Is it best to eat your calories back?

cwolfman13

Fueling your fitness is pretty important. Fit and healthy people eat and know how to properly fuel their bodies for performance and recovery.

spyro88

I started here 4 days ago and have been wondering about this too. I have exercised every day burning between 4-600 calories (roughly) each time. I haven't eaten back much over the past three days, but today I'm really hungry all of a sudden, so I'm thinking today I can eat a little more and use some of those calories. As long as I don't do the same EVERY day I will still have a deficit and lose weight.

My thinking is we should try listen to our bodies, and try to spot the difference between when we are *really* hungry, or when we just feel like food for comfort or whatever other reason. I'm not planning to eat back my calories for the sake of it but also won't starve my body on days when I'm truly hungry Let's see if it works for me and well done to those who have found what works for them.

LivingtheLeanDream

Its depends on your mfp settings, if you're set at sedentary then are can eat up to 50-75% of your exercise calories back.

GeemaLeema

When I first started MFP it wasn't the hunger I struggled with, it was the tiredness!! Eating less made me incredibly tired, plus I was dealing with a lot of stress at the time. On the nights I went to the gym to do a class it was worse. I would walk 15 mins to the gym, do an hour of intense exercise and then a slow 15 mins back. Afterwards I would eat a normal sized dinner to reach my deficit and sometimes more! By this time it's 8pm and all I want to do is sleep and I would feel like that for the rest of the evening until I gave in.

I've recently discovered that I have to eat straight away after exercise. It could be something small but as soon as I stop, I need to be giving myself more energy otherwise I completely burn out. So definitely agree that you should eat back some of the calories that you've burnt.

erickirb

spyro88 wrote: »

I started here 4 days ago and have been wondering about this too. I have exercised every day burning between 4-600 calories (roughly) each time. I haven't eaten back much over the past three days, but today I'm really hungry all of a sudden, so I'm thinking today I can eat a little more and use some of those calories. As long as I don't do the same EVERY day I will still have a deficit and lose weight.

My thinking is we should try listen to our bodies, and try to spot the difference between when we are *really* hungry, or when we just feel like food for comfort or whatever other reason. I'm not planning to eat back my calories for the sake of it but also won't starve my body on days when I'm truly hungry Let's see if it works for me and well done to those who have found what works for them.

Even if you eat 100% of your exercise calories you will be in a deficit if you picked a goal to lose weight on this site.