How many cals were you burning during a typical workout?

Toning simply refers to lowering body fat to expose muscle (that may or may not be there).

To build muscle (new tissue) you should at least be at maintenance, and preferably surplus. An increase in protein is a must for most people... how you get that protein is up to you.