For those of you who don't eat exercise cals back

Do you just not log your exercise, or do you log it at the end of the day? If you log it right after you complete the exercise does it get confusing when MFP says "You've earned 300 extra calories from exercise today" but you really haven't, so you have to keep a different number than it actually says in mind the whole day?

Just wondering because a lot of people are doing a cut from TDEE and not going by the MFP plan, but MFP is still going to add those calories in.

When I was losing weight, I never used to eat my exercise calories back - except 50 to 100. What I would do is log the exercise but although the total calories added to my food allowance, I just ignored that and stuck to my 1200 calories.

I believe we should eat ALL the food! I'm set for 1lb a week, just because when I switched from using MFPs exercise estimates to my HRM, I stalled a bit and realized I was eating too little. Now I regularly eat between 2000 and 2300 on most days (except for during this crazy hot spell we're in), and I'm losing pretty steadily (anywhere from 1-3lbs a week) and shrinking tremendously. I focus more on the shrinking than the losing.

Why is everyone so stuck on one pound a week? You can lose 2 pounds a week safely...why wouldn't you double your weightloss in the same amount of time? My doctor wants me to lose 2 pounds a week, and approved my exercise plan. She is also someone who lost over 100 pounds in a year (103 to be exact) and has kept it off for the past 7 years. So I don't think losing 2 pounds a week is any 'short term' solution that is bound to fail.

It's not. At least it wasn't for me, when I had 30 pounds to lose.

Now that I'm about 5 pounds from being in a "normal" BMI range, continuing to attempt to lose 2 pounds a week backfires on me, so I've retargeted to 1 pound a week, and I'm back to losing weight.

The key is experimentation, the important thing is to keep an open mind, and the way to success is to accept that what is working today may not work tomorrow so you have to be willing to go back to experimentation.

You two make the most sense to me!!

I don't understand why everbody is all bent saying if you lose the weight fast (2 pounds a week), you will gain it back.

Like there is no avoiding gaining it back.

Now, if you are at a 500 calorie intake only and taking pills, slimfast, etc. Ok. I get why'd you'd ASSUME the person would gain the weight back. But if someone has found comfort in 1200 calories and is eating when they are hungry and is working out reasonably, why would you flat out tell them they are going to gain it back? I've had countless people tell me I will gain it back, I'm wasting my time, blah blah. No, I have a plan, and it's my plan. I'll do like the above person- when I get closer to my goal, I will slowly start to increase my intake.

i log in all food cals and exercise bruns/per day. I like to know exact amount in a week and compare how many cals I need to burn to lose 1 pound. I eat some calories back but I eat 'healthy' cals not, say, 'pizza' or 'chip' cals... your body needs extra 'fuel' so I eat more fruit and protien on my heavy work out days. I dont think thats a back thing since my daily cal intake is only 1470. ALSO, doesnt MFP set your daily calorie intact base off of how active your are? With the initial sign up info they give you choices with how active you are, daily - low, medium, or high.....

Correct, and you can do one of two things with that (well, three, but two within the intended parameters of the design of the site):

1. Set your lifestyle to include what you think you'll do for exercise on a given week
- Do not log or eat back exercise calories, your deficit is set based on doing those workouts.

2. Set your lifestyle to not include workouts and specific exercise but to include only your basic lifestyle (sedentary for us office monkeys).
- Log all exercise above and beyond trivial things like walking from the car to the office (and even that if it's a LONG walk), eat back those calories.

3. (not within the design parameters of the site, but you can use it this way) Set your lifestyle to sedentary, exercise lots, use the calories used to accelerate weight loss.
- Please consider that this will tend to accelerate weight loss in the short term but may lead to changes in your metabolism, if you start struggling to lose weight after a few weeks of AWESOMELY fast weight loss, you may need to reconsider this strategy. Or it may work for you - but just remember that you at least need to make sure you're getting enough vitamins and minerals and at the very least proteins to support your body. Be mindful of how fast you are losing weight, and how you feel.

Ummmm......I don't worry that much about it. I very seldom eat all my calories back. I eat till I am full and stop. When I was doing weight loss, the idea was to loose weight. If you eat your exercise calories back you don't loose weight . Don't buy the "You got to eat your exercise calories back to loose weight faster" line.

The larger the calorie deficit the faster the weight loss.

You are stressing WAY TOO MUCH about these numbers! Eat light, eat right... stay within your daily goal! Yes you earn more calories because you burned an excess through exercise...but these numbers are only GUIDES AND NOT LAW!!!!!

No one is talking "law", we're talking actions and physical consequences. You can freely ignore the guidelines of the site and use it as a pure calorie tracker, if you like. We're all free adults here. We all get to choose.

The only thing to be aware of is that "calories burned" can be affected by "calories consumed", and if you choose the fast path, just be aware that you still need to feed your vital organs something (and if you aren't eating at least enough protein, your body will start using the only internal protein source you have, namely muscle - and some vitamins and minerals are not stored by the body and cannot be internally synthesized).

Yes, you can burn fat faster, but your body simply cannot live on fat alone.

Again, you are an adult, you get to choose how you treat your body. It's just something to be aware of - if you've been eating a net of 500 calories for a week and you suddenly find that elliptical much harder to crank, or that 45-pound weight suddenly feels closer to 55 pounds, you may want to stop and think about why.

If it works for you, it works for you. If it stops working for you, keep an open mind about exploring things that might.

I couldn't read through all the comments, but seriously, this topic has been beat to death more times than the which came first, the chicken or the egg, debate!

Simple: see these guns to the left.. yea, my biceps & shoulders. These come from working out consistently, eating well & ENJOYING what I am doing to get to this point, to my goal & then maintain. I eat, I workout, I eat. I eat most if not all, if not even, dare I say it, go over, my caloric "allowance" each day. I still lose, and even when I don't lose, I don't worry because for every pound of fat I'm "losing", I building up the muscle so it's stronger and that keeps my metabolism going all day, every day.
For many who do not eat back, or do not eat the right combinations of foods (think proteins, veggies & fiber), yes, you will lose weight. For many even keep it off. But if you compare your physique with someone who works out & EATS, you will "look" scrawny & unhealthy. I prefer not to look like the sick super model and work more towards a fit physique which also means those slips & falls that may happen when I'm older, I'm more likely to either not get too injured or recover quicker. I'm not doing this weight loss thing "for now", I'm doing it "for life".

Yes, there are many benefits to losing weight. And there are infinity more to being healthy for life.

I don't log exercise, I don't log booze.

Yes, I know, insane.

My Fitbit adjusts my exercise which, in turn, ups my calories and macros for what I can eat. I stay around or under the initially macro goals before exercise is counted. I have my activity level set to Active to match what I've gotten for a daily burn from Fitbit. It was my albeit limited understanding that eating exercise cals back was only for people who set themselves as Sedentary for activity.

Correct. If you've set yourself as "active", and by that you mean "I don't work a very active job like a landscaper or another job that requires heavy lifting for a significant portion of the day, but I work out a lot every day", then you absolutely DO NOT want to eat back your exercise calories because they are already accommodated for in your lifestyle.

"Exercise calories" are those that are "earned" by engaging in activity over and above your "normal lifestyle".

So someone like me, who is a desk monkey, can choose to set my activity level to "active" and commit to spending an hour on Mr. Elliptical daily, or set my activity level to "sedentary" and log my visits to Mr. Elliptical as activity over and above my lifestyle, thereby earning extra calories that (the way the MFP site is designed) I am expected to eat back. I'll end up with about the same calories every day.

Example, based on 1 lb/week weight loss:
- sedentary gives me 1,890 calories a day.
- active gives me 2.,270 a day.

So if I did a 400-calorie workout daily, I could choose between sedentary and logging the workout, and active and not logging it, and be allotted nearly the exact same number of calories.

If you set your activity level to something that includes your exercise and THEN log the exercise, you're double-eating those calories back and cutting into the very deficit that is designed to lose the weight for you. In my case, if I set my lifestyle to active, then ate back that 400 calories, it's 4/5ths of the 500-calorie deficit that loses me the 1 lb/week. So I'd be losing 1 pound every 5 weeks.

Simple: see these guns to the left.. yea, my biceps & shoulders.

.. omg.

For many who do not eat back, or do not eat the right combinations of foods (think proteins, veggies & fiber), yes, you will lose weight. For many even keep it off. But if you compare your physique with someone who works out & EATS, you will "look" scrawny & unhealthy.

-- I agree. Veggies, proteins, and fiber are important. But some are assuming that people who only take in 1200 cals a day don't get this is wrong, and I don't think they will look sick.

Eat your veggies, peeps!!