Is it important to use all the calories added by exercise?

pitegny

I am planning my food and exercise for the day early each morning. Sometimes during the day I add additional exercise, which increases the calorie quota for the day. I don't always want to eat more food. Is it important to use all of the calories each day?

ccrdragon

nope - I usually do NOT eat back my exercise calories. Most people will tell you to not eat more than 1/2 of the exercise calories back because most of the calorie burns are estimates and are problematic at best.

cwolfman13

It is the way this tool is designed, but you'd want some kind of allowance for estimation error both in regards to estimated expenditure as well as logging errors.

Also, it depends on what you're doing...fueling your fitness is important to recovery, performance, and improved fitness...the more vigorous your training is, the more important it's going to be to fuel that activity. I can easily burn 1200+ calories on, say, a 30 mile ride...using MFP's numbers that would leave me with a net 700 calories for my body to use for basic functions and going about my day...ultimately doing that and not fueling that training would lead to a lack of recovery and likely injury and my performance would be fairly nil.

kgirlhart

I agree that it depends on what type of exercise you are doing and also what your calorie goal is. Mfp is designed for you to eat the exercise calories back. Some people will only eat a portion back because calorie estimates for exercise can be overestimated. IMO if you are doing light exercise such as yoga which doesn't burn a lot of calories it is not that important to eat them back. But if you are running or cycling or doing a lot of cardio exercises it is more important to eat them back. And if you are at a 1200 - 1300 calorie per day goal I think it is more important to eat them back so that you aren't netting lower than 1200. One of the best ways to do it is to start by eating back a certain percentage, maybe half, and then after about 4 weeks reevaluate. If you are losing faster than you expect then you need to eat back more and if you are not losing as fast as expected then you should eat back less. You need to be netting at least 1200 calories per day.

jkwolly

I personally don't like the deficits the app gives, and unless you're doing steady state cardio with an HRM, you won't fully know the correct amount.

I found my TDEE based off my activity level and set my calories at 20% less than that. Then when I log in my workouts, I just add it as 1 calorie and don't worry about it and just eat at my goal!

pitegny

All the advice is really helpful, thanks. I am definitely in the low impact exercise category, so will not worry about eating back the exercise calories.

trigden1991

pitegny wrote: »

All the advice is really helpful, thanks. I am definitely in the low impact exercise category, so will not worry about eating back the exercise calories.

Good decision. Unless you are doing hours upon hours, they should be accounted for within your TDEE.

estherdragonbat

I keep mine as a cushion in case, when I'm trying to figure out which homemade mushroom barley soup or sponge cake in the database approximates the calories of what I actually ate, my guesstimate is lower than it ought to be. But I should also point out that my exercise calories usually come from leisurely walks or 30 minutes on a treadmill or skier. I typically burn 300 calories a day (except on Fridays, where I walk for about 2 hours round-trip to get to the bakery and other stores in the area. That's usually closer to 700.)

I agree with cwolfman13 that, if I were burning off significantly more, I'd likely eat more of my calories.