Exercise Calories

melaniekboe

So, who eats back their exercise calories and why or why not?!? I haven’t been & I’ve been satisfied as well as successful with my weight loss, but I’m not sure what to do?!?

Panini911

there are 200 posts on this topic you can also search for and get even more opinions than what you will get here.

MFP is designed for you to eat back your exercise calories. So if you used MFP to determine your caloric intake for weight loss, yes you are supposed to.

what is your rate of loss? how much do you have to lose? Some don't eat them and it gives them enough buffer to compensate for so-so logging of food. as long as you don't lose too fast/under eat that's fine.

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10503681/exercise-calories-do-i-eat-these-a-video-explanation/p1

MikePTY

Quoting below what someone posted on another thread because it sums it up just about perfectly.

shaumom wrote: »

‘Exercise calories’ are just burned calories that we happened to label separately rather than lump together like we do with all the rest of our calorie usage.

We could just as easily meticulously label all our used calories and we’d have categories like ‘calories used to digest food’ and ‘calories used to keep our hearts beating.’

And then the question would be something like, ‘should I eat back my digestion calories today?’

The answer to that should not be any different than to the question about whether we should eat back exercise calories, because there is nothing fundmentally different about them as far as our body is concerned, IMO. They are just calories we burned during the day, you know?

Sure, we voluntarily burned them, but our body doesn’t care. :-)

If you don't eat your exercise calories back, you are under eating your goal. If you have a slow rate of loss set and don't burn a lot of calories from exercise, then that might be okay, although its still artificially lowering your calorie goal. However if your rate of loss is aggressive and/or you burn a lot from exercise you could be underfueling your body and get all the negative side effects that come along with it.

If you don't like the idea of eating your exercise calories back because of the variation and estimation aspect of it, you should use a TDEE calculator to calculate your calorie goal, rather than MFP. A TDEE calculator will build your exercise level into your calorie goal, so you don't have to account for it seperately.

lemurcat2

I was given a goal of 1200 which seemed too low, after I put in sedentary (wrong) and 2 lb/week (I was quite obese, so that was reasonable). MFP said 1200 would give me 1.8 lb/week (I'm 5'3). I ran TDEE numbers elsewhere and reluctantly agreed that at sedentary MFP was right.

Because I didn't want to be told I underate below 1200 (used to happen) or get red above 1200, with no margin, I changed the goal to 1250. I then gradually increased my exercise, first lots of walking (normal for me as I live in a city) plus biking, and then adding in running. I consistently ate 1250+exercise calories (most of my exercise calories, although I rounded down just in case) and I also consistently lost 2 lb/week. IMO, if you need to not eat exercise cals to hit your projected losses, it's likely a logging issue, but totally fine to log more loosely and use the exercise cals to make up the difference if the results are as expected.

Eventually when my weekly exercise was very consistent I changed to TDEE and preferred it -- that adds in exercise in advance and so you don't eat it back.

aokoye

lemurcat2 wrote: »

I was given a goal of 1200 which seemed too low, after I put in sedentary (wrong) and 2 lb/week (I was quite obese, so that was reasonable). MFP said 1200 would give me 1.8 lb/week (I'm 5'3). I ran TDEE numbers elsewhere and reluctantly agreed that at sedentary MFP was right.

Because I didn't want to be told I underate below 1200 (used to happen) or get red above 1200, with no margin, I changed the goal to 1250. I then gradually increased my exercise, first lots of walking (normal for me as I live in a city) plus biking, and then adding in running. I consistently ate 1250+exercise calories (most of my exercise calories, although I rounded down just in case) and I also consistently lost 2 lb/week. IMO, if you need to not eat exercise cals to hit your projected losses, it's likely a logging issue, but totally fine to log more loosely and use the exercise cals to make up the difference if the results are as expected.

Eventually when my weekly exercise was very consistent I changed to TDEE and preferred it -- that adds in exercise in advance and so you don't eat it back.

The bold is more or less exactly what I do. For various reasons logging meticulously is just not in the cards right now. That said, exercising more days than not is and the intensity and length of my exercise allows those logging inaccuracies to exist while still enabling me to lose weight.

kimny72

I do, because I got my calorie goal from MFP and that's how MFP works.

MFP uses your NEAT which does not include exercise. If you use a TDEE calculator which does already include exercise, then you wouldn't eat more back.

In a perfect world...

MFP goal + Exercise calories =TDEE goal

Lillymoo01

As I use the app as intended I would be a skeleton if I didn't eat my exercise calories back. Losing too quickly by having a large deficit is not beneficial for long term health.