Do you eat back your calories from exercise?

dawn82369

When I was on WW 6 years ago, I never ate back my activity points because I wouldn't lose any weight that week. What do you all do, eat them or leave them? TIA!

janpoodles

I leave them. Unless I am truly hungry! But then again, my exercise is not very strenuous at this point in time.

malibu927

When I'm following MFP's goals, yes. http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10503681/exercise-calories-do-i-eat-these-a-video-explanation

bbell1985

I don't. But I don't do cardio, so on the off chance I do, I assume it just evens out with my lazy lazy days.

estherdragonbat

I eat half back. I find that if I don't, I haven't got enough energy to be active.

Note: I'm a 5'3 woman and on 1380 calories base to lose 1lb/wk. I typically go for 2-hour leisurely walks or do 60 minutes on a fitness glider, plus a full-body strength-training workout every other day. When I was 63 lbs heavier, on 1710 calories/day and my exercise was a 25-minute daily walk, I didn't eat back those calories. But then, MFP was calculating my burn at about 125 calories (I forget exactly). Now? Usually in the 600-900 range. Yeah, I eat some of those back.

Luna3386

I've had the most success since switching fully to mfp's recommendations and eating all of my exercise calories (as opposed to the tdee method)

Evamutt

I do eat some back most of the time & all back once in a while & seems to be ok

JetJaguar

Yes. The way MFP is designed, your calorie deficit is already built in to your base calories for the day. You should then be eating back all of your calories. However, calorie estimates, either from the MFP database or exercise machines, tend to be rather generous, so the usual recommendation is to eat back half your calories and look at the trend after a few weeks, then adjust as necessary.

Personally, my workouts are all tracked by GPS and are therefore closer to the truth than MFP estimates would be, so I eat back nearly all of my calories. I lose too quickly if I only eat half.

WyldHaggis

I eat back some of it. Since I don't cook my meals, I can only go with rough estimates, so hopefully keeping a buffer of exercise calories offsets the logging mistakes I'm bound to make.

DebLaBounty

I eat 'em back.

MamaMollyT

Depends on the activity. For instance today I ran10 miles in the heat up a huge hill. I will eat some, not all of those back. But yesterday I burned 200 calories on a leisurely walk with my daughter. I didn't eat those. I leave some room or error for calorie inaccuracies. You could try eating yours and track if it's successful for you or not. If you aren't losing try eating half back and so on...

LisaEatSleepRun

Absolutely! Exercise calories taste the best.

jennybearlv

I eat all of them back. Either my Garmin underestimates everything I do or I'm a special snowflake because I always lose more than what MFP and Garmin think I will. If I didn't eat back all those calories I think I would pass out from hunger.

kerrylkatriviera

I don't eat them back. My appetite has decreased since September when I started my current weight loss program. I find that I am used to eating fewer calories, and I don't crave carbs like I used to. I think you can wean yourself off sugar & salt & fat. I drink a lot of water and eat a cup of grilled vegetables or a handful of dried fruit when I do get hungry.

sijomial

Yes I do.
Same as when I drive my car further I put more fuel in.....

MontyMuttland

JetJaguar wrote: »

Yes. The way MFP is designed, your calorie deficit is already built in to your base calories for the day. You should then be eating back all of your calories. However, calorie estimates, either from the MFP database or exercise machines, tend to be rather generous, so the usual recommendation is to eat back half your calories and look at the trend after a few weeks, then adjust as necessary.

Personally, my workouts are all tracked by GPS and are therefore closer to the truth than MFP estimates would be, so I eat back nearly all of my calories. I lose too quickly if I only eat half.

This is good advice right there.
Remember that MFP calorie calculations are based on averages, and the same is true of anything that is working out your calorie burn from exercise, so you may do better or worse than the figures you see.
Using an activity monitor with a heart rate monitor will give better calorie burn estimates, although even those cannot always be fully trusted.
It is best to assume that your calorie burn will be overestimated, hence the advice to only eat back half of your exercise calories and monitor how that affects your weight over some weeks.

stationlouisa

I cant speak for others but I think most people eat back upto half, I personally dont see the point I've increased my exercise to lose weight not so I can eat more. However now I am almost at my goal weight I sometimes eat half of them. I figure when I get to maintenance I'll either exercise less or eat more.

snickerscharlie

stationlouisa wrote: »

I cant speak for others but I think most people eat back upto half, I personally dont see the point I've increased my exercise to lose weight not so I can eat more. However now I am almost at my goal weight I sometimes eat half of them. I figure when I get to maintenance I'll either exercise less or eat more.

Exercise isn't intended to be done just so that you can eat more. It's done to help maintain muscle mass and improve fitness as you lose weight. Fueling your body properly to help restore at least a good portion of the calories burned through exercise is a healthy and sustainable way to ensure you're meeting your nutritional needs while you continue to lose.

JeromeBarry1

I do eat back most of the calories from most of my exercises. There are a few exercises I log which I'm not too confident in the accuracy of logging, so I hold back on eating all those.