Eating back the calories you burn excercising??

MFP already sets you up with a calorie deficit based on your personal info and the amount of weight you chose to lose per week. Therfore, in order to properly fuel you activities and get enough nutrients, you need to eat at least some of those calories back. Make sure your NET calories don't go lower than 1200.

No need to wait until after you workout. If you know you're going to go to the gym, have an extra healthy snack or two during the day and then maybe have another small snack after (protein is great post workout). If you have trouble getting enough calories in, search for lists of calorie dense foods or avoid any of the "diet" foods and just stick with normal whole foods.

Good luck!

I typically workout at night and I burn around 500 calories a day excericising which typically puts me under my limit for calories. I'm confused about whether or not i'm supposed to eat again until I am back at 1200 calories or not. I don't understand the point of working out if I turn around and eat again. Also I work out late so am I supposed to eat at midnight???

If you know you are going to workout later and typically burn 500 cals, why not eat 400 or so more during the day and a little bit after your workout.

I asked my trainer about this and he said only eat them back if you are hungry. Until your body gets use to the exercise routine eating them will not help your weight loss. Once you are really into the exercise routine you should only eat 25-50% of them back.

Me personally I only eat them if I am hungry.

Bad advice, unless you calculated planned exercise into your initial caloric intake. MFP ignores exercise when assigning cals, which is why you should eat them back if you follow MFPs caloric intake.

As an example 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 on the days you do whereas a "professional" may tell you to eat 1700 everyday regardless if you workout.

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 11,900 (1700*7) almost the same number of cals for the week (250 dif). 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 1700/day above.

You need to eat back your calories because your body needs to fuel your activity. Exercising shapes and strengthens your body, proper nutrition fuels it so it can let go of the stored fat. You don't fuel it enough your body will continue to hold on to the stored fat.

I asked my trainer about this and he said only eat them back if you are hungry. Until your body gets use to the exercise routine eating them will not help your weight loss. Once you are really into the exercise routine you should only eat 25-50% of them back.

Me personally I only eat them if I am hungry.

Practical and reasonable.

:drinker:

No its not. If you don't fuel your body properly and you are in a caloric deficit the risk of losing muscle is high.

3 NHS dietitians have now told me NOT to eat mine back unless I'm hungry. I eat 1500 and burn around 6-700 cals. Its worked well for me so far! X

To lose weight you need to consume fewer calories than your body burns over the course of the day. There is a healthy range for how far under you can be. You eat back your exercise cals to keep your total daily intake in that healthy range.

That's the basic concept. Whether or not you need to eat back cals to stay in that healthy range depends on what your daily caloric goal is, how much you are exercising, and personal variable (genetics, hormones, etc).

To lose weight you need to consume fewer calories than your body burns over the course of the day. There is a healthy range for how far under you can be. You eat back your exercise cals to keep your total daily intake in that healthy range.

That's the basic concept. Whether or not you need to eat back cals to stay in that healthy range depends on what your daily caloric goal is, how much you are exercising, and personal variable (genetics, hormones, etc).

Exactly. It's not black and white. There are many variables and individuals have to really pay attention to their bodies to know what's optimal.

I asked my trainer about this and he said only eat them back if you are hungry. Until your body gets use to the exercise routine eating them will not help your weight loss. Once you are really into the exercise routine you should only eat 25-50% of them back.

Me personally I only eat them if I am hungry.

Practical and reasonable.

:drinker:

No its not. If you don't fuel your body properly and you are in a caloric deficit the risk of losing muscle is high.

You're making a lot of assumptions. Who says she isn't fueling her body properly? Why is it assumed that the first 1000 calories of deficit will come from fat stores, but suddenly your body will stop using fat stores beyond that even if you are obese? The reality is not as absolute as the evangelicals on this site would like us to believe.

actually I never stated that. 1000 cal deficit is too large for most people. Some loss in a deficit will be from muscle and fat. The larger your deficit and the less you have to lose the larger the % will come from lean muscle. In your case you are probably losing 0.5 to 2lbs of muscle per week given your stats and caloric deficit.

Thanks NayShel, I wondered this same thing. Very helpful info! :0)