What happens if you don't eat your exercise calories back?

JordLfc1993

does it have any affect on your ability to lose weight?

DeguelloTex

You'll lose more weight, all other things being equal. Whether this is good or bad depends on the circumstances.

madhatter2013

Just means you'll have a bigger deficit, however, be careful because if you have a large enough deficit for a long enough period of time, your body will have a starvation response (not starvation mode). A physiologic response to a marked decrease in caloric intake: the basal metabolic rate falls to a minimum to conserve energy.

http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Starvation+Response

DemoraFairy

It won't stop you losing weight (if anything, you'll lose weight quicker), but it can mean you end up in too large of a calorie deficit, which is unhealthy. Eating too little has the side effects of under eating you'd expect (tiredness, illness, etc) as well as making it harder to stick to your diet and making it more likely to give up. How bad it is depends on how much you're exercising - if it's only a couple of hundred calories difference it won't really matter, and many people don't eat back all of their exercise calories and experience no ill effects. But if you're eating 1200 a day and spending 3 hours in the gym each day burning 800 calories you're only netting 400, and that's clearly not a good idea.

JordLfc1993

Well I eat 1500 calories a day, and do 90 minutes on an exercise bike a day. I have no idea how many calories I burn whilst exercising.

DeguelloTex

If you're not eating them back, your activity level is set correctly, and the 1500 is accurate, whatever you're losing beyond what 1500 would predict is in the ballpark of how much the bike is burning.

daniwilford

JordLfc1993 wrote: »

Well I eat 1500 calories a day, and do 90 minutes on an exercise bike a day. I have no idea how many calories I burn whilst exercising.

This is not enough information to calculate how much you are burning, we are lacking your body weight and the speed and resistance settings on the bike. If you begin to lose more than 1% of your body weight per week on average, then you may need to increase your calorie intake. Losing weight at about 1% of your body weight per week will help insure that you are burning mostly fat, retaining muscle, and properly nourishing your body.

ElJefeChief

If you're exercising lightly to perhaps moderately, it probably just translates to a bigger deficit and bigger losses over time. If you're a big-time endurance athlete and log multiple hours working out per week, you're probably risking some health issues by not eating a bit extra to make up for your burns.