Eating back exercise calories? Do I need to do this?

No, you don't need to create a deficit with exercise, as that's already included in your base calories. Not eating back calories probably won't cause any noticeable problems in the short term, but in the longer term, jacking up your deficit with exercise makes you more vulnerable to plateaus and diet failure. That's because your metabolic rate, which is sure to drop anyway as you lose weight, will drop even faster if you don't take in enough net calories to preserve your muscle mass and maintain your normal level of activity.

Bump, I am curious about this too

Unless you are eating at your maintenance amount you are already eating at a calorie deficit. If that deficit gets too big your body will not have enough nutrition on which to function properly. If I were you, I would try eating your exercise calories for a few weeks. If you aren't getting the results you'd like (keeping in mind that losing 1 pound a week is average and healthy and that losing more per week isn't always healthy) experiment with eating fewer of your exercise calories.

So if the deficit is built into your daily goal .... why exercise for say 500 calories only to eat them back? I understand most people here will tell you that you need to eat them but if I'm going to eat them back and net the same as if I hadn't exercised then I see no point in exercising.

Exercise, particularly strength training, helps preserve your muscle mass. If you lose weight by cutting calories alone you will lose muscle in addition to fat, and you will end up with a higher body fat percentage than you probably want.

You know....I was wondering about this as well.

The way I see it is if I'm hungry I eat them. Considering I'm at 1200 a day it feels good knowing I can have more if need be.

I know I burn 1700-1900 on work days (thank you Body Media Fit band). If I burn 300cal in a workout and add them back in = 2000-2200. I think our bodies do well decreasing calorie intake by 500. So I'd eat 1500- 1700 that day.

If working out more and burning more calories = you can eat more. I read somewhere that a deficet over 1000 calories isn't ideal. But I think its okay when you're zig-zagging your diet though. Carb-cycling basically.

For a rest day I try to have only 1200-1400. Keeps the deficet for roughly one pound loss over the week.

For eating back, the difference between the 1200-1400 and 1500 - 1700 + exercise is to give the body the protein and carbs for recovery after working out. And notice the calorie intake is still less then 1700-1900 daily maintence

This is just what I think given my experiences and with reading tons of stuff over many many years.



To the person asking why exercise.... "move it or lose" is what comes to mind for me. Exercising isn't only about losing weight. Its about keeping/gaining stregth (and muscle at rest burns more calories than fat at rest, a nice perk for TDEE level). Its about appreance (muscle looks better, avoid the skinny fat look). It can be about keeping flexibility too. And I think I read about it helping keep bone density as you age. Sounds good to me!

if you are following MFP's guidelines you should be eating your exercise calories... Otherwise you are undereating! MFP does not take in to account your exercise goals when calculating your daily calorie goals, I've been adjusting my exercise goals and it has no impact because of your calorie goal being NET calorie goal NOT gross calorie goal! Therefore anyone that is at a plateau should consider trying to eat their exercise calories and see if you aren't plateauing just because your body is in starvation mode and has cut back on burning fat to make up for it. I'm switching modes and see what happens because currently MFP is showing me at a 990 calorie per day defecit to lose 2 lbs a week, when really I've been trying to eat under 1600 calories which means on the days I'm exercising I'm really at about a 1200-1300 calorie defecit, that means I'm only eating about 50% of my calories needed on my exercise days... your body will adjust to the lack of calories and will STOP burning fat and go in to preservation mode because you are starving yourself (EVEN IF YOU DON'T FEEL HUNGRY, YOU STILL AREN'T GIVING YOUR BODY WHAT IT NEEDS!). There are a lot of people who will disagree with me and that's fine, I'm just telling you what I was told a couple years back when I was working with a physical trainer and a dietician... and through following what they said I was able to lose 30lbs over a 3 month period... then I quit keeping track of my food and quit working out and put it all back on. So you can do what you want, just keep in mind that MFP is setting your NET calorie goal, so if you are plateauing or hungry know that you can, and should be eating your exercise calories (look at professional athletes, Michael Phelps when training for the olympics had to eat 8,000+ calories a day because of how many calories he would burn working out... you should be eating whatever you burn to stay healthy as MFP already set your defecit with the goal of 2lbs per week... you can try to lose more than that, but anyone in the health industry will caution you that 2lbs a week is the max recommended for healthy weight loss, and if you're eating too few it will actually cause you not to lose anything....)

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I stopped losing weight when I did, and occasionally gained. So, I called a nutritional counselor. She said not to eat my exercise calories. Have been doing that since March and keep losing pounds weekly. Hope this helps you.

How many calories are you eating daily now? I wonder if logging of exercise could be inaccurate (more than it actually was???)

I think you're on track here... either tracking calorie intake incorrectly or calorie burn incorrectly... one way or the other your calories being track aren't accurate.

One of my friends told me to forget about all the eating back or not thing, just multiply your weight by 12 to 18 (depending where you are at weight loss process). It will take out all the guess work.

I don't think that gives an accurate amount of calories. I'm assuming that 12 is for weight loss and 18 is for maintenance. If so, it has me eating way too many calories. It's far easier to simply eat the number of calories MFP tells you to eat. There are a lot of reasons this system (MFP) was set up the way it was. The main one is that it helps people lose weight while keeping them healthy.

I'd agree, the 12 to 18 has no basis behind it (unless its directed at one particular person/weight), if I ate 12 times my weight I'd be eating over 2800 calories a day, 18 times my weight would be over 4200 calories. My basal metabolic rate is between 2000 and 2100 calories a day (how many calories I'd burn laying in bed all day doing absolutely nothing)... so 2800 is on the high side (depending on activity level) and 4200 I'd be gaining weight like crazy (unless I was an athlete that my life revolved around working out, but it doesn't... I think MFP does an OK job with setting up goals, the only thing that would help is if it took more information in to consideration (i.e. body fat %, lean muscle weight etc.) but it is just making an assumption based on your weight which isn't the most accurate way, but its good enough...

One of my friends told me to forget about all the eating back or not thing, just multiply your weight by 12 to 18 (depending where you are at weight loss process). It will take out all the guess work.

I don't think that gives an accurate amount of calories. I'm assuming that 12 is for weight loss and 18 is for maintenance. If so, it has me eating way too many calories. It's far easier to simply eat the number of calories MFP tells you to eat. There are a lot of reasons this system (MFP) was set up the way it was. The main one is that it helps people lose weight while keeping them healthy.

I'd agree, the 12 to 18 has no basis behind it (unless its directed at one particular person/weight), if I ate 12 times my weight I'd be eating over 2800 calories a day, 18 times my weight would be over 4200 calories. My basal metabolic rate is between 2000 and 2100 calories a day (how many calories I'd burn laying in bed all day doing absolutely nothing)... so 2800 is on the high side (depending on activity level) and 4200 I'd be gaining weight like crazy (unless I was an athlete that my life revolved around working out, but it doesn't... I think MFP does an OK job with setting up goals, the only thing that would help is if it took more information in to consideration (i.e. body fat %, lean muscle weight etc.) but it is just making an assumption based on your weight which isn't the most accurate way, but its good enough...

I need to find out her source too, but I think it makes sense if, only IF you exercise...Say you want to lose weight, so you exercise, then time 12 will give you about the same as eating net + exercise calories...If you are WT, that's different...Going 18 times might be extreme but to some people that might be the right number...

So if the deficit is built into your daily goal .... why exercise for say 500 calories only to eat them back? I understand most people here will tell you that you need to eat them but if I'm going to eat them back and net the same as if I hadn't exercised then I see no point in exercising.

Other than the intrinsic value of exercise....I exercise so I can eat more. I don't feel deprived and am less likely to overeat due to deprivation.

I use this:
http://www.livestrong.com/article/256518-how-to-calculate-calories-for-weight-maintenance/

Harris-Benedict formulla

This is a very popular formula that Nutritionists use.

I don't necessarily believe what MFP puts in - My wife's recommendation was 1200 calories per day. Her nutritionist told her that 1200 was too low considering she exercises 3 days a week. Too low will slow down and/or stop weight loss and is also bad for your nutrition levels.

According to the formula I linked, my maintenance is around 3200 (I exercises 4-5 times a week) which means I can safely eat 2500 a day and still lose 1.5 pounds a week on average. Over 7 weeks, I've lost 9 pounds - so not quite 1.5, but close enough.

It's not perfect either because on off-days I have to eat less because I'm not burning as much.

I started following Bob Harper on Twitter and asked him this very question today in a live chat. He replied, "If your goal is weight loss, do not eat the calories you burn. You will need that deficit."

I started following Bob Harper on Twitter and asked him this very question today in a live chat. He replied, "If your goal is weight loss, do not eat the calories you burn. You will need that deficit."

Right and MFP ALREADY includes that deficit into your day. You DO NOT need to increase it. Go ahead and starve yourself but when you plateau, remember this thread.