Should I eat exercise calories???

Nardoned

Hi all!

I'm just starting back with MFP with around 1320 calories per day. Today after the gym I burned about 400 calories for around 6,200 "steps" total for the day. Should I eat those calories or should I try to only eat the 1320 calories? The cravings and hunger are so real! Today I ate the calories and did not go over my total calories for the day, with "burned" calories included (around 1700).

Thanks!

Danielle

NorthCascades

Of course you should. You should eat weekend calories, too.

EDIT: Exercise is like driving your car. Calories are like gasoline. When you drive your car, you have to put more fuel in it. When you use your body, the same thing applies.

Nardoned

Thank you - that's what I thought. I'm definitely hungrier when I work out hard, but was confused.

Nardoned

What are weekend calories?

beckaluffagus

Listening to your body is the most important thing you can do. If you're hungry, eat a health snack! Like another poster said, your body needs fuel to do that hard work and as long as you aren't piling on empty calories, it probably isn't going to hurt you even if you go over.

beckaluffagus

healthy snack* lol.

NorthCascades

Nardoned wrote: »

What are weekend calories?

People have a lot of different strategies for losing weight. I've heard "don't eat your exercise calories they're a bonus," "eat a big spoonful of peanut butter before you go to bed," "eat as little as you can on the weekends since you probably watch a lot of movies then" and so many more. A lot of these don't make a lot of sense, well, they make sense to whoever is telling you to eat that way, but that doesn't help you.

I don't know how much weight you have to lose. I've lost 70 lbs so far and in an ideal world I'd like to get rid of a bit more. I've learned that there are only two things that really matter: calories, and not giving up.

Exercise makes you hungry, so you eat; it uses up energy, so you eat to replenish that. Best of all, exercise calories taste really good. If that motivates you to keep doing it, great! Eating exercise calories won't get in the way of your weight loss (as long as they're estimated reasonably) because that's how MFP works. You exercise, you get to eat more, plus it makes you healthy as a side effect.

MrsCoby78

Frankly, I don't know why you wouldn't eat exercise calories. Like North said, your body needs the fuel!

Nardoned

Thank you everyone!!

vikidelynn

Here is my plan, I am a diabetic so I am a carb counter mainly. 130g a day (roughly 1,200 calories)...unless I earn them after I hit 10,000 steps a day. So yes, I will celebrate with a few extra carbs (or calories) but only after I hit a minimum of 10,000 steps. This is because moving my body is so important to controlling my diabetes. Four 15 minute walks a day spread throughout the day (typically 1st thing in the morning and after each meal) is an hour's worth of walking and not so hard to achieve.

CafeRacer808

Calories burned is just an approximation and there's a lot of room for error when that number is calculated. Given that, I usually eat back 50-70% of my exercise calories to allow for that margin of error.

CajunCher2005

I don't ever eat back my exercise calories. I'm just not that hungry when I exercise at least 45 minutes to an hour a day. However, when I don't exercise, I get very hungry. I've gained nearly 15 pounds since losing 35 because of that. The game starts again.

d_waters

Try macro counting.. on training days, you generally can consume more carbs, and less on Rest days.(we're all different) I actually eat more than I did before and am losing weight. Make sure each meal has all 3 macros..and aim for more carbs before your workout for fuel

Lestan48

i don't eat my exercise calories. They are a bonus to me. I do eat an Aussie Bodies protein bar after exercise though and count it

tennileb

I eat back 1/2 my exercise calories. Except on big days, today 1696 calories burnt snowshoeing, maybe eating back 500

tennileb

And are you measuring your burn by your own heart rate monitor or the machine, or mfp's estimate

Unknown

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tennileb

Just to see I entered 266 minutes of snowshoeing into mfp, it said 2573 calories, my heart rate monitor said 1696 calories. Mfp and the cardio machines over estimate calories burnt. I use a chest strap heart rate monitor ( polar m400)

DancingMoosie

Yes, just make sure you are not over estimating your exercise calories. For reference, I only burn about 60-70 calories per mile walked.

riffraff2112

I eat back a portion. I do not really trust the readouts on the machines, or the calculators so just to be safe, I usually eat back about half.
This also gives me a little wiggle room in case I didn't weigh my portions properly (which I definitely do not).

All of this is trumped by the fact that if I am hungry, I eat them all back!

GreenHeather2014

I also eat back only a portion of my exercise calories. For example, for 60 minutes on the treadmill, the equipment says I burned about 400 calories, while MFP says it's almost 1000. I'll eat the 400, maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less, depending on how hungry I am, but not the full 1000. If I'm eating 1000 extra calories then I'm probably also not eating healthy foods.

nutmegoreo

I haven't read all the responses:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/818082/exercise-calories-again-wtf/p1

Nardoned

To all asking, I get my calories burned during workout from my Fitbit (which has the wrist heart monitor). I used to have the polar strap and found they both ran pretty similar numbers so I just stick with my Fitbit now. Thanks to everyone for your input - I think I will try eating a portion of my exercise calories for now, and put carbs before long/hard workouts!

deluxmary2000

Nardoned wrote: »

To all asking, I get my calories burned during workout from my Fitbit (which has the wrist heart monitor). I used to have the polar strap and found they both ran pretty similar numbers so I just stick with my Fitbit now. Thanks to everyone for your input - I think I will try eating a portion of my exercise calories for now, and put carbs before long/hard workouts!

Sounds like a good plan!

NorthCascades

tennileb wrote: »

And are you measuring your burn by your own heart rate monitor or the machine, or mfp's estimate

For the record, there are a lot of ways to come up with a number for how many calories you've burned. You just mentioned two of them.

(1) For walking, you can just do the math. On flat ground, take your body weight in pounds, divide by 3, and that's pretty close to how many calories you've burned. Your heart rate doesn't really offer much insight into how much energy it takes to move a certain weight a certain distance. This is how Fitbits work, a lot of them don't even have HRMs and people swear by their accuracy.

(2) For cycling, you can use a power meter to measure your energy use, like how a scale measures your weight instead of estimating it. A direct force power meter is basically the gospel truth.

(3) METs tables. Doing whatever exercise at whatever intensity burns X calories per hour at your weight. I don't like this approach at all because it's subjective and difficult to tell what intensity you're supposed to put down. A lot of people use this approach and do well with it.

Etc.

Anyway, there are 3,500 calories in a pound of fat. And it's pounds of fat we're all trying to lose. If you log the exercise you do and the food you eat, over time you'll be able to gauge the accuracy of your numbers. Because your deficit predicts how fast you should be losing weight. You have to use a moving average of your weight because you don't lose it in a clean, linear pattern, but once you have some data, it becomes pretty easy to go back and check if you want to.

sxb317

I think it depends a bit on how intense you're exercising. If you're burning 500 calories at the gym, in think you have to eat some or all of that to replenish your body. If you went for a 30 min walk, I wouldn't worry about it.

kittykat692014

I don't eat my exercise calories. I've worked out how to eat nutritionally dense foods within my calorie limit and so I'm not hungry for more calories. However a day a week I'll eat more than my calorie allowance by adding some extra carbs like brown rice and some chocolate. I think each person is different and if you can lose weight eating your exercise calories then go and enjoy it!

Christine_72

GuitarJerry wrote: »

I eat at maintenance and exercise is my deficit.

There's not only one way to do it.

Me too. But when i was eating at a calorie deficit, i ate back 50-75% of my exercise calories back (fitbit).

KatzeDerNacht22

I do not , but I eat wee less on days I don't weight train and more on days I do, I also care about the macros, humm so many options T_T

kshama2001

nutmegoreo wrote: »

I haven't read all the responses:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/818082/exercise-calories-again-wtf/p1

You beat me to it.

To sum, MFP uses the NEAT method, and as such the system is designed for exercise calories to be eaten back. However, many consider the burns given by MFP to be inflated and only eat a percentage, such as 50%, back.