Burned Calories - do you eat them?

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  • timtam163
    timtam163 Posts: 500 Member
    You can set it up however you want, but yes you should eat your workout calories back. I mean, if you are eating 1300 (per MFP's suggestion) and burn 1200, you're left with net 100 for your body to run on which is not enough!!
  • accidentalpancake
    accidentalpancake Posts: 484 Member
    I prefer mine lightly sautéed, for what it's worth.
  • ladyhusker39
    ladyhusker39 Posts: 1,406 Member
    I eat back all of the exercise calories my Fitbit gives me and I'm losing weight at the rate I expect to based on my data in MFP. If you want to know if you should eat yours or not do so for about 4-6 weeks and see if you're losing as expected. Once you have some data on how accurate your exercise calories are you can make adjustment as needed.
  • bethannien
    bethannien Posts: 556 Member
    edited July 2017
    I don't but the only reason I don't is because I've already factored my exercise into my activity level. I used to set my activity level to sedentary and just eat back 50%-75% of my exercise calories (which worked perfectly fine for me).

    But I've been a lot more active just in my day to day life on top of my intentional exercise so I changed my activity settings and I log my exercise as 1 calorie burned. My blood sugar is stable and I'm losing at about 1 lb a week this way, plus it actually is less work when I have the larger number to start the day and I don't have to try to figure out a healthy and filling snack that fits into my exercise calories I've added at the end of the day. I plan my day in the morning assuming I'll be active that day and no more scrambling for a snack at 9pm because I'm hangry after a run.
  • BusyRaeNOTBusty
    BusyRaeNOTBusty Posts: 7,166 Member
    I eat mine.
  • jennybearlv
    jennybearlv Posts: 1,519 Member
    ladyhusker39 wrote: »
    I eat back all of the exercise calories my Fitbit gives me and I'm losing weight at the rate I expect to based on my data in MFP. If you want to know if you should eat yours or not do so for about 4-6 weeks and see if you're losing as expected. Once you have some data on how accurate your exercise calories are you can make adjustment as needed.

    This is a great suggestion. It's what I do. I add up how many calories I've eaten, how many I've burned, and compare that to my weight loss. I usually do a month. It's how I know my activity tracker underestimates and I can enjoy every single exercise calorie without regret.

    I did try out not eating exercise calories when I first started. I lost very rapidly, but got more and more tired and noticed my step count was getting smaller and I was getting less burn through daily activity. When I eat back my exercise calories I have more energy to burn even more calories, so I get to eat more.

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