Do you eat the calories you are burning from exercise?

LilaIoannidou

Well, do you?

EvgeniZyntx

Some, yes. I try to keep weight loss at about 1-2 lbs a week max. So If I'm losing more, I up my calories. I'm burning close to 4-5K cals a week in wilful exercise.

Fuel your efforts.

smcrimmon84

Not always and not all of them.

SarcasmIsMyLoveLanguage

Depends. While I was losing weight, I aimed to "eat back" about 50% of my calories burned which seems to be fairly common around here. The rationale is that you are fueling your body for activity, while also accounting for a margin of error in calculating calorie burn.

Now that I'm maintaining, I generally eat back 75% or more of my calories.

TeaBea

The short answer is yes. If you are using MFP as designed, you are expected to eat calories back. That should ideally bring you back to the deficit you signed on for.

However, calorie burns are estimates. Activity level is a range (not 1 number). Food logging, some people are not terribly accurate.

Find out what works best for you. I try to eat 100% of eat my calories back (by my estimate). Because the closer you get to goal, the more likely you are to lose lean muscle mass. I want fat loss, not weight loss.

lemurcat12

Yes, but I don't add them back and eat them that day. I estimate my total maintenance calories based on my activity level. I think it's undermining your fitness goals not to take activity into account. My maintenance if sedentary is about 1650 calories, but I'm not sedentary, so eating as if I were would be a bad and unhealthy idea.

kimny72

TeaBea wrote: »

The short answer is yes. If you are using MFP as designed, you are expected to eat calories back. That should ideally bring you back to the deficit you signed on for.

However, calorie burns are estimates. Activity level is a range (not 1 number). Food logging, some people are not terribly accurate.

Find out what works best for you. I try to eat 100% of eat my calories back (by my estimate). Because the closer you get to goal, the more likely you are to lose lean muscle mass. I want fat loss, not weight loss.

+1!

VintageFeline

Yes, yes I do. It's the biggest perk of exercising.

Ready2Rock206

No, but I increased my calorie goal to account for that fact. (so in a way - yes I do, but I don't log them and then eat them.)

tryin2die2self

I am currently trying to lose body fat and weight, so I eat back about 50% of my calories Monday thru Saturday. On Sunday I try to do a double workout which I turn into a refeed. I will usually end of eating back all of my calories on that day. Once I reach my initial body fat goal, 18%, I will switch up. My plan is to eat back all of my calories from working out, pushing to hit 13% body fat.

shadow2soul

Yes I do. Granted I have an activity tracker that adjusts my calories up or down as needed in the form of an exercise adjustment. I tried not eating them once and it resulted in constant fatigue, my mood was crap (really irritable), and my workouts suffered. Week 1 went okay but week 2-3 is when I really started to feel it. At the time MFP had my goal at 1370 calories before exercise/activity adjustments and I was working out about 8 + hrs a week.

middlehaitch

Yes. For all the good reasons above.

Why would I want to be thin, unhealthy, weak as a kitten, sick all the time, with a low bone density and fuzzy head when taking a bit longer to lose the weight by eating back those needed calories would help alleviate all those problems?

Cheers, h.

Meganthedogmom

I eat a portion of them back. This is a big part of the reason I do cardio - I like to eat

How I used to do it is take whatever MFP gives me for a calorie burn, and change it to 75% of that. This worked for me for some time.

However, since I've started running/training more frequently, I've seen a decrease in weight loss. I recently changed my logging to 50% of the MFP calorie burn to see if that helps.

shadowfax_c11

Most of the time yes. I go by what my Fitbit gives me and almost never log exercise manually though. If I logged all of my martial arts workouts my calorie adjustments would be far too high and I would probably eat back 1/3-1/2 of that. I just don't log them.

riki44

I joined my fitness pal, I always workout at least 6 times a week, run/ elliptical 45 minutes and circuit hard core for 45 min every other daily. But my question is what activity level am I ? I have 2 choices, ' active' or 'highly active'. Then my friend said NOT to input my estimated calorie burn. I could easily burn 450 in one workout session then I walk a ton for my sales position. I'm unsure what my settings should be, I'm 145 and I want to be 134 before my wedding may 20

ncboiler89

LilaIoannidou wrote: »

Well, do you?

If I'm hungry

zyxst

I do because the mere thought of maintaining my weight on 1200 calories for the next 30-40 years is pathetic.

ncboiler89

zyxst wrote: »

I do because the mere thought of maintaining my weight on 1200 calories for the next 30-40 years is pathetic.

1200 calories is maintenance for you?

riki44

Thank you for your input? Any other advice on " activity" level you selected and inputting calorie burn or one over the other?

riki44

Well if I input
" active" only
Loose 2 pounds / week
Add- 400 activity calorie burn
Then my consumption is 1600 calories per day IF I input exercise

Alarae21

It depends. If I'm hungry, I'll eat them. If I'm not, I don't.

I probably eat about 1200-1300 calories a day tracked, so my exercise calories really act for a buffer for inconsistencies in logging (ie underestimating what has been eaten).