Should I be eating my exercise calories?

kcasteel07

I hope this isn't a stupid question but I am wondering if I should be eating back some of the calories I burned with exercising. I have my daily calories set to a 1000 calorie deficit already but I also burn an extra 300-500 more with exercise. Wouldn't that put me into an even larger deficit that is not recommended?

nowine4me

Yes, you should.

amtyrell

True. Eat back at least half

cwolfman13

Yes...with some allowance for estimation error...

emailmehere1122

A 1000 calorie deficit seems high. A little more information would be helpful. How many calories are you consuming?

kgirlhart

Yes. MFP is designed for you to eat back the exercise calories. Your 1000 calorie deficit does not take exercise into account so you would be creating too large of a deficit if you don't eat them back. 1000 may already be too large of a deficit. That is really only appropriate for someone who is obese and has a lot to lose. Sometimes exercise calories are not very accurate so many will eat only half of their exercise calories. Then after about 4 weeks you can reevaluate. If you are losing too fast you can eat back more if you are not losing as fast as expected then your burns are inflated so you would eat back less.

kcasteel07

I have a lot to lose. I am 221 pounds & 5'5.

I have my activity level set to sedentary and it gave me 1200 calories a day. I exercise 6 days a week: 20 minutes of walking/jogging and some strength training at home. I am also breastfeeding so I burn an extra 200-300 calories everyday with that - Which I've been eating back.

dwozniak16

I'm no expert, but I would say eat back at least half.
You just need to make sure that you're really burning what you think you are when you're exercising.
I would invest in a good heart rate monitor to get a more accurate calorie burn. My problem early on was the machines saying I was burning WAY more than I actually was, then I'd go home and eat what I thought I burned and ended up gaining weight.

kgirlhart

You do need to be careful not to go too low as that can affect your milk supply. If you weren't breastfeeding then I would say that 1000 was ok for now, but if I were you I would probably change to 1 pound or 1.5 pound per week. You definitely need to make sure you are eating back at least some of the exercise calories so that you are not netting under 1200. I always found calorie burns for walking to be fairly accurate so you can probably eat most if not all of those back.

emailmehere1122

I went to a calorie calculator and guessed your age to be 25. It says at your height and weight you need 2100 calories to maintain your weight. If you're just starting out I would either eat 1600 calories with no exercise or 2100 calories with exercise and see how your first couple of weeks go and then adjust from there

MTMiller5782

I don't eat them back and have been able to achieve 2 lbs per week on average. We are all different. The most important thing is to weigh in once per week to track your process. If you are losing what you want per week don't change it. If you plateau try increasing calories for a day or 2 to shock your body. It seems counterproductive but it works for most people.

tklivory

I've found this to be a really good explanation as to why we need to eat back exercise calories, tailored to the MFP experience, with thanks to @SideSteel for the awesome video.

Exercise calories - do I eat these? A video explanation (Can't embed video at the moment, sorry!)

(Video originally posted in the MFP forums here if you want to read the full thread.)

texteach66

I would guess you need to automatically add back in the calories you burn breastfeeding - consider those calories as part of what you need every day. A quick Google search indicates breastfeeding women should not go below 1500 - 1800 calories a day from several sources. You can decide for yourself what to do with your calories from exercise.