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

Someone asked this awhile back (it baffles all of us) Here's the reply I wrote that seemed to make sense to them.




Nope! Think of it like money. Say you want to save $3,000 this month. You get $1,300 a day, but for some crazy reason you HAVE to spend $1,200 each day (Say for rent and bills) Now, if you only spend that 1200 a day, you will still save your $3000 by the end of the month. But you also can work for extra money. So one day, you work really hard and made an extra $500! Woohoo! But, you spent a lot of gas getting to work that day and need some more. There are a few things you can do. 1.) Ignore that you used gas, and save all $500. This will lead to an empty tank and you'll run out of fuel. 2.) You can get all the gas you want, and hey, why not get premium and spoil yourself. After all, you earned that extra $500. Might as well spend it all! Of course, nothing really happens this way. You will reach your goal in one month still. 3.) You can spend a little bit to make sure you don't run out of fuel and save the rest. This results in you having enough gas to get through the day, and at the end of the month, you'll have extra money saved!!

Hope that makes sense. I was worried to eat the exercise calories back until one day i was STARVING. I remembered to add my exercise for the day and got an extra 900 calories. I ate until I was no longer hungry, and actually ate 900 calories when I totaled it up. I try to save some if I can, but it's ok to eat them back.

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....)

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.

Ok, I know i'm going to get hammered here and usually stay away from these threads, but what the hell, I can't take it...lol.
Before I start, I want to say that I believe in exercise and do so myself. Now, with that said, PROTEIN preserves muscle mass and with exercise can build it. No, you do not have to eat back exercise calories if you do not want to. Yes, your body will go into starvation mode if the deficit is too great, BUT, that is temporary. You will start losing again if you remain the same, especially if you remain active. To keep energy and remain active, keep the protein up and eat some at every meal and snack throughout the day. I'm not saying everyone should starve themselves, just stating a fact. A deficit will only cause you to stall for a short while, you have to lose weight, intake vs output. I have been in deficit for a while. The last 36 weeks I have averaged 3.5 lbs per week loss and I have tons of energy and have lost no muscle. In fact, according to my Body Composition Analysis, I have added just a bit. It can be done, just sayin... My meals are closelytracked, measured and spread out throughout the day. My protein, fat and carbs monitored closely with my protein at around 95-100g per day. Ok, that should be enough, here comes the bashing... Oh, I forgot to say, my bloodwork is perfect now as well. I take a daily bariatric vitamin as well.

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.

Ok, I know i'm going to get hammered here and usually stay away from these threads, but what the hell, I can't take it...lol.
Before I start, I want to say that I believe in exercise and do so myself. Now, with that said, PROTEIN preserves muscle mass and with exercise can build it. No, you do not have to eat back exercise calories if you do not want to. Yes, your body will go into starvation mode if the deficit is too great, BUT, that is temporary. You will start losing again if you remain the same, especially if you remain active. To keep energy and remain active, keep the protein up and eat some at every meal and snack throughout the day. I'm not saying everyone should starve themselves, just stating a fact. A deficit will only cause you to stall for a short while, you have to lose weight, intake vs output. I have been in deficit for a while. The last 36 weeks I have averaged 3.5 lbs per week loss and I have tons of energy and have lost no muscle. In fact, according to my Body Composition Analysis, I have added just a bit. It can be done, just sayin... My meals are closelytracked, measured and spread out throughout the day. My protein, fat and carbs monitored closely with my protein at around 95-100g per day. Ok, that should be enough, here comes the bashing... Oh, I forgot to say, my bloodwork is perfect now as well. I take a daily bariatric vitamin as well.

Congratulations on all that loss and the success...I am not bashing you by any means but just one question：with all this tracking. calculating, watching...do you still enjoy your day-to-day life? Just curious...to me it requires lots of hard work diligence and concentration...