Should I "eat back" my excercise calories?

missyrawien
missyrawien Posts: 37 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi guys,

I'm just back from some exercise and I was just wondering whether I should be "eating back" the calories I burn off or not? I'm eating between 1200-1400 calories a day in my diet at the moment. If I burn an extra 300 should I try to eat them later in the day or maybe eat an extra 100?

Thanks for any information!

Replies

  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
    I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but a lot of us have found that eating too little (and for me 1200-1400 is too little) can stall our weight loss. Yes, MFP is designed for you to eat them back. I'll add the caveat that sometimes it overestimates your burn if you're relying on their estimates instead of a heart rate monitor. But try to eat back at least a portion of them.
  • TeaBea
    TeaBea Posts: 14,517 Member
    MFP as designed assumes ZERO exercise - the deficit is built in without it. When you exercise you actually increase the decifit. The problem with an (overly) large deficit ..... muscle loss as well as fat loss.

    Fuel your workouts ..... but be careful as calorie burns are estimations.
  • rkcampbell
    rkcampbell Posts: 188 Member
    Yes....period.
  • rmontpetit
    rmontpetit Posts: 31 Member
    you can listen to jillian Mickael podcast she talk about that. when you are tring to loose like the last 10 -15 pound you need to do a smaller calorie deficit than when you have more to loose. because your body "don't want" to loose those "vanity pound" could be help full
  • Sidpandy
    Sidpandy Posts: 14 Member
    Hi When I cycle 25 miles I burn on average 2100 calories, the information is taken from my Endomondo tracker. However I take only half of the calories as I feel calorie counters are only estimates.
  • lisamarie1780
    lisamarie1780 Posts: 432 Member
    Yes....period.

    especially if you are eating such a low calorie diet

    check out this http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

    Enter your stats, it will tell you your BMR, which is the number you should be eating as a bare minimum...

    It will also tell you what to eat to lose weight at a steady/healthy pace

    You would be surprised how many people are eating needlessly low....

    I worked out my calorie goals from there and changed my settings on MFP manually. Now I just stay within my goal and don't log exercise calories as Scooby's workshop already factors them in... makes life simpler

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