Friends needed that eat their exercise calories!!

I eat all mine... else I would be starving.

It's getting harder for me to watch people around me eat only 1200 and lose weight faster. But I keep telling myself that I want to keep my muscles and this is the way to do it.

Another "exercise calorie eater" here!

I didn't to start off with, my losses slowed until a complete stop for a month... Started eating 90-100% of them back (maybe only 80% if I've done a MEGA workout) and have been losing solidly ever since. Will send you a request in case you don't have enough already lol :laugh:

Great!
I always eat back my exercise calories, because it's self sabotage to do otherwise.
MFP has already figured out your total calories you need to eat per day to lose 1lb etc. a week.
That's WITHOUT exercise. You'll notice that when you actually add exercise in, the calorie limit goes up.
Why? Because it's telling you to eat your exercise calories.
Large deficits aren't really good to do because while you will lose weight, what kind of weight will it be?
In many cases you'll lose lean muscle tissue which LOWERS your metabolic rate even more.
Then you have to eat even less to compensate for less of a calorie burn to continue to lose the same amount of weight each week.

Be efficient.
Exercise hard and eat back the calories. The hard exercise will RAISE your metabolic rate and burn more fat at rest.

I leaned the hard way. I spent the last week (not losing and ounce) and extremely weak and exhausted, I lost 3 days of exercising from being so tired. I want to be energized and live. So, I choose to eat and lose. When it was explained to me that when I eat 1200 and exercise 600 my body is only getting 600 cal and that's to little to complete a 2 hour exercise class. It finally makes sense to me.

So if MFP is giving me 1200 and I do the elliptical and burn lets say 450. Then my food adds up to 1200 I really only ate 750?? Is this the math lesson I have missed?:frown: (by the way math was my weakest subject ever in school :laugh: :laugh: )

Yup, you've done the same as me lol! I exercised, burning at least 300-500 a day, often a fair bit more, always tried to come in just under my 1200 allowance and slowly my losses dropped until I completely stalled. I looked back through my Food Diary and realised most days I was only netting 400ish! I decided to start netting my basic 1200 cals, and at the same time exercised on my bike / dvd workouts rather than doing so much walking like I was before, and now I'm losing steadily again.

The first week of eating back I didn't lose/gain but I lost 2 inches! The next week I lost 2.5lbs and have lost a 1lb every week since then.

I'm right there with you! In fact I just did a bunch of research to find out how much I should be eating and as I always eat back my exercise calories, but I still think I was eating too low. We shall See! I friended you.

I eat all my calories back +/- 100 calories.

Feel free to add away, extra motivation goes a long way

Barbi,
An absolute must for all of is the use of a quality Heart Rate Monitor (see Polar), that actually provides scientific results of your exercise. MFP comes close with its database of what "45 min on an eliptical" may burn, but the HRM will give you, 'your' results and not an estimate for any given person. Once you have a handle on what you're burining and have it with a lot of confidence, then you can begin to eat your exercise cals every day. Leaving exercise cals on the table can lead to the dreaded, 'starvation mode' which leads to headaches, weight gain/plateaus and constipation... Eating your EC's and keeping slightly under your daily C limit, will lead to losing weight, guaranteed. 2Lbs a week is doable when you have a lot to lose, much more difficult when you get close to your BMI weight.
Go get em!

I added you! If anyone else is interested feel free to add me!

What you explained makes perfect sense to me now!! But I will need some help, so that I can make good choices and habits around this concept of eating my exercise calories. Please help...here is my scenario for today --

I just tracked what I ate for Breakfast and what I will be eating for lunch today (I don't know what I will be eathing for dinner, yet)....I'm supposed to get around 1,760 calories per day as a whole before exercise. I have tracked the Zumba (dance) class I'll be doing this evening which is an hour long but I give it 45 minutes (504) . It said that for 55 minutes of "general dancing" I would expend 660 calories. So this is my question. Those 504-660 calories have been added to my daily calories so it says I have around 1,800 calories for today. What is the smartest way for me to get those calories in with non processed and whole foods, while still eating to be satisfied and not stuffing myself at the end of the day. I believe my food log is public. As it is I eat when I'm hungry, while measuring and tracking what I eat, and I am able to discern now when I'm satisfied or full. I welcome all advice!! I'm obsessing I know...but when one has more than 150 pounds to lose to be get to health and longevity....I don't have much of a choice....I want to do everything right...I want to succeed. Thank you for your advice and help. :flowerforyou: