To eat your exercise calories or not... that is the ??

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  • ihateroses
    ihateroses Posts: 893 Member
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    Yes.
  • whitm2103
    whitm2103 Posts: 41
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    Been hearing a lot about eating back your calories on this site. I am supposed to have 1200 calories a day according to this site and I burn on average 1000 calories a day at the gym (according to the machine), according to this site I ate something like 1800 calories. Still didn't eat it all back and I think i exaggerated on some of the calories in some of the food I ate but tonight I feel like a complete pig. I ate way too much! Not something I want to be doing everyday
  • megsmom2
    megsmom2 Posts: 2,362 Member
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    Its really simple. MFP sets your calories level with a deficit built in already. If you burn more calories through exercise, which is a good thing to do, you now have a double deficit. That probably takes your calories level for the day well into the "very low" calories area....not good or healthy. So...if you eat all or most of your exercise calories you STILL have a good deficit and also the benefits of the exercise....and more calories you can eat..guilt free.
  • lisakyle_11
    lisakyle_11 Posts: 420 Member
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    Here is my OPINION !!!!!!! Im not sure why some people seem to take it personal if you stray from this sites recommendations. There are a million OPINIONS and very little FACTS on this subject. Weight loss is simple math. Calories in and Calories out. Beyond that, there is no real exact science, just opinions. There are a million strategies to losing weight. Everyones body is different and reacts differently to diet and excercise. Find what works for you and adjust your calories according to how your body is feeling. You want eat clean, build lean muscle and allow your body to recover. I keep hearing that you will lose muscle if you have a low calorie diet. From everything I have read that isnt entirely accurate. Only in extreme cases of starvation. So dont starv yourself. HAHA. Good luck.

    i like this opinion. ^
  • Slee1977
    Slee1977 Posts: 35 Member
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    Spent the last 34 months eating back my exercise calories and have lost alittle weight... My BMR is 2300 (that is with a MFP 500 calorie deficit built in to lose a pound a week) and by eating my exercise calories back I am eating 3200-3400 calories a day on average (today I will finish the day at 3800 calories) and am still losing on average a pound a week.... Best of Luck to You.....

    a little weight!!!! looked at your profile CONGRATULATIONS on your success!
  • MarincicS
    MarincicS Posts: 265 Member
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    The concept here is that MFP calculates a calorie deficit based on your numbers and goals (TDEE, target loss per week, etc.). So ignoring exercise, if you eat exactly what MFP recommends, you would lose the weight you determined in your goals.

    Exercise is for fitness, building muscle, etc. It is not so critical for weight loss as really weight loss is based on the calorie deficit as mentioned above.

    In general, most recommendations say you should lose no more than 1 or 2 pounds a week to ensure good health and sustainability.

    So, in concept, if you exercise above your general daily activity level, you will create a larger calorie deficit than what is calculated by MFP and you would then lose weight faster than you indicated in your goals. Since that may be unhealthy, the concept is that you eat back those exercise calories in order to maintain a healthy weight loss pace. You would still have a calorie deficit.

    You don't waste your time having exercised - it is never wasted - as you would have improved your overall fitness.

    There is also a complicating factor in the concept of "plateauing" or going into "starvation mode" if you don't eat enough calories. There is lots of debate about whether or not this is a real thing, but in any case, it is really not healthy to have too much of a calorie deficit.

    But how you apply this is and how much of a calorie deficit is too much is really up to you. As you can see, lots of people eat all of their exercise calories back and succeed. Lots of people eat some of their exercise calories back and succeed. Lots of people eat none of their exercise calories back and succeed.

    It is important to understand the concept, then you can work out what works best for you.
  • xMissy6x
    xMissy6x Posts: 347 Member
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    Nope. My nutritionist told me it sabotages your diet. the only way I have sucessfully lost weight, is to eat 1300 on days I dont exercise, and bump it up to 1400-1500 on days that I do (per her advice) that way I always have a deficit, but I'm still giving my body adequate nutrition. You have to work a billion times harder to burn calories than if you dont eat them!!! Calorie restrictions to lose weight, exercise for overall wellbeing and toning of muscles! Thats what I'm goin with! And it works! :)

    Wow, I guess your nutritionist knows more than my scale! I wonder how in the world I've gone down 4 pant sizes eating them back? Who knew?!?

    Actually if you look at the numbers, she is roughly doing the same thing as "eating back exercise calories", and netting around 1200-1300 every day (perhaps a bit less than 1200 on exercise days).

    Same thing, different way of accounting.

    exactly my thought!!!
  • yeowiepower
    yeowiepower Posts: 31 Member
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    MPF calculates your calorie intake, or in this case your doctor did.... so as someone said earlier one reason to eat it back so your body doesnt go into starvation mode and start shutting down.

    If you did 500 calories worth of exercise and were only on a 1100 calorie diet, i would try to eat at least some of it back.

    Generally weight loss is about 2/3 diet and 1/3 exercise... but personally with the way my body seems to function, it is definitely 3/4 diet, 1/4 exercise...

    i have experimented with my body chemestry by eating back all my calories for a fortnight, but i dont seem lose as much weight as if i did no workout and only ate what MFP suggested.

    therefore now i try to only eat back 75% of my exercise calories to stay in the green... have some days where i am still 300-400 calories in the red when my concentration lapses... but most of the time stay in the green...
  • whitm2103
    whitm2103 Posts: 41
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    Here is my OPINION !!!!!!! Im not sure why some people seem to take it personal if you stray from this sites recommendations. There are a million OPINIONS and very little FACTS on this subject. Weight loss is simple math. Calories in and Calories out. Beyond that, there is no real exact science, just opinions. There are a million strategies to losing weight. Everyones body is different and reacts differently to diet and excercise. Find what works for you and adjust your calories according to how your body is feeling. You want eat clean, build lean muscle and allow your body to recover. I keep hearing that you will lose muscle if you have a low calorie diet. From everything I have read that isnt entirely accurate. Only in extreme cases of starvation. So dont starv yourself. HAHA. Good luck.

    i like this opinion. ^


    Me too.
  • MarincicS
    MarincicS Posts: 265 Member
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    One more thing i would like to add is eating your exercise calories is not a different concept because you are trying to lose weight. It would be the same concept if you were trying to maintain.

    Essentially, the more your body burns, the more fuel it requires. Once we learn to listen to our bodies better, we will feel the need for more food (hungrier) when we burn more calories and feel the need for less when we burn less.

    The concept doesn't change just because you are trying to impose a calorie deficit in order to lose weight.
  • Brandicaloriecountess
    Brandicaloriecountess Posts: 2,126 Member
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    Listen to Fat2Fit radio, they do a great job of explaining why super restrictive calorie "diets" are not good for your body.
  • dontwantausername1
    dontwantausername1 Posts: 120 Member
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    The majority of the people who want you to eat them back see no other option as okay or decent (and they tend to show this with anger). Asking this question is like opening a can of worms. If I exercise off 700 calories I'll eat like 1300-1400 that day instead of 1200. It doesn't matter to me...I just eat when I'm hungry. I don't try to eat them back or not (but I never eat all of them). There is a lot of conflicting advice (and it's not because we who don't eat them back don't get math). What works for me may not work for you and what works for Jane may not work for John. Experiment around and see what helps you the best. Just be careful not to overestimate burned and underestimate consumed. Also, know that MFP over calculates calories burned.

    All I'm going to say is that inches are coming off like butter and the scale is dropping with me not eating them back. And to the haters, I'm not only losing muscle and I'm not a sack of fat and bones. I am more toned than ever from my exercises and diet.
  • dontwantausername1
    dontwantausername1 Posts: 120 Member
    Options
    Here is my OPINION !!!!!!! Im not sure why some people seem to take it personal if you stray from this sites recommendations. There are a million OPINIONS and very little FACTS on this subject. Weight loss is simple math. Calories in and Calories out. Beyond that, there is no real exact science, just opinions. There are a million strategies to losing weight. Everyones body is different and reacts differently to diet and excercise. Find what works for you and adjust your calories according to how your body is feeling. You want eat clean, build lean muscle and allow your body to recover. I keep hearing that you will lose muscle if you have a low calorie diet. From everything I have read that isnt entirely accurate. Only in extreme cases of starvation. So dont starv yourself. HAHA. Good luck.

    i like this opinion. ^

    Me too.
  • whitm2103
    whitm2103 Posts: 41
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    The majority of the people who want you to eat them back see no other option as okay or decent (and they tend to show this with anger). Asking this question is like opening a can of worms. If I exercise off 700 calories I'll eat like 1300-1400 that day instead of 1200. It doesn't matter to me...I just eat when I'm hungry. I don't try to eat them back or not (but I never eat all of them). There is a lot of conflicting advice (and it's not because we who don't eat them back don't get math). What works for me may not work for you and what works for Jane may not work for John. Experiment around and see what helps you the best. Just be careful not to overestimate burned and underestimate consumed. Also, know that MFP over calculates calories burned.

    All I'm going to say is that inches are coming off like butter and the scale is dropping with me not eating them back. And to the haters, I'm not only losing muscle and I'm not a sack of fat and bones. I am more toned than ever from my exercises and diet.

    I'm convinced :-)
  • Orient_Charm
    Orient_Charm Posts: 385 Member
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    when I started diet I used to not eating back my burned cals, and I lost most of my weight at that time.........
    After a lot of confusions and conflicts about this issue in MFP, I started eating back about 50% of my burned cals....and still losing weight but slower.

    and by the way, many scientific research said that (Starvation mode only exists for males with 5% body fat or less and females with 10% body fat or less ) .....some another researches said ( NO ) check this.
    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/524375-starvation-mode-is-a-myth-so-why-do-we-keep-saying-it-exist

    So you will not find final answer, and what I believe , If you eat back your burned cals you will lose weight slowly but in a healthy way, if not you could lose weight faster but (may be) it’s not the perfect way.
  • Orient_Charm
    Orient_Charm Posts: 385 Member
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    The majority of the people who want you to eat them back see no other option as okay or decent (and they tend to show this with anger). Asking this question is like opening a can of worms. If I exercise off 700 calories I'll eat like 1300-1400 that day instead of 1200. It doesn't matter to me...I just eat when I'm hungry. I don't try to eat them back or not (but I never eat all of them). There is a lot of conflicting advice (and it's not because we who don't eat them back don't get math). What works for me may not work for you and what works for Jane may not work for John. Experiment around and see what helps you the best. Just be careful not to overestimate burned and underestimate consumed. Also, know that MFP over calculates calories burned.

    All I'm going to say is that inches are coming off like butter and the scale is dropping with me not eating them back. And to the haters, I'm not only losing muscle and I'm not a sack of fat and bones. I am more toned than ever from my exercises and diet.

    Great .......I like this......
  • shellsie_j
    shellsie_j Posts: 132 Member
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    Bump to read the ongoing saga.
  • jowings
    jowings Posts: 157 Member
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    The concept here is that MFP calculates a calorie deficit based on your numbers and goals (TDEE, target loss per week, etc.). So ignoring exercise, if you eat exactly what MFP recommends, you would lose the weight you determined in your goals.

    Exercise is for fitness, building muscle, etc. It is not so critical for weight loss as really weight loss is based on the calorie deficit as mentioned above.

    In general, most recommendations say you should lose no more than 1 or 2 pounds a week to ensure good health and sustainability.

    So, in concept, if you exercise above your general daily activity level, you will create a larger calorie deficit than what is calculated by MFP and you would then lose weight faster than you indicated in your goals. Since that may be unhealthy, the concept is that you eat back those exercise calories in order to maintain a healthy weight loss pace. You would still have a calorie deficit.

    You don't waste your time having exercised - it is never wasted - as you would have improved your overall fitness.

    There is also a complicating factor in the concept of "plateauing" or going into "starvation mode" if you don't eat enough calories. There is lots of debate about whether or not this is a real thing, but in any case, it is really not healthy to have too much of a calorie deficit.

    But how you apply this is and how much of a calorie deficit is too much is really up to you. As you can see, lots of people eat all of their exercise calories back and succeed. Lots of people eat some of their exercise calories back and succeed. Lots of people eat none of their exercise calories back and succeed.

    It is important to understand the concept, then you can work out what works best for you.

    Very well put. I like this. I also eat all my exercise calories and have shrunk from a size 08 to a size 06 in the past three months.
  • natachan
    natachan Posts: 149
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    Please take this with a grain of salt, as I'm not really an expert in biology.

    In order for your body to function you require a certain amount of energy. Everything your body does, from digesting food, to filtering your blood, to breathing and keeping the synapses in your brain firing takes energy. This site recommends not going under 1200 kcals (or 5000 kJ, which seems realistic to me) and sets that as the minimum your body requires to function.

    When you exercise, you use extra energy. Your body will take that from SOMEWHERE. So do you need to eat back all your exercise calories? Well, yes and no. If you are only working out 4 times a week or so and eating normally on off days (not too huge a deficit) then no, it's not imperative. Here I am assuming that you are not eating ONLY 1200 kcals. But if you want to go ahead. Now if you are doing more vigorous exercising 5-6 days a week with heavy energy usage then yes. The point is that one day under isn't going to be a big deal, but if you are consistently seriously under then you are going to have problems.

    EDIT: A few notes for non-sciencey people. 1 kcal = 1 food Calorie. 1 J = the amount of energy needed to raise 1mL of water 1 degree Celsius. 1 kJ = 1000 J. Sorry about this, written while doing lab notes :p
  • Natihilator
    Natihilator Posts: 1,778 Member
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    Sometimes, as long as it's all peachy keen at the end of the week.

    I burned almost 1200 calories in exercise today, and there was no way I was going to eat that much plus my net of 1560 all in one day. But I do try and keep my weekly net goals pretty damn near 1560. Our bodies don't do a tally at 10:00pm every night to decide whether to hold on to excess weight depending on what we consumed in that day only. I netted just over 1000 calories today, but I'm sure that I will make up the other 500 some calories in the 6 days ahead.

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