Why eat your exercise calories?

Ok.. can someone explain to me... dumb it down... wth the deficit thing is all about? I don't understand it. =/ Where exactly should I be seeing what this even is? I can see how much I eat... what I earn from exercise... and totals... ugh.. I feel like such a blonde. LOL

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/61706-guide-to-calorie-deficits

Ok... sooo this didn't help my obviously slow mental state. According to my BMI... I can have a 1000 calorie deficit. And MFP food log thinger shows my calories per day goal as 1200. And I usually do about 400-ish calories burned with exercise. What is this deficit I am supposed to be seeing?

I cannot ask my car to drive an extra five hundred miles without fuel, I can't ask it of my body either.

This is not a good analogy because fat is fuel and if you're trying to lose weight, your body has plenty of it.

Fat is a fuel tank. However, fat is a major endocrine organ, and your body will only burn small amounts at a time. If your caloric deficit is too large (over a thousand calories, unless you have 100+ pounds of fat to lose) then your body will break down skeletal muscle and use gluconeogenesis in order to produce energy instead of fat. Skeletal muscle is relatively low priority when it comes to fuel, as it costs a lot to maintain, and only has one bodily function (move whatever joint it's attached to.) Adipose tissue, on the other hand, is responsible for maintaining body temperature, insulating organs, and hormone synthesis. All of those things make adipose tissue a higher priority than skeletal muscle in times of large caloric deficit.

So while yes; the body burns fat, it mostly burns fat that it's stored from food you've recently eaten, plus a little extra in a small deficit, but eventually it will switch to catabolising muscle in order to conserve fat and lower BMR in an attempt to reach homeostasis. That's why the car analogy works. You can't force your body to run on no food, just like you can't force a car to run on no food.

Seriously, if the body burned fat regularly and constantly, why would a morbidly obese person need to eat at all? They should just fast and watch the fat melt right off, right? Doesn't work like that.

So when you are in a 1000 calorie deficit with say 50 lbs of fat available, how much protein does the body need to burn from the muscles and why can't eating more protein account for that?

That's the point, if you eat MORE, you will have a smaller deficit. If you eat a higher percentage of protein, without eating more calories, you'll get the same net result, as your body will use up all the protein you you eat anyway, before still needing to break down muscle to make up the deficit. With a large calorie deficit, the macro breakdown you eat doesn't matter much, as the body is going to break it all down for energy anyway.

Do you have a reference that discusses the limitations on fat burning ability? Not that I am disputing you, but I can't find anything that discusses it.

Here's a quick blurb about it from an article from The Washington University School of Medicine.\

Are fat cells simply a storage compartment for our gluttonous behavior?

No. "Fat cells are the most important cells in the body. In fact, they are the key reason that we've survived. If we didn't have fat cells, we would probably be extinct," says Roger H. Unger, M.D., a diabetes researcher at the University of Texas.

Fat is much more than an oily storage compartment. "One of the biggest myths is that fat is boring," says Evan Rosen, M.D., Ph.D., a professor at Harvard Medical School. "We now know that fat is a major endocrine tissue, producing hormones that regulate varied body processes - like insulin sensitivity, thyroid and immune function, clotting, blood pressure, appetite and satiety and many others. This has been one of the great revolutions in physiological thought of the last 10 years," adds Rosen.

True or False: Our bodies are programmed to defend against losing body fat.

True. Long before we had supermarkets and easy access to highly palatable food on virtually every corner, we were hunters and gatherers. Because food availability was unpredictable, the body had to be prepared for both feast and famine. The more we ate, the more fat we stored, and the better prepared we were for times of famine because each excess pound of fat provided us with additional days of life. In fact, our body typically stores about 150,000 calories at any given time, says Klein. This is what enables us to survive for months with just water.

When we go on a diet, the body's ancient survival mechanisms kick in, refusing to use up valuable stored fat, making it more difficult to burn calories by lowering our metabolic rate and decreasing our energy level and requirements. The body doesn't know if it's being starved voluntarily (to lose weight) or involuntarily (because there's no food). Fat was a valuable asset, and now it's become an albatross around our waists.

Full article: https://secure.wuphysicians.wustl.edu/newsarchive.aspx?navID=&category=&ID=471&deptID=&divisionID=

It doesn't break down the specifics of how big a deficit it takes to cause it, but it explains the basic principle of how the body prefers to conserve fat in times of perceived famine.

Do your own research on the whole starrvation mode thing... there is a lot of BAD information posted on this site about that. Educate yourself with medical information and research...not from hear sayers. From the medical information that I have read it takes DRASTIC events for your body to start eating muscle especially when a person is so over weight. Its just nost a good way to diet when you drastically reduce calories because it is very dificult to sustain in the long run and you run the risk of packing it all back on\.

I highly recommend setting up an appointment with a sports nutrition doctor to discuss your goals and a healthy way to reach them.
Ask also to have your resting metabolic rate (RMR) tested, which will give you a better idea of how many calories your body uses on a daily basis for bodily functions, which in turn will give you a better idea of how much you should be eating. MFP uses an average based on height and weight, adds in calories correlating with your specified activity level, and then subtracts your deficient to produce what an average person of your weight, height, and activity level should be eating to lose. If your metabolism runs higher or lower, it could affect your success using this formula.

Per my doctor's suggestions, I currently eat back around 200 calories for every 30 minutes of hard work out that I do. If I skip a day of eating back calories, the world doesn't end, but if make a habit of it, not only do I stall out weight wise, but also physically. Can't run if I haven't eaten, and can't run if I've eaten poorly.

Let's try to simplify it. Your body uses, let's say 2,400 calories every day on average. You only eat 1,400 calories, and your body burns through fat, or muscle in some cases, to fuel the 1,000 that you didn't eat. Now, you go for a nice long run, and your body burns an additional 400 calories during that run. Now it has to find that additional 400 somewhere in your body, and when you ask your body to find a large amount of calories, it heads for your muscle, because that uses calories to maintain. If you body has a largely inadequate amount of calories, muscles are used for fuel. Your body stops being able to take care of itself. You lose energy, but not weight, because your body is trying to cut corners for calorie consumption instead of burning fat.

You can read all the replies to your thread, search the topic and read through those (I assure you, there are plenty), do a google search even, but the best and most helpful thing you can possibly do is pick up your phone a make an appointment with your doctor.

Just do a search on all of the hundreds of other posts on the exact same topic. This is one that pops up daily..... and it's annoying.

If you eat 1200 calories, and you burn 1200 calories, then you technically take in ZERO calories, and you will die, not right away, but eventually, although you may look slightly better in your coffin...............

Agree with the above. MFP factors in a deficit already to give you the weight loss you want to acheive. Exercise, while a great and helpful part of losing weight, is not solely for that purpose.

Exercise helps you to build muscle, develop cardiovascular endurance and in general have better health and well being. Also note, if you lift weights and build muscle your body burns more calories at rest. This is even more of a reason to eat back at least a portion of your exercise calories. I want my body to have ready access to healthy protein, carbs and fats to re-fuel, re-build and be able to do more next time.

Be very careful though. I use a heart rate monitor, strapped to my chest, to measure how many calories I burn. Everyone is different and I find MFP's stock exercises waaaay over estimate what the actual burn is. Note also, that your body naturally burns calories at rest. By wearing my hrm while doing nothing, I burn 170 calories in 1 hour. If I do some exercise for 1 hour, I subtract 170 from the total to get what my burn actually was. I HIGHLY recommend investing in a polar heart rate monitor (~$100-$140). It is an amazing tool in weightloss. You can punch in your height, weight and age and it will use these in determining how many calories you burn per heart beat.

Hello i am new to learning about the polar, my new friend is kettlebells, please do you know if the polar would help me with calories burned for this type of training, i have looked at the web site, but there are sssooo many polars i got a little dizzy lol many thanks

I've been told the F4 or F7 are the best.

I have one thing to say

!!!!YOU NEED TO EAT YOUR CALORIES YOU BURN!!! PERIOD.....

That is all...Thank you