Why Eating Exercise Calories is so important.

This week I decided to test this theory and ate back all my exercise calories and did not lose a pound, not even a tenth of a pound. So I'm going back to what worked for me before - setting my net calories at slightly higher than what MFP recommends and only eating back SOME of my exercise calories if I'm still hungry. So I guess you could argue that just by setting my net calories higher than what MFP recommends, that I am, in fact, eating back exercise calories - but that's my net regardless of whether or not I exercise, and I only increase them by 100 higher than what MFP recommends. And I also agree with the fact that if you exercise a lot or burn a lot of calories, you definitely should not attempt to eat them all back. Let's be real, we're not olympic athletes, so we don't need to eat loads of calories to fuel our bodies when we exercise. And by exercise, I mean going to a gym or setting aside time to do an actual workout. I don't think anyone should be counting "cooking" or "doing housework" as exercise if you're planning to eat your exercise calories back.

I also want to point out, as I did in my earlier post to the OP, that the calories burned on both the cardio equipment and especially here on MFP are GROSSLY overstated. Best thing we can do is invest in a good HR monitor (I recommend the Polar FT7) and even then I don't assume that I burned as much as what my HRM shows, and that number is significantly lower than what the cardio equipment or MFP says I burned. So if you eat back all of what MFP or the cardio equipment says you burned, you're more than likely eating a surplus and your net is no longer a deficit. So just be conservative if you're choosing to eat back your exercise calories. Better to error on the side of caution - in my opinion.

But I guess at the end of the day, we all have to do what works best for us, and unfortunately it takes some trial and error to find the "sweet spot" for our bodies to lose weight.

To have to give any change more than a week to decide whether it is working or not - it can take a few weeks foryour body adjust. Coming to a conclusion as to whether it works of not after a week is way too early.

That being said, I do agree that equipment and MFP can grossly overestimate the calories burned which is why a buffer should be built in to how many exercise calories. I also agree that doing regular housework etc should not be counted as it should already be counted in the base calories (activity level).

Somebody quote a legitimate nutritionist, preferably PhD that isn't a hot over-marketed model, that supports this and HRM's that indicates eating exercise calories is so important.

I call BS! I want my body to burn muscle rather than fat, thank YOU very much!

Somebody quote a legitimate nutritionist, preferably PhD that isn't a hot over-marketed model, that supports this and HRM's that indicates eating exercise calories is so important.

It's basically math - if you do not eat your calories back (and assuming that you have a deficit already baked into your base) then not eating your exercise calories back, increases you deficit. Not sure why you need a PhD for that. Where the nutritional infomation comes in is what the impact is from a 2000 calorie deficit v a 500 calorie deficit -the difference being created by exercise (and yes I know 1,500 is on the high side for exercise - its just an example)..