Should we really be eating back the calories we burn??

mirandafinch · February 2018

I find this so confusing, say I work hard to burn 300 calories at the gym should i be eating them back or keep the deficit?

goatg · February 2018

Eat up to half if you’re hungry.

gymprincess1234 · February 2018

Why is it confusing you? It all depends of how big of a deficit you want.

For example, my maintenance is 1700, I eat 1200, so the deficit is 500 (to lose 1kg/week). If I burn extra 300 at the gym, I can eat them back and still lose that 1kg, or not eat them back and lose more than 1kg.

TavistockToad · February 2018

mirandafinch wrote: »

I find this so confusing, say I work hard to burn 300 calories at the gym should i be eating them back or keep the deficit?

Eat them. You have a deficit before exercise.

heybales · February 2018

mirandafinch wrote: »

I find this so confusing, say I work hard to burn 300 calories at the gym should i be eating them back or keep the deficit?

You've used probably any other sites - where you were asked to provide some level of planned weekly exercise.
An estimated daily burn was computed, and deficit taken for daily eating goal.

If you didn't do the exercise, or at the calories back - weight loss would slow or not happen.

MFP is different - helping to learn a life lesson as far as weight management.

You do more - you eat more.
You do less - you eat less. (that's the kicker for most)

In a diet, a tad less in either case.

MFP obtains that goal by not having any exercise expected or accounted for up front, merely daily life - and hopefully you were honest on that level.

Bigger deficit is not better in all cases.

AnvilHead · February 2018

Take the couple minutes it takes to watch this video, great explanation of it: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10503681/exercise-calories-do-i-eat-these-a-video-explanation/p1

CarvedTones · February 2018

It depends on what activity level you used to compute your daily burn of calories. If you said you are fairly active exercising a few hours a week, then you are already getting "credit " for the first few hours.

Jthanmyfitnesspal · February 2018

I go by this rule: If my heart rate was sustained in at least zone 3 (e.g., above ~120BPM) during the workout, I enter the workout in my diary and eat at least some of the calories back, depending on how hungry I am. Note that you can always bank them up for later, you don't have to eat all of them back on the same day!

You can get your calorie estimate from the MFP website, from an exercise machine, from a FitBit, from MapMy<whatever>, Garmin, GoogleFit, SamsungFit, AppleWatch, you name it. It helps if you have something to tell you that you actually elevated your HR.

This eliminates adding calories for activities that really don't burn that many calories, such as low intensity walking, etc.

spiriteagle99 · February 2018

I eat back all my exercise calories and have maintained easily for the past year. I actually eat somewhat over my goal, and still maintain, because the exercise I do burns a bit more than MFP says since I run and walk in a hilly area.

gymprincess1234 · February 2018

I personally do it intuitively. If I don't feel hungry, I won't eat just because I can, rather eat more on another day when I do feel like it.

sgt1372 · February 2018

How many exercise calories you eat back depends on:

1) how accurately you estimate and log your food and exercise calories AND

2) whether or not your calorie goal is accurate for the intended purpose (eg., the desired rate of loss or maintenance).

So, obviously there are too many variables involved to establish any hard/fast rules for how many exercise cals anyone "should" eat back.

Only experience (eg., trial and error) will determine what is "right" for each person.

mirandafinch · February 2018

Thanks guys for taking the time to respond. I think following the eat them back if I’m hungry strategy will work for me, I’m sure I won’t actually need them all x

sijomial · February 2018

CarvedTones wrote: »

It depends on what activity level you used to compute your daily burn of calories. If you said you are fairly active exercising a few hours a week, then you are already getting "credit " for the first few hours.

@CarvedTones
Not true for MyFitnessPal.
Activity and exercise are completely separate entities.
You can be sedentary and do loads of exercise - that was me before I retired.
I'm now active and still do loads of exercise.
You could also be highly active and do no formal exercise at all.

On a TDEE site activity and exercise are lumped together, not on here - the daily goal is plus exercise.

jenilla1 · February 2018

You already have a deficit built in without exercise. Exercise makes that deficit even bigger. Extreme deficits aren't sustainable for me, personally. I've always eaten most or all of my exercise calories back. I successfully lost and have maintained for almost 7 years now doing it. I earned those extra calories, I'm gonna eat them. Not only do I love eating food, but I also want to keep my body properly fueled so I don't burn out.

tinkerbellang83 · February 2018

tinkerbellang83 · February 2018

AMC110 · February 2018

I set my activity level to sedentary as I work a desk job, then any exercise I do on top of that I log and eat back the extra calories for after I subtract the calories I would have burned if I had just rested during that time using this net calorie converter.

heybales · February 2018

CarvedTones wrote: »

It depends on what activity level you used to compute your daily burn of calories. If you said you are fairly active exercising a few hours a week, then you are already getting "credit " for the first few hours.

To add to correct response by @sijomial - the hours of exercise merely created a goal on the Exercise Diary.

I've found the majority don't even notice it.

I wonder if it's still broken from years ago.

If you mean hoping the activity level makes up for doing some exercise - it really doesn't ramp up fast enough to incorporate exercise, since it has no corresponding level of matching exercise.

If walking is the exercise you mean, ya, there could be some trade, but you'd have no idea if correct trade.
Why not use it as designed rather than guessing.

heybales · February 2018

AMC110 wrote: »

I set my activity level to sedentary as I work a desk job, then any exercise I do on top of that I log and eat back the extra calories for after I subtract the calories I would have burned if I had just rested during that time using this net calorie converter.

If interested in getting that accurate, may as well move it up a level.

MFP already had you estimated to burn a certain amount per day/hour/min.

A deficit was taken from that to give you your eating goal.

If you really want it correct, you want the calories from exercise above and beyond what was already accounted for.

And it was not BMR level burn like that site is doing.
It was BMR x activity factor.

This is why some exercise that is low level calorie burn and low intensity for a long time can be such a negative effect with the whole eat back method. And why for others doing more intense shorter things it doesn't matter and it works as expected.

Look at what MFP expects you to burn daily, or a fresh day's eating goal + deficit.
That non-exercise TDEE / 1440 = per minute calorie burn already accounted for.

Whatever estimate for exercise you receive from the database - subtract that.
Eat that back.

kgirlhart · February 2018

mirandafinch wrote: »

I find this so confusing, say I work hard to burn 300 calories at the gym should i be eating them back or keep the deficit?

You've received some good answers, but I also think it is important to know if you are in maintenance (you posted this in the maintaining weight forum) or if you are still set up to lose weight. If you are in maintenance you do not want to eat at a deficit so you need to eat back the exercise calories. And if you are trying to lose you already have a deficit built in so you should still eat back the exercise calories so that you don't have too large of a deficit.

AMC110 · February 2018

heybales wrote: »

may as well move it up a level.

I considered changing my activity level but I don't exercise the same amount each week.

Should we really be eating back the calories we burn??

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