Do you eat back your exercise calories?

katrien1

Today I burned just over 700 calories from running and a spinning class. I was wondering, should you eat back those calories or not? Thanks

TallGlassOfQuirky

If you're using MFP's method, yes. It's designed to take only into account your general activity level based on your height and weight and age, so exercise calories you "earn" are designed to be eaten.

Bel0602

I don't. I feel like it totally defeats the purpose of burning the calories in the first place

ladynocturne

If you have your MFP settings set to Sedentary and are logging your exercise, the point is to eat all the goal calories.

Otherwise it looks like this 1200-700= 500 NET calories. This is barely enough for your brain to run. If you feel that MFP is over estimating your burn, eat closer to 80% back.

If you eat 1900 calories today and burn off 700 calories, it looks like this:

1900-700=1200 NET calories, your goal for the day to lose weight.

1200 calories already has your deficit built into it, you don't have to eat less than that or exercise to stay under it to lose weight.

I eat 80%-90% of my exercise calories on top of my 1450 calorie a day goal, I've been consistently losing 1lb or more a week.

chelseascounter

Nope. I rarely exercise and the rare days that I do, I won't eat them back. If i exercised more often I would just raise my cal goal.

__Di__

Sometimes I eat some of them back, other times I eat none of them back, I never eat all of them back.

Annie_92

I don't track my workouts on mfp, but most days that I work out, I invariably get hungrier and eat back about 1/2 to 2/3 of my workout calories.

Achrya

If you have your MFP settings set to Sedentary and are logging your exercise, the point is to eat all the goal calories.

Otherwise it looks like this 1200-700= 500 NET calories. This is barely enough for your brain to run. If you feel that MFP is over estimating your burn, eat closer to 80% back.

If you eat 1900 calories today and burn off 700 calories, it looks like this:

1900-700=1200 NET calories, your goal for the day to lose weight.

1200 calories already has your deficit built into it, you don't have to eat less than that or exercise to stay under it to lose weight.

I eat 80%-90% of my exercise calories on top of my 1450 calorie a day goal, I've been consistently losing 1lb or more a week.

Quoting this because it's the truth and hopefully will be read and there will be no more "I don't eat mine because that defeats the purpose."

Hope springs eternal.