Should I eat back my exercise calories?

SPR86

In my opinion, it’s yes and no.

For example, if I burn 400cals on a cycle, I wouldn’t necessarily think of it as 400extra but I would see it as a buffer if I crept over my allowance.

Sometimes, I’m just not hungry and won’t eat for the sake of it but if I went over my allocation and had the extra, it wouldn’t bother me. I also would not want to use the entire amount, maybe 50% of it but that’s only down to accuracy of the calories burnt.

comptonelizabeth

I eat them back but I suspect they're over estimated.
If I don't eat them back, I lose weight and my goal, having successfully gained weight, is to maintain

Dilvish

the calories earned through exercise are a guesstimate. Calories burned doing exercise are different for everybody and most amounts listed as exercise per hour are estimated.

I personally ignore the calories earned portion in MFP as do I ignore the "if every day were like today..." because it is not accurate.

Then again counting calories isn't exactly 100% accurate either. The key is to adjust based on your needs. Just eat healthy, eat wholesome, eat reasonable portions and exercise as much as you can!

WinoGelato

Dilvish wrote: »

the calories earned through exercise are a guesstimate. Calories burned doing exercise are different for everybody and most amounts listed as exercise per hour are estimated.

I personally ignore the calories earned portion in MFP as do I ignore the "if every day were like today..." because it is not accurate.

Then again counting calories isn't exactly 100% accurate either. The key is to adjust based on your needs. Just eat healthy, eat wholesome, eat reasonable portions and exercise as much as you can!

I never understood this concept... yes, they are estimates and they could be wrong, but if you are exercising, you are burning SOME calories so there is one number that is definitively wrong and that’s ZERO. Why would you choose the one number you know is wrong and go with that for how many calories to eat back?

sijomial

Dilvish wrote: »

the calories earned through exercise are a guesstimate. Calories burned doing exercise are different for everybody and most amounts listed as exercise per hour are estimated.

I personally ignore the calories earned portion in MFP as do I ignore the "if every day were like today..." because it is not accurate.

Then again counting calories isn't exactly 100% accurate either. The key is to adjust based on your needs. Just eat healthy, eat wholesome, eat reasonable portions and exercise as much as you can!

I'm not seeing any logic in that at all.
By that reasoning you would log all your fruit and veg intake as zero as the calories are estimated rather than accurate and will vary with ripeness and variety.

Exercise estimates can be low as well as high - it's the nature of estimating, my Garmin tends to underestimate my cycling quite significantly. What exercise burns simply can't be is zero.

If I ignored the estimated 173,000 calories (just from sports cycling) in the last 365 days not eating them back would be pretty disastrous.

IMHO the key to calorie counting is estimate sensibly and with some care on both sides of the CICO equation.