success not eating back exercise calories

I dont condone this at all however I do weight training and cardio everyday so eating it all back is extremely hard! Sometimes I carry 600-1000 calories over and I am still seeing muscle gains and losing fat, the main thing I look at is whether I am constantly hungry, if I am not hungry I am not going to force myself to eat, but I do eat a lot

I do if I'm hungry, if I'm not I dont worry about it.

I don't unless I'm hungry and then I do. It has worked for me so far.

When i started my weightloss journey January 2011, I was eating 1300 cals a day, and burning about 400-800 cals a day doing a different types of excercises. And the weight dropped offf! As i actually stuck to it - and not ate 1 excercise calorie back!

But last couple of months, - i have been really naughty and eating about half of my excercise cals back, and the weight is comeing offf mega slow now :sad: I need to stop doing this! As i am only halfway to my weight goal - and its going to take me years and years if i keep on at this!

It different for everyone though - it might work for you if you eat some or all of your excercise calories back. Or it might not, only you will find that out by trying it out for a few weeks and seeing what works best.

I guess I find it strange - biggest loser people dont eat theirs back, and also people on very low calories diets are also under the daily 1200 a day anyway, how come their metabolisms keep going?

Haha the EP I just watched the guys ate 3 steaks for dinner...so I'm thinking actually they might be eating back Cal's here and there.

Also, I'm under the impression if you a a lot of weight to lose and a body fat percentage high like those guys do you can maintain a low calorie diet for a lot longer without significant metabolic effects as someone who has only got, for example, 10 kg to lose.

I try not to eat most of them back. Sometimes I eat some of them if I'm hungry. It's always nice to have a cushion. But when I first started I never ate them back. I averaged around 1100 calories a day. Now I average around 1380 a day. Sometimes higher if it's a weekend and I have red wine. That always put me over. All my life I was taught in order to lose weight you eat less and workout more. I never heard of eating exercise calories back until I came on MFP. It makes no sense to me to force oneself to eat if you're not hungry. My goal is to eat less calories than I used to. Most of my fitness friends do not eat their exercise calories back. Good luck on your journey. :flowerforyou:

I've lost 27lbs so far altogether and have never eaten back exercise cal. If you're hungry though you definately should eat them. I don't get hungry so I don't eat them, it's just my body. Do what yours tells you. :-)

I have never ate any of my calories back and ive lost 60lbs in four months. Obviously the more weight you lose the harder it is but I am still losing the average amount of weight (most importantly FAT) that should be lost each week which is 1-2lbs
I had never even heard of eating back your exercise calories until i joined this site. I work out everyday and can sometimes burn between 700-1500 calories depending...
I think if your like me and work out often then maybe up your calorie intake to around 1500 maybe. That seems to work perfectly for me. I think eating back your calories counteracts the whole point of doing exercise which is to bun fat, to eat the calories back you might as well not exercise that's how I see it!

I have never ate any of my calories back and ive lost 60lbs in four months. Obviously the more weight you lose the harder it is but I am still losing the average amount of weight (most importantly FAT) that should be lost each week which is 1-2lbs
I had never even heard of eating back your exercise calories until i joined this site. I work out everyday and can sometimes burn between 700-1500 calories depending...
I think if your like me and work out often then maybe up your calorie intake to around 1500 maybe. That seems to work perfectly for me. I think eating back your calories counteracts the whole point of doing exercise which is to bun fat, to eat the calories back you might as well not exercise that's how I see it!

You do realize by running high caloric deficits (by not eating your exercise calories back or a big portion of them) you are also sacrificing muscle (when the body gets large caloric deficits it will burn the fasted source of energy to replenish what you aren't giving it, so it will attack muscle and break it down) it is not all fat that you are burning up which is counterproductive and will actually start slowing down your metabolism..... You can get away with it for awhile if you have a large quantity of weight to come off but eventually your going to hit the plateau wall, not to mention the muscle loss on top of it all... Just food for thought.......

At first, I did not eat back my exercise calories and I lost a lot. Then, I decided to eat them back because I was strength training, but I haven't lost as well since. I'm thinking of going back to my old methods until I can get some more weight off.

A Registered Dietician (she's well known in these parts, appears on televsion regularly and has written several books on nutrition and weight loss) has helped me lose 35 pounds so far, and she never once mentioned eating back calories. In fact when I read about it here I told her about it and she was a bit surprised. She did some calculations with me, showed me how many calories I'm consuming in a week and how many I'm burning, and said I should certainly not be eating them back.

that's because "eating exercise calories" is specific to MFP. It's not a universal concept. But I guarantee that if you explained to her exactly how MFP does it, I'd bet she's changed her tune. As a personal trainer, I work with multiple Registered Dietitians, and I vet them all the time for clients. I only once had one question MFP's concepts and usually once they were explained that you're given a deficit before hand and exercise calories are just there to keep you within that calorie range they were fine with it. It's actually a very scientifically sound principle if you think about it. In fact, if I explained MFP to a dietitian and they said it wasn't a good idea, I'd require them to give me some very detailed explanations as to why. In fact, that happened once. And I became skeptical of the "dietitian" and I did some background checking on him, turns out he wasn't "registered" at all, he was a nutritionist who lied about receiving a degree, and I reported him to the AG's office and he was fined and his license was revoked. It happens.

In theory you will lose more by not eating them back. The problem is it is unhealthy to have an extremely large caloric deficit >1000, and MFP already has you in a deficit if you eat 100% of the calories including exercise calories.

If you don't eat them you will end up losing more lean muscle as you lose weight, have less energy everyday, not progress as fast in cardio or strength building, not to mention the possibility of slowing your metabolism, losing hair, becoming malnourished etc.

i personally dont like eating the calories i have "earned" from working out. i see more results not eating them. when and if i eat them i tend to be stuck at a weight i cant break. i also think whatever is working for you then keep it up. if you hit a wall and the weight doesnt seem to be dropping off then tweak it .maybe eat only half of your exercise calories and if the weight starts again then you know what you should do. i think it is different for eveyone but i personally dont like to eat them.

A Registered Dietician (she's well known in these parts, appears on televsion regularly and has written several books on nutrition and weight loss) has helped me lose 35 pounds so far, and she never once mentioned eating back calories. In fact when I read about it here I told her about it and she was a bit surprised. She did some calculations with me, showed me how many calories I'm consuming in a week and how many I'm burning, and said I should certainly not be eating them back.

that's because "eating exercise calories" is specific to MFP. It's not a universal concept. But I guarantee that if you explained to her exactly how MFP does it, I'd bet she's changed her tune. As a personal trainer, I work with multiple Registered Dietitians, and I vet them all the time for clients. I only once had one question MFP's concepts and usually once they were explained that you're given a deficit before hand and exercise calories are just there to keep you within that calorie range they were fine with it. It's actually a very scientifically sound principle if you think about it. In fact, if I explained MFP to a dietitian and they said it wasn't a good idea, I'd require them to give me some very detailed explanations as to why. In fact, that happened once. And I became skeptical of the "dietitian" and I did some background checking on him, turns out he wasn't "registered" at all, he was a nutritionist who lied about receiving a degree, and I reported him to the AG's office and he was fined and his license was revoked. It happens.

Nice reply.

I like to post this example so people can see the difference between MFP and what professionals suggest.

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 (1450+400) on the days you do. Whereas a "professional" may tell you to eat 1750 everyday regardless if you workout (they take your planned exercise into account when assigning calories, MFP does not).

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 (which means same weekly weight loss). 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.

Up until recently, I have not logged my exercise and therefore did not include calories burned in my daily calculation of weight loss. This was at my doctor's recommendation. Just for full disclosure, this was also when I was meeting with my doctor every other week, so there was a lot more supervision of my daily activity.

Recently, as I have been getting closer to my goal weight and meeting with my doctor less frequently, I realized that I was depriving myself of things I wanted and that I could have if I added in my exercise calories. I have been logging my exercise and working hard to stay within my calorie goal for the day. Sometimes I didn't reach my daily goal without the exercise and sometimes I did. Ultimately, I think I'm paying closer attention to what I'm eating now that I log exercise.