Eating exercise calories...

sharonlep

I've just read a success story that advised us to eat 95% of exercise calories burned and just to concentrate on a normal calorie déficit.
Just curious about other people's opinions on this.

TeaBea

Results are going to vary by individual because some people are more accurate in logging (food and exercise) than others.

Some forms of exercise are easier to calculate than others. But in a perfect world you could eat 100% of your exercise calories and lose at the rate you signed up for.

Try it for awhile and see which way you have to tweak things......up or down.

cmriverside

I ate all the exercise calories all the way through my weight loss here.

You'll have to run the experiment yourself. No calculator is going to be perfect for everyone, it's about you and your logging accuracy and your consistency. Exercise calculators aren't always correct, either.

You just have to collect enough data (like a couple months' worth of food and exercise) and then make adjustment based on your results.

sharonlep

I'm a bit worried though because I'm on a plan that allows me 1700 calories. Il not using mfp recommendations. It's quite high on protein and fibre if I can fit it in, and 10k steps à day. I'm happy with the higher calories because I'm sick of very low calorie dieting. I'm quite active and usually average 15k steps with the various walking and other exercises I do. 52 yes. 172lbs.5ft2.
1700 seems a lot of I eat into my exercise cals too.

collectingblues

Exercise calories are delicious.

cmriverside

Do what you want. Keep good records, adjust as needed in a couple months. Sounds like you have included 10,000 steps as part of your 1700.

staticsplit

I usually eat about half, unless I'm particularly hungry that day--then I eat 'em all.

lynn_glenmont

I ate them all if I wanted them.

Sometimes I saved them and ate them the next day (I often had a delayed hunger reaction to heavy exercise days), or saved some of them for weekend splurges.

Since I lost weight faster than MFP predicted for the calories I was consuming and the exercise I was logging, my experience suggested it was OK for me to eat all the exercise calories. YMMV.

collectingblues

But re-reading your follow up -- Is it MFP that gave you the 1700, or another site? Because MFP is one of the few that treats exercise as a bonus calories. So if that 1700 game from another site, it's entirely possible that it already includes your activity.

goldthistime

lynn_glenmont wrote: »

I ate them all if I wanted them.

Sometimes I saved them and ate them the next day (I often had a delayed hunger reaction to heavy exercise days), or saved some of them for weekend splurges.

Since I lost weight faster than MFP predicted for the calories I was consuming and the exercise I was logging, my experience suggested it was OK for me to eat all the exercise calories. YMMV.

This is my approach too. Often I eat none or just a few of them, but when I’m hungry I’ll eat all of them. I like having the flexibility to eat somewhat according to my appetite but still stay within my “rules”.

sharonlep

Yes It was another site COLLECTINGBLUES.
That makes sense to me that the calories are already included in the 1700.
Thanks.im much clearer now.

Danp

Everything about this process is guesswork, rough numbers and estimations. The key is to try and minimise the margins to a manageable level.

The best way (I've found) to minimise those margins and hone in on what's right for you is through trial and error. Do something, check the results and adjust accordingly.

With exercise calories this would mean picking a percentage and eating that much back for 4 weeks or so, at the end of the 4 weeks check your progress. If you're losing weight at the expected rate then you've found your level. If however, you're not losing as quickly as expected and can comfortably eat fewer calories then reduce the percentage or accept that the slightly reduced rate of loss is perfectly fine and continue. Conversely if you find that you're losing weight quicker than expected then you can afford to eat a few more of your exercise calories back.

Try, assess, adjust, try, assess, adjust, rinse and repeat...