Should I eat the extra calories I gain through exercise?

sararoy1981

Hi Everyone,

I'm fairly new to this site, I'm an impatient person but I'm also not stupid - also know that I can't lose the 4 stone I want to lose overnight!

I was just wondering what everyone's opinions/the facts were on whether I should eat the calories I accrue through exercise.

I'm currently on 1200 calories a day but should I burn off say approx 300 calories with exercise - do I NEED to eat those 300 in order to lose weight or not? I'm conscious of the fact that you do have to eat to lose weight and don't want to not eat enough so I don't lose as I'm led to believe that if you don't eat enough then you won't lose weight! This has been brought on by the fact that my first week I lost 3lbs but this week I have only lost 1lb (and I am aware that the first week may have been a lot of water I was retaining).

If anyone could help with opinions or facts then I'd appreciate it - in simple terms please, I don't understand all the science behind losing weight!

Thank you :-)

roflsauce

Is it cardio? If so, nah you don't have to if you don't want to.

Edit: Even though you're impatient (as you say) Don't overdo it. Take your time, if it feels like you're starving it's easier to revert back to old habits. If you're satisfied and don't mind, you don't have to eat it all back.

legreene515

I do a little bit of both. Some days, I eat all my exercise calories, but most days I only dip into a few of them. I feel like my body does a better job losing weight if I have a higher calorie deficit. So, if I do Taekwondo and burn 1100 calories, I may only eat back 500 calories of that.

You just kind of have to see what works for your body.

grimendale

Assuming you are using the MFP method, yes you should eat back your exercise calories. This is not to promote weight loss but to promote health and to ensure that most of the weight lost is fat. When you burn calories, you burn from both muscle and fat cells. This is always the case, but the ratio varies based on a lot of different factors. The size of your calories deficit is a large one. MFP already creates a deficit for you, so if you eat all of the calories MFP recommends, you are still eating less than you need for maintenance. When you exercise, your required calories to maintain increases, so if you don't eat an equivalent amount, your deficit will grow too large. This can lead to lower energy and can also cause your body to try to hold on to fat reserves to offset a perceived food shortage (if the large deficit is maintained for long enough), such that you begin to burn muscle instead. You will still lose weight this way, but much of the weight lost will be muscle, which you want to keep. 1200 calories is already pretty low for most people, so dropping much below that is not recommended.

matyoung125

Eat. You need at least 1200 cal a day to avoid "starvation mode" so if you burn 300 cal from exercise you need to eat at least 1500 cal. You'll soon find what works for you. Good luck x

roflsauce

Eat. You need at least 1200 cal a day to avoid "starvation mode" so if you burn 300 cal from exercise you need to eat at least 1500 cal. You'll soon find what works for you. Good luck x

That's false though.

HollieDollieeeex

I was confused by this too, but after researching peoples posts on here, I found that apparently MFP already includes the deficit to make you lose 1 or 2 lbs (whatever you have set in your settings/goals)

That's why it says 'calories remaining' if you have logged exercise. I personally find I feel that i'm eating waaaay too much if I eat them all back (average burn 500cals a day through a heart rate monitor) I would aim to eat some of them back, go by how you feel. I now try and eat according to my hunger, not my mind or what MFP says.

Good Luck xx

shivaslives

I was most successful losing weight when I ate back most or all of my exercise calories and maintaining a consistent calorie deficit each day.

000WhiteRose000

There are a lot of opinions but I wouldn't. Definitly not if it's cardio. If you are looking to gain muscle make sure you eat enough protein, which should be about 40% of your deit especially if you are on 1200.

sararoy1981

Thanks everyone for your comments and advise....although some of it is mixed I've decided to try and eat about 75% of my calories back if not them all. I'm trying this for a few weeks and then I'll try not eating them back at all to see if this makes a difference. At the moment I'm only losing 1lb per week (apart from my first week when I lost 3 and I'm presuming some of this was fluid) and have 4 stone to go so was hoping it would at least be 2lbs a week :-(