Do you eat back calories you burned from exercising?

epido

If I am feeling hungry later in the evening, I will have a small snack that may put me at the point where I am eating back some of my exercise calories, but I use MFP simply to track calories. I am working with a trainer, and have been following the plan we set up for me for everything else, so I manually enter my caloric limit for the day into my settings, rather than using MFP's guidelines.

cwolfman13

Onesnap wrote: »

HotMamaInWorks wrote: »

cwolfman13 wrote: »

It's very rare I eat them back. Occasionally if I have a 'treat day' I might eat some of them. I honestly think I wouldn't lose weight if I ate my exercise calories back, it defeats the whole point of exercising.

If you think the only point of exercising is to burn calories to lose weight, then you are really missing the boat...big time. Also, you obviously don't understand how this tool is designed to work...i.e. your calorie goal with MFP is your weight loss deficit WITHOUT any exercise whatsoever...i.e. if you set everything up in your profile correctly and you are as accurate as possible with your intake, you can lose weight with MFP's calorie goal without lifting a finger in exercise.

I've been her for two years and I'm still always shocked that so many people have no clue how this tool actually works.

so condescending...why?

I read it as more frustration than anything else. There's been thousands of posts on this topic over the years and it does not seem to be helping.

Also, if the point of exercise was just to burn calories and lose weight...then why would people like me who have been in maintenance for a year and a half be riding around 80 - 100 miles per week and lifting weights? The purpose of exercise is fitness...burning a few extra calories is a nice bi-product and allows me to drink some beer without worrying about getting fat...but burning those calories is far from the sole purpose of exercise.

RGv2

DawnieB1977 wrote: »

It's very rare I eat them back. Occasionally if I have a 'treat day' I might eat some of them. I honestly think I wouldn't lose weight if I ate my exercise calories back, it defeats the whole point of exercising.

agal129

Hey, hey guys. No need to get upset about things. I understand how MFP and the settings work. I'm not an idiot. My goal is to lose weight. I was just wondering if people had more success LOSING WEIGHT with eating back calories over not eating the calories. TeaBea made an important point that eating back the calories can keep you from losing more muscle mass than fat mass.

Wolfman, to some people the point of exercise IS solely for losing weight. You can't tell people how to view something. Now, obviously, once they've reached their goal weight they still will have to either keep working out or reduce their daily calorie intake to maintain.

DawnieB1977

I think some people need to just agree to disagree! Of course I know how this works, I've logged for 845 consecutive days. However, I don't lose weight eating above a certain amount, it doesn't work for me. I increased my calories a bit while pregnant and I now find myself having to lose a lot of weight again! Even now exercising loads and looking after 3 kids, I have a pretty big deficit and I still only lose 1-1.5lbs a week. And yes I do use a food scale.
I think we all have a certain amount that works for us, and some people are lucky that they can eat more. I am not one of those people. I don't starve though by any means! I aim for 1550 calories. With exercise I do net below 1200 sometimes.
I enjoy exercising (I was still doing aerobics at 38 weeks pregnant!) and I do strength training. Weight loss is not the only reason I do it.

EMTFreakGirl

I get the concept of having the eating them back "built in" to MFP, however I don't trust the numbers. I compromise and eat back 1/2. That being said, there are days that I am not hungry and it's more like a 1/4, and then there are days when I am famished and eat more than half...I figure it evens out to about 1/2. Best of luck to you.