Here's why I don't eat back my exercise calories.

Isakizza

I eat back my workout calories, but only 50% of them.

Usually puts me at 1800-2000 calories per day. About the same place my TDEE -20% is. It works for me.
Eat when hungry, don't when your not.



Created by MyFitnessPal.com - Free Calorie Counter

Katrina_vw91

It varies from person to person. Some people eat them back, some people don't. Everyone has different opinions. Do whatever you feel comfortable with. It is your body after all, and no one can tell you how to diet other than yourself.

JDHINAZ

this should be fun
*grabs some popcorn*

Scootch over and let me have some of that popcorn. Ok, what'd I miss?

SiempreBella

If you put something on the message boards expect a variety of responses. That is what I have noticed that people dont think about when they post things that are highly talked about. Oh, I eat back my cals and I have been losing weight. Honestly, I do not want to lose weight on a 1200 of food. I usually eat about 2000 cals and have a net of 1200. If I have a day where I do not go for a jog then I eat at my maintenance cals.
I know that this is a lifestyle change and that if I tried to stick to 1200 cals it wouls not be realistic to me. I would do it for a week or two and then I would go back to my old habits. I want to change my habits. Now all my food is full of veggies and fruits. IT is super colorful.

cawoosley

haha! Thanks for the laugh!

teaparty75

I don't eat back mine either. My reasons? MFP grossly overestimates calories burned. As every single thread where someone got an HRM can tell you. There are plenty of times caloric intake is underestimated, even when measuring. Okay this is about a cup. Okay one more bite, still about a cup. And let me lick the spoon. There is plenty of that to make up those few calories burned, even if you are trying not to. Most calories counts are approximate in the first place. Lastly, I'm working to get these calories off, not eat them back immediately. I would be willing to bet most of these people so surprised by not losing weight can fix that just by not eating back everything.

totally agree BUT that's after a few months of eating them back and losing weight at a snail's pace LOL

michelledfoster

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1047512-do-you-eat-back-your-exercise-calories?hl=exercise+calories#posts-16081701

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1047325-hard-eating-back-exercise-calories?hl=exercise+calories#posts-16078452

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1046262-food-vs-exercise-calories?hl=exercise+calories#posts-16060311

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1035368-do-i-have-to-eat-all-my-exercise-calories?hl=exercise+calories

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1043598-confused-about-exercise-calories?hl=exercise+calories#posts-16018182

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1043083-how-many-exercise-calories?hl=exercise+calories&page=1#posts-16009990

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1042639-eating-back-exercise-calories?hl=exercise+calories

Thank you for posting links to other threads where this was explained in pretty good detail. I am new and have a lot of weight to lose, and have "tried everything"---except sticking with the exercise and healthier eating thing. I have had the same question about eating back exercise cals, and have been told (rather forcefully--and by ppl not doing either exercise or healthier eating--ironic) that I need to not count my exercise cals in order to lose better and faster. There is so much chatter in the diet industry about what works and what doesn't and gets overwhelming. And I am also thinking about (was it Taunto that said this? Im not sure--insert credit here to the person that said it)--I know how I want to look and feel when this weight is off, so I have made my decision on this topic. Thanks again for the links--it genuinely helped this "newbie".
Good luck to all !

pastryari

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1047512-do-you-eat-back-your-exercise-calories?hl=exercise+calories#posts-16081701

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1047325-hard-eating-back-exercise-calories?hl=exercise+calories#posts-16078452

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1046262-food-vs-exercise-calories?hl=exercise+calories#posts-16060311

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1035368-do-i-have-to-eat-all-my-exercise-calories?hl=exercise+calories

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1043598-confused-about-exercise-calories?hl=exercise+calories#posts-16018182

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1043083-how-many-exercise-calories?hl=exercise+calories&page=1#posts-16009990

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1042639-eating-back-exercise-calories?hl=exercise+calories

Thank you for posting links to other threads where this was explained in pretty good detail. I am new and have a lot of weight to lose, and have "tried everything"---except sticking with the exercise and healthier eating thing. I have had the same question about eating back exercise cals, and have been told (rather forcefully--and by ppl not doing either exercise or healthier eating--ironic) that I need to not count my exercise cals in order to lose better and faster. There is so much chatter in the diet industry about what works and what doesn't and gets overwhelming. And I am also thinking about (was it Taunto that said this? Im not sure--insert credit here to the person that said it)--I know how I want to look and feel when this weight is off, so I have made my decision on this topic. Thanks again for the links--it genuinely helped this "newbie".
Good luck to all !

Glad to help. Good luck to you, I'm sure you'll do great. :flowerforyou:

DawnieB1977

I don't eat back exercise calories, apart from on very rare occasions, but I did increase the calories than MFP gave me. It suggested I eat 1450 and I upped it to 1650. It's kind of a compromise between the TDEE method and MFP! By TDEE I should eat over 1800 which I can't quite bring myself to do most days. Until less than a year ago I was on 1200 calories a day and it's hard to totally get out of that mindset.

jadestephanie1992

I have a gym membership, so if a class I attend is in the evening after my dinner, no I don't, but I guess you could say I do if I was to do my fitness dvds at lunchtime say because then I have dinner to go really. Make sense? like I said it depends on the time of the said exercises or class.

brdnw

i'm down 80 pounds overall and i don't eat back my calories and i lift and do cardio for 2-3 hours a day, and only eat like 1200 calories.

Ummm.....maybe it's just on my end but I don't see that you have logged food.

ETA: I found a few entries but they are random.

I don't log my food bc i know by now how much calories are in everything i eat, i nolonger need the site to create guilt or to help track, i can do it on my head now, i just use the site for weight reporting.

mlove351

I don't eat all of my calories back after exercising. Its good to have that buffer and know that you can but I don't get fixated on eating the total amount just eat when Im hungry....

RavenBlurayne

I don't eat mine back because iv always been told that you were to burn more then you eat. I may sometimes go over, Im not sending my body in to starvation mode, im not gonna look like starvin marvin either. the weight is coming off slowly but I also dont trust the machine calorie counts and such either.

jofjltncb6

If you dont like the topic at hand then dont respond, you initial reply was most defiantly coming off as a jerk..... stop being a troll and leave like the lady asked.

To whom is this directed?

RavenBlurayne

i went to reply to a earlier post but hit the wrong button, I fixed it

larrytyrersr

I try not to, but am not upset if I get some back. I underestimate the time I do workout just to adjust to it..It seems to work for me and I have have a slow steady weight drop because of it...I like this app and only find it hard to get friends on it....The bigger the support group the greater the weight loss from what I understand. I only wish I knew of this when I began my diet....I starved and swam off the first 150 pounds, but since beginning this I can actually eat without guilt!!

Unknown

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Gooddaytostart

Everyone is entitled to say what they want and if you don't like it then don't respond. It only causes more hostility. This is here to help people not to argue.

ironanimal

Everyone is entitled to say what they want and if you don't like it then don't respond. It only causes more hostility. This is here to help people not to argue.

Nobody had a said a word since July, until you came along.

seltzermint555

I purposely under-log and then eat back most of the calories.

I just do not believe the database enough to go full force eating back calories, or logging exactly as I actually exercised. For example, 5 hours of walking around the zoo with my fiancé rarely stopping but keeping a solid pace...I am not going to log 5 hours of quick paced walking and say "OH cool I almost doubled my daily cals! Let's get a pizza at midnight". Instead, I'll log 60 min of walking at a moderate pace and eat back those calories.

jofjltncb6

Everyone is entitled to say what they want and if you don't like it then don't respond. It only causes more hostility. This is here to help people not to argue.

Resurrects dead thread to complain about the supposed unnecessary hostility by calling people out for how they participated in the discussion four months ago.

Seems legit.

c_tap77

Everyone is entitled to say what they want and if you don't like it then don't respond. It only causes more hostility. This is here to help people not to argue.

Resurrects dead thread to complain about the supposed unnecessary hostility by calling people out for how they participated in the discussion four months ago.

Seems legit.

I don't think it matters how well reasoned a particular method of weightloss is or how much science there is to back it up...someone somewhere is ALWAYS going to disagree...

RGv2

Everyone is entitled to say what they want and if you don't like it then don't respond. It only causes more hostility. This is here to help people not to argue.

Resurrects dead thread to complain about the supposed unnecessary hostility by calling people out for how they participated in the discussion four months ago.

Seems legit.

Yep, seems like zombie thread day again.

PaulHalicki

If someone has to ask: "If I eat back my calories, what's the point of exercising?!" then we already know where their heads are at and honestly, I don't know why they're exercising at all since they could simply eat less.

But I like to eat MOAR.

StacyReneO

I rarely even log my exercise anymore. I'd rather just eat when I am hungry.

KBmoments

I purposely under-log and then eat back most of the calories.

I just do not believe the database enough to go full force eating back calories, or logging exactly as I actually exercised. For example, 5 hours of walking around the zoo with my fiancé rarely stopping but keeping a solid pace...I am not going to log 5 hours of quick paced walking and say "OH cool I almost doubled my daily cals! Let's get a pizza at midnight". Instead, I'll log 60 min of walking at a moderate pace and eat back those calories.

I do the same!

loricandelario

eating back your calories is a new idea. there is no reason to exercise then, is there.. of course there is if you are looking for cardio health or to build muscle, thats fine. you eat them back once you are maintaining. only since we've become obese as a nation to we think we should eat back exercise calories. and let me tell you all these bands, gym tools, etc, they all LIE by about 30%. So if you think you burned 600, its closer to 400. As long as your got adequate nutrition from your 12-1600 calories per day, you can burn THEM ALL off and you will be fine. When I was in college, after every meal, I worked them off. I didn't drop of exhaustion, I was just fine.

ILiftHeavyAcrylics

eating back your calories is a new idea. there is no reason to exercise then, is there.. of course there is if you are looking for cardio health or to build muscle, thats fine. you eat them back once you are maintaining. only since we've become obese as a nation to we think we should eat back exercise calories. and let me tell you all these bands, gym tools, etc, they all LIE by about 30%. So if you think you burned 600, its closer to 400. As long as your got adequate nutrition from your 12-1600 calories per day, you can burn THEM ALL off and you will be fine. When I was in college, after every meal, I worked them off. I didn't drop of exhaustion, I was just fine.

1.) I don't think you understand how MFP's deficit works. There's already a deficit whether you exercise or not. Eating the calories back is to keep the deficit from being unhealthy. Which leads me to:
2.) Are you saying that it's safe and healthy to eat 1200 calories worth of food for the day and burn off 1200 calories with exercise? If so your post violates the community guidelines.
3.) People are often advised to eat back half to three quarters of the calories burned to compensate for inaccuracies. Personally I've always eaten back every calorie.

NoelFigart1

I don't eat back my exercise calories. When I do, I gain weight. I am not entirely convinced this calculator is really accurate at the sigma 3 ends of the bell curve.

jennifurballs

I don't eat my exercise calories back for two reasons...

1. I don't feel like I need to. I'm not hungry and my energy is great.

2. I have a lot of weight to lose.


I think whether you do or don't depends on your weight loss and fitness goals (ie. training for a marathon). I lift weights 45-50 minutes every day and do at least an hour of cardio. I have plenty of energy that lasts all day. If I felt like I needed to, I would eat more.

Also, it's enough for me to measure and weigh everything I eat in order to get accurate calorie counts. I don't want to have to be fanatical about measuring caloriesed burn too. Maybe if I was an accountant type, that would be more appealing.