Eating exercise calories burned

thereshegoesagain

I try to stay close to 1,200 calories a day, give or take a few. Several times here, I've read not to drop below that number as it's not healthy.
I swim nearly every day, today I swam twice for a total of 1,000 calories burned and I ate an extra 300 calories for a total of about 1,500 calories.
But since I burned 1,000 calories wouldn't that take me below the 1,200 minimum I've been told to consume?

debubbie

That would take you below the 1,200 minimum that you should consume. Going under 1,200 net calories consistently could cause you long term health problems. You should probably consume more of your exercise calories to bring you above the 1,200 minimum and see how you feel and how your weight loss progresses.

zyr1974

Thank you for posting this. I too am confused about net calories. My daily calorie intake should be 2000, a 500 calorie deficit from maintanance calories. Its usally hard for me to reach 2000 calorie and tend to just eat around 1800. Between my fitbit and crossfit training my net calories sometimes will be under 1200. I don't know if I should be eating more.

arditarose

zyr1974 wrote: »

Thank you for posting this. I too am confused about net calories. My daily calorie intake should be 2000, a 500 calorie deficit from maintanance calories. Its usally hard for me to reach 2000 calorie and tend to just eat around 1800. Between my fitbit and crossfit training my net calories sometimes will be under 1200. I don't know if I should be eating more.

If you were eating 2500+ to maintain/gain weight why is it hard to eat 2000 now? Are you using a food scale?

terbusha

Personally, I don't eat my exercise calories, nor to I even keep track of what I burn during exercise. I'm a practical guy. What I do and what I recommend to people is to eat at a calorie level that allows you to make good progress towards your goal. If you are trying to lose weight, eat so you drop 1-2 lbs/week. This assumes an average calorie burn from you getting in all of your workouts. This will be different for everyone, so you'll have to do some trial and error to figure it out. I'd start ~1600 cal/day. Hit this goal, along with your macros and getting in your workouts, for 2 weeks. If you lose 1-2 lbs/week, you're good to go. If you lose too much, increase your intake and repeat. If you don't lose enough, reduce your intake a bit and repeat. After a few cycles, you'll figure out what works for you in your situation.

LivingtheLeanDream

eat back 50-75% of your exercise calories, fuel your body right and you'll have energy to move even more

SezxyStef

terbusha wrote: »

Personally, I don't eat my exercise calories, nor to I even keep track of what I burn during exercise. I'm a practical guy. What I do and what I recommend to people is to eat at a calorie level that allows you to make good progress towards your goal. If you are trying to lose weight, eat so you drop 1-2 lbs/week. This assumes an average calorie burn from you getting in all of your workouts. This will be different for everyone, so you'll have to do some trial and error to figure it out. I'd start ~1600 cal/day. Hit this goal, along with your macros and getting in your workouts, for 2 weeks. If you lose 1-2 lbs/week, you're good to go. If you lose too much, increase your intake and repeat. If you don't lose enough, reduce your intake a bit and repeat. After a few cycles, you'll figure out what works for you in your situation.

throwing random numbers out is not a good idea.

And why give it 2-3 months to figure out how much you need to eat to lose weight when all you have to do is enter your stats into MFP and it does it for you.?????

OP eating exercise calories back is what MFP is setup for. Netting at least 1200 calories a day is the best way to go.

I equate it to putting gas in your car.

If you fill your tank and drive to a destination that took 3/4 of that tank you are not going to turn the car around and expect to get back home without putting gas in it...you would run out and be stuck...no you are going to put in at least enough to get you back...that is what exercise calories are...gas to run the vehicle that is your body.

Angierae75

My advice is always to eat back half for a month, then evaluate. Are you miserable? Are you losing too fast? Too slow? Then either bump it to 25% or 75%, depending on what your results look like

Personally, I have a Fitbit and I've eaten back all the calories it's given me and I continue to lose weight, so I'm just going with it.

peaceout_aly

MFP is generous, especially with cals burned for swimming. Eat back half and you'll be good.

cwolfman13

it's 5th grade math. when you put in all of your stats and activity level and you tell MFP you want to lose X Lbs per week, MFP will determine what your maintenance calories would be as per your stats and activity level, noting that with MFP, your activity level does NOT include any exercise...just day to day...and from there, MFP will take a deduction as per your desired rate of loss.

So let's say that with an activity level of light active WITHOUT exercise and you tell MFP you want to lose 1 Lb per week and MFP gives you a target of 1,500 calories...this means that MFP is estimating your maintenance calories to be around 2,000 WITHOUT exercise and is giving you a 1,500 calorie target in order for you to have a 500 calorie per day deficit (2,000 - 1,500 = 500).

Now let's say you exercise because you know it's good for you...let's say you burn 300 calories...you can eat back those calories because now you've completed an activity that is unaccounted for in your activity level...so you could eat 1,800 calories and still lose that same 1 Lb per week because you'd still have a 500 calorie deficit...because your maintenance number will have increased to 2,000 + 300 = 2,300 and 2,300 - 1,800 = 500 calorie deficit still.

The difficulty is, and where most people go wrong, is that they substantially overestimate their burns from exercise and on top of that, people tend to underestimate intake...so what ends up happening is that they think they're eating in a deficit, but with all of the estimation errors, they're really not.

divvyh

Confused about this too. Having read posts above: still unsure.

newfutures

SezxyStef wrote: »

terbusha wrote: »

Personally, I don't eat my exercise calories, nor to I even keep track of what I burn during exercise. I'm a practical guy. What I do and what I recommend to people is to eat at a calorie level that allows you to make good progress towards your goal. If you are trying to lose weight, eat so you drop 1-2 lbs/week. This assumes an average calorie burn from you getting in all of your workouts. This will be different for everyone, so you'll have to do some trial and error to figure it out. I'd start ~1600 cal/day. Hit this goal, along with your macros and getting in your workouts, for 2 weeks. If you lose 1-2 lbs/week, you're good to go. If you lose too much, increase your intake and repeat. If you don't lose enough, reduce your intake a bit and repeat. After a few cycles, you'll figure out what works for you in your situation.

throwing random numbers out is not a good idea.

And why give it 2-3 months to figure out how much you need to eat to lose weight when all you have to do is enter your stats into MFP and it does it for you.?????

OP eating exercise calories back is what MFP is setup for. Netting at least 1200 calories a day is the best way to go.

I equate it to putting gas in your car.

If you fill your tank and drive to a destination that took 3/4 of that tank you are not going to turn the car around and expect to get back home without putting gas in it...you would run out and be stuck...no you are going to put in at least enough to get you back...that is what exercise calories are...gas to run the vehicle that is your body.

Because MFP is a generalization and does not work for everyone as an individual. MFP wasn't working well for me lately like it had before because it does not take in to account for post partum, medical and metabolical changes and other factors like that. sometimes you need to give it time to see what works for you instead of taking a lazy way out. anyone can put in a couple numbers for a computer to give a goal but its best to see what your individual body responds to.

callsitlikeiseeit

i typically eat back halfish of my burns (which are far less than what mfp tries to give- i enter mine manually) and lose at a pretty consistent 2 lbs/ week. I'm on 1400 cals/ day and try to net around 1200. the random day here and there of being under isn't a big deal to me, because theres plenty of days I'm over LOL, but I wouldn't make it a habit.

cwolfman13

divvyh wrote: »

Confused about this too. Having read posts above: still unsure.

why? I think I explained it pretty well...it's just math.

rhoda1990

terbusha wrote: »

Personally, I don't eat my exercise calories, nor to I even keep track of what I burn during exercise. I'm a practical guy. What I do and what I recommend to people is to eat at a calorie level that allows you to make good progress towards your goal. If you are trying to lose weight, eat so you drop 1-2 lbs/week. This assumes an average calorie burn from you getting in all of your workouts. This will be different for everyone, so you'll have to do some trial and error to figure it out. I'd start ~1600 cal/day. Hit this goal, along with your macros and getting in your workouts, for 2 weeks. If you lose 1-2 lbs/week, you're good to go. If you lose too much, increase your intake and repeat. If you don't lose enough, reduce your intake a bit and repeat. After a few cycles, you'll figure out what works for you in your situation.

1600 cals!!?? That's super low. I know you're right on the trial and error part but I can't bring myself to eat less than 2500.
Might need to switch up my macros....

TeaBea

divvyh wrote: »

Confused about this too. Having read posts above: still unsure.

MFP gives you a deficit with ZERO exercise factored in. That way people who can't/won't exercise will still lose weight.

When you exercise, you increase the deficit. So when MFP adds these calories back....the intent is to get you back to your original deficit. However, calorie burns are estimates........this is why people eat back a percent. Track that for a couple weeks. Then tweak as needed.

Really large deficits make is harder for your body to support existing lean muscle.