It sounds great to be able to work off 1000 calories and then add that right back onto your diet, but can you really trust this method of calorie-counting, or should you switch to a static number for intake and try to work in your exercise where you can?

Personally, I do not eat back the calories that I burn exercising. They are "gravy" (no pun intended) and help me lose just that much faster.

I also do not put much stock in calorie estimators. No database can know how many calories I actually burned. Most equipment calculators are woefully wrong.

But, that is just me. Others may respond differently.

The idea is fine, say 1750 is my goal, but I worked out so I got 300 calories extra, then I can actually eat 2050 that day and still have the same loss as if I only ate 1750, that is usually how I do it.
However, if you eat 1750 and still get the 300, they you end up with 1450, and that is just fine, then you will lose a little more (pending you are in healthy ranges), you don't HAVE to 'eat back' your calories.

I do think the daily plate OVER estimates on calories burned, but that's just my opinion.
=)
The fact that you are counting is AWESOME.

Thank you so much!

I think I'm just worried about trusting it too much and eating way over and then gaining. But either way, it can't hurt to really look hard at what I eat every day and be able to examine that for future. I guess we'll know tomorrow how it worked out.

I use DP and I'll be honest ... I hate (hate, loathe, despise) the whole "net calories" and eating back what you exercise off thing. To me, it makes it just ridiculously complex. There are dozens and dozens and dozens of threads asking for explanations on it on their forums ... it's just unnecessary. (Did I mention I don't like it? )

I don't use their calculators. I don't use their estimates. I used the Mayo Clinic calculator to figure out what maintenance calories are for my goal weight (135 lbs, 1700 calories) and then I tweaked that over a period of weeks. At this point, I eat 1500 cals a day (give or take 50 or so) and I exercise (HIIT, some ss-cardio, and weight lifting : 30-45 mins, 4-5 days a week. Plus one or two days a week of extreme activity due to my job). That's it. I don't subtract exercised cals from food or eat back anything or any more complicated calculations. In fact I don't even note my exercise on DP just to keep it simple.

I eat 1500 cals.
I exercise and don't worry about cals burned.
And I'm losing weight.
Period.

It works for me.

.

Yeah - now I'm worried I'm going to lose all of yesterday's hard work because I ate so much today

I'm a daily plate user too. I love the site! User friendly, huge data base on foods and exercise, along with the pies/charts/graphs. Can't forget the little incentives they give with the badges for faithfully logging. Everything I need to keep on keeping on.

But...

I eat what I eat. I exercise how I exercise. I log them both. I am working on consistancy with exercise and honing in on habit. Saying that though... Never the two shall meet. Meaning, calories in vs. calories out. I am in the same camp with PhotoChick who says it better then I do, but the belief system is spot on.

Use it to log... leave their forums behind unless it has to do with logging. Come here for inspiration and advice.

I feel that Daily plate allows me to many calories given what the Mayo clinic caluclator suggests would be maintence at this weight and at goal weight. I also spent a few hours the other week using other calculators and came to the soame conclusion. But I do love the Daily plates very easy tools, so I have now taken an average and it seems to be working... but my first week using TDP amounts, I was really struggling to lose.

I dont want to seem negative because the tools there are fantastic with a huge database of foods for every country and its easy to add other foods to that are not in the databse.

Yep - I went up 2.5 pounds from yesterday. UGH.

you dont actually gain weight from eating one day. You might be holding fluid. If you worked hard then your muscles need extra fluid to heal.
I do not eat back what i burn. I just enjoy the bigger loss.
debi

Okay...the whole purpose of calorie counting is to CREATE a calorie deficit.

The whole point is to eat less calories than you are burning through living, and activity/exercise. The main reason for exercise is to BURN calories...increasing the deficit.

It makes absolutely no sense, to exercise, butn 100, 200, 300, or whatever calories...and then add them back into your diet on purpose.

If you are supposed to aim for 1700, 1500, or whatever calories per day-then aim for that. Then exercise to increase your calorie deficit...inducing weight loss.

Now, there ARE some instances where you need to eat more due to heavy exercise-if you are training for a marathon, etc. For regular weight loss, however, you don't want to see 250 calories burned on the treadmill monitor...and then go and eat something 250 calories extra.

In my opinion, you shouldn't "add back" exercise calories...when the whole point of all this is to LOSE weight by burning more than you take in.

I adjust my settings for a 'sedentary" person, even though I exercise for 90 minutes a day and those are the calories I follow. I don't "eat back" my calories burned during exercise.

Well, I did exercise for about two hours yesterday (not all at once, obviously), so that might be it.

I know - the premise was just so enticing. lol. I'm considering trying to aim for zero net calories on the site now, though. Sort of trying to burn anything I eat for the day, but that might also be a wee bit crazy. I'll stick to their (reasonable) recommendation of 1600-1700 calories and then be happy with what I burn as well.

Thank you guys for the support and the advice. I was really, really wanting to just feel defeated today, but instead I got on the bike for half an hour and got my frustration out that way.

In truth, 203 was what I weighed two days ago, so it's possible that yesterday's dip down to 200.5 was the kind of "freak occurance". I'm going to aim for 1600 calories, burn what I burn, and check in again tomorrow.

But doesn't that put you at <1000 calories?

I thought you had to eat back at least "half" of your exercise calories?

If you stick to eating the minimum of calories to lose weight then add exercise on top of that, which will eat into those minimum calories you are having to just stay alive (breathing..e.t.c..) then over time your body can go into starvation mode.. or so I was told by a dietitian.

I am confused now!

Yeah, but I think the problem is that daily plate goes too much in the other direction. No matter how much I worked out yesterday, I should *not* have eaten 3500 calories.