do you leave calories on the table?

shathaway123

Just wondering what y'all do? I'm allowed about 1450 cals a day. After my exercise, that number increases quite a bit, but I try to stay within the 1450. Do you eat your additional exercise calories? Or leave them on the table? Just wondering. I love seeing the message "if you did this every day you'd weight 144 in 5 weeks"

queenliz99

Yes, you should eat back at least half your calories if not all of them. This how MFP was designed.

TavistockToad

Eat them, they taste the best!

SailorKnightWing

queenliz99 wrote: »

Yes, you should eat back at least half your calories if not all of them. This how MFP was designed.

That's how it's designed, but almost all the exercise calorie counts are drastically overestimated. A good practice is to start by eating back half your exercise calories. If you continue to lose weight and aren't hungry, keep doing it. If you lose weight but are hungry, eat more back. If you don't lose weight, eat fewer back.

These calculators help you track your input a lot better than your output.

sjlr16

TavistockToad wrote: »

Eat them, they taste the best!

Hahaa that's hilarious

tobykeohane

I don't understand why you would eat your calories you've just worked hard at burning. I thought you had to eat less cald that's you excercise to loose weight so surely eating them will make you gain weight !

MonkeyMel21

tobykeohane wrote: »

I don't understand why you would eat your calories you've just worked hard at burning. I thought you had to eat less cald that's you excercise to loose weight so surely eating them will make you gain weight !

Your calorie count that MFP has given you is calculated to allow you to lose weight WITHOUT exercise. Added calorie burn from exercise is extra and eating those back just fuels your exercise. But I always hear the suggestion of just eating half back to account for any errors/miscalculation. You don't HAVE to eat them back but it is how the program was designed.

Gremlin131313

tobykeohane wrote: »

I don't understand why you would eat your calories you've just worked hard at burning. I thought you had to eat less cald that's you excercise to loose weight so surely eating them will make you gain weight !

You've already burned them, so eating them back won't cause you to gain weight unless the burns logged are much higher than what was actually burned. Most people here are aiming to keep their weight loss to a certain level each week, and their calorie goal already factors in that deficit. Without eating back exercise calories, it just creates a bigger deficit, however eating them will just leave you with the original deficit.

shathaway123

Thanks for all the great information. My WW tracker broke so I am giving this a try, first week I was down 4 pounds!! My weight loss at WW was on a stall, so happy I hopped onto MFP

kami3006

I eat all of mine. It kept my rate of loss steady and fueled my workouts allowing my to increase my lifts. Doing the same at maintenance.