Eating Exercise calories

jilly0725
jilly0725 Posts: 2 Member
in Getting Started
Newbie starting over here again. Do most of you eat the calories you earn working out? I came over from WW where I did not choose to eat points earned by work outs. To me that defeats the purpose. Thoughts on how this affects weight loss? Thanks!

Replies

  • redfish33
    redfish33 Posts: 6 Member
    Failing to fuel properly for working out can lead to a reduction in weight loss, as your body compensates to hold on to calories for the perceived deficit it faces. I recommend looking into advice from a sports nutritionist who can better explain the concept. A very helpful person I have found is Nancy Clark, RD. She has a website and a Facebook presence that is very informative for the athlete/non-athlete alike. Good luck!
  • jilly0725
    jilly0725 Posts: 2 Member
    sijomial wrote: »
    How does fuelling your workout properly defeat the purpose of exercise bearing in mind exercise is for health, fitness and enjoyment?

    The impact on weight loss is it means you are sticking to the calorie deficit that you selected rather than exceed it.

    I'm not saying defeating the purpose of exercise. I'm talking about defeating the purpose of a caloric deficit. You need to decrease calories to lose weight. I'm worried that if I work out, but eat those calories I "earn" I still won't lose the weight. I'm looking for info on that. Thanks for the feedback.
  • kami3006
    kami3006 Posts: 4,979 Member
    edited January 2019
    jilly0725 wrote: »
    sijomial wrote: »
    How does fuelling your workout properly defeat the purpose of exercise bearing in mind exercise is for health, fitness and enjoyment?

    The impact on weight loss is it means you are sticking to the calorie deficit that you selected rather than exceed it.

    I'm not saying defeating the purpose of exercise. I'm talking about defeating the purpose of a caloric deficit. You need to decrease calories to lose weight. I'm worried that if I work out, but eat those calories I "earn" I still won't lose the weight. I'm looking for info on that. Thanks for the feedback.

    Your deficit is already built into the number mfp gives you. You eat that and lose. You exercise, you increase the deficit. Eating those calories put you right back at your weight loss goal. It's win-win-win. Lose weight, eat more, get more fit.

    ETA: I lost and now maintain while eating all of my exercise calories. It made a world of difference in fitness progression, mood and adherence.
  • AVanBens
    AVanBens Posts: 17 Member
    If you have your profile set to be at a deficit, it's not counterproductive to eat your exercise calories. You'll still be at a deficit. You'll be at a greater deficit if you choose not to eat the calories back, but depending on how much you're cutting already, that might not be a healthy amount for you. For example, if MPF is calculating you to have 1200 calories a day and you work out for an hour and burn 500, you would only net 700 if you didn't eat back your calories. That's too big a drop. The general rule is that fewer than 1200 calories net is too low for a woman. Now, sometimes I won't eat *all* my calories back one day, but I'll bank them for a higher-calorie day instead -- a "cheat day" that's not really a cheat because even though I'm eating 1800 that day, I'd had a few hundred stored up and fit in a workout that day, too. Hope that helps. You wouldn't be eating back what you've burned as much as you'd be staying on target and ensuring you're getting enough fuel to keep going and lose weight in a healthy way.
    jilly0725 wrote: »
    sijomial wrote: »
    How does fuelling your workout properly defeat the purpose of exercise bearing in mind exercise is for health, fitness and enjoyment?

    The impact on weight loss is it means you are sticking to the calorie deficit that you selected rather than exceed it.

    I'm not saying defeating the purpose of exercise. I'm talking about defeating the purpose of a caloric deficit. You need to decrease calories to lose weight. I'm worried that if I work out, but eat those calories I "earn" I still won't lose the weight. I'm looking for info on that. Thanks for the feedback.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    jilly0725 wrote: »
    sijomial wrote: »
    How does fuelling your workout properly defeat the purpose of exercise bearing in mind exercise is for health, fitness and enjoyment?

    The impact on weight loss is it means you are sticking to the calorie deficit that you selected rather than exceed it.

    I'm not saying defeating the purpose of exercise. I'm talking about defeating the purpose of a caloric deficit. You need to decrease calories to lose weight. I'm worried that if I work out, but eat those calories I "earn" I still won't lose the weight. I'm looking for info on that. Thanks for the feedback.

    Your calorie target is your deficit without exercise...the deficit is built in...it assumes ZERO exercise and you would still lose weight at the rate of loss you chose. Not accounting for exercise will make that deficit bigger, which isn't always a particularly good idea, particularly considering that most people shoot for the most aggressive calorie deficit MFP will allow. Lets say you have a 1200 calorie target..you exercise and burn off 500-600 calories in a good cardio session...now your net intake is 1200-500=700 calories...this would be the same as just eating 700 calories. Does that sound healthy to you. Eating back those exercise calories would bring you back to a net 1200. MFP isn't trying to trick you or something...it's the way this tool is designed...why else would it even give you those "earned" calories?

    The difficulty in this is accurately estimating calorie expenditure from exercise so many people arbitrarily pick some % to eat back. Fueling your fitness is important to proper recovery, injury prevention, and fitness gains. Not fueling your fitness often results in a calorie deficit that is too big which can result in loss of muscle mass, brittle hair and/or hair falling out, loss of menstrual cycle and all kinds of other things in the long run.

    You also need to consider what you're doing fitness wise...if I go out and do a 20 mile bike ride, it's going to be far more important that feed that activity vs taking my dog for a quick walk around the block. With the former, I'm going to torch 600-700 calories and I'm going to need recovery...with the dog walk I'm going to burn maybe 100 for a decent walk and won't really need recovery from that activity.
  • jan110144
    jan110144 Posts: 1,281 Member
    Just met goal (50 pound loss) in 6 months. I consistently ate back exercise calories. Initially, only about 25-30% but that increased to 50-60% as I got closer to goal.

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