Do you eat back the calories you burn?

13

Replies

  • Hildy_J
    Hildy_J Posts: 1,050 Member
    Blimey. I've eaten them back with relish. 300 calories left? I crack open a Snickers. 3 left? I eat 3 peanuts.

    I need to leave more on the table! :-/
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 49,024 Member
    If you are following MFP caloric intake guide you should be eating them back.

    Say MFP gives you 1450 calories to lose 1 lb/week, and you plan on exercising 5x/week for an average of 400 cals per workout. well MFP will tell you to eat 1450 on the days you don't workout and 1850 on the days you do whereas a "professional" may tell you to eat 1700 everyday regardless if you workout.

    So for the week MFP will have you eat 12,150 (1450*2+1850*5) whereas doing it the other way will have you eat 11,900 (1700*7) almost the same number of cals for the week (250 dif). The issue in not following MFP is if you don't workout the full 5 days or burn more or less than planned. If that is the case you may lose more or less than your goal, whereas MFP will have you lose your goal amount regardless how much you actually workout.

    What many MFPers do is take the low 1450 and not eat back exercise calories which is wrong, if you are not eating them back then your daily activity level should reflect the higher burn with would be covered in the 1700/day above.
    THIS.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
  • walleymama
    walleymama Posts: 174 Member
    Blimey. I've eaten them back with relish. 300 calories left? I crack open a Snickers. 3 left? I eat 3 peanuts.

    lol. That's like me. I would have no trouble eating more calories than I need.

    Fortunately, I'm feeling pretty satisfied with ~ 1500/day right now. But I do get tempted every so often to increase it.
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,294 Member
    I don't as I feel as though it's undoing my hard work. I hate exercise so I personally don't want to put myself through a hard workout just to eat it back, but everyone is different x
    With so little to lose it is even more important that you eat them back to avoid a large % of your weight loss coming from muscle instead of fat. So, are you trying to lose weight, or fat?
  • harleygroomer
    harleygroomer Posts: 373 Member
    never never NEVER
    I am exercising to lose weight not to stay where I am or lose a pound here and there. The goal is to lose
  • DancingMoosie
    DancingMoosie Posts: 8,619 Member
    I've found that, since trying to maintain my weight, if I don't eat back those exercise calories, I keep losing. The estimated burns don't seem to be too high for me because my weight keeps dropping. I didn't eat all of them back while losing, maybe because I had enough fat stored for energy that I didn't always feel hungry enough to eat them all. But, as I got closer to goal and maintenance, I find it more necessary to eat them all, but still struggling to do so.
  • littlebee26
    littlebee26 Posts: 116
    No. Instead of eating them back, I use the handy dandy search button and read the hundreds of other posts about this very topic. (Sorry for being snarky, I'm in a snarky mood.)

    ^ You could have simply chose not to respond to her question instead of being snarky about it. Being snarky does no good whatsoever to someone who is just trying to figure it all out.

    No shortage of snarky MFPers!!!!
  • kasimarie29
    kasimarie29 Posts: 128 Member
    I think it's pointless to exercise and burn calories if you're just gonna eat them back..
    just my opinion...
  • rachaelgifford
    rachaelgifford Posts: 320 Member
    I struggle to get mine back with healthy food. I do try to though.
  • mrslcoop
    mrslcoop Posts: 317 Member
    If you are following MFP caloric intake guide you should be eating them back.

    Say MFP gives you 1450 calories to lose 1 lb/week, and you plan on exercising 5x/week for an average of 400 cals per workout. well MFP will tell you to eat 1450 on the days you don't workout and 1850 on the days you do whereas a "professional" may tell you to eat 1700 everyday regardless if you workout.

    So for the week MFP will have you eat 12,150 (1450*2+1850*5) whereas doing it the other way will have you eat 11,900 (1700*7) almost the same number of cals for the week (250 dif). The issue in not following MFP is if you don't workout the full 5 days or burn more or less than planned. If that is the case you may lose more or less than your goal, whereas MFP will have you lose your goal amount regardless how much you actually workout.

    What many MFPers do is take the low 1450 and not eat back exercise calories which is wrong, if you are not eating them back then your daily activity level should reflect the higher burn with would be covered in the 1700/day above.

    Thank you for that answer! I just switched to TDEE - 20% and was wondering if I was still supposed to be eating the calories back or not...

    This is great info. If you eat TDEE-%, then do NOT eat them back. Unless you have an unusual day, like an all day hike, bike ride, etc and it not considered in your normal TDEE. Then enjoy more food.

    If you allow MFP to set your calorie goal, this is NET calories, so you need to keep up with exercise calories burned and eat those.

    TDEE-% is much easier in my opinion and you don't get all obsessed about "how many calories did I burn". Just train hard (meaning lift heavy things, put them down, and repeat :wink: ) and eat to fuel it.

    That's a really good explanation of the TDEE method. I biked 10 miles yesterday at a 14 mph pace, which is outside of my norm. I was STARVING even after eating my TDEE-%. So I ate a bit more. Up to my BMR as I believe I should never be netting below that.
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,294 Member
    I think it's pointless to exercise and burn calories if you're just gonna eat them back..
    just my opinion...

    But in this case your opinion is not correct. MFP is designed so you lose your goal amount of weight/week, in order to do that you must eat the exercise cals back, or your deficit will be larger and a large deficit may lead to negative side effects.

    Exercise is to help with body composition and fitness, it comes down to diet (deficit) to lose weight. For weight loss exercise just allows you to eat more while losing weight. You need to fuel your exercise.
  • BamaBreezeNSaltAire
    BamaBreezeNSaltAire Posts: 966 Member
    Eat back...because at 1200 I was gonna kill somebody! 1950 and lost 30 lbs!
  • VpinkLotus
    VpinkLotus Posts: 849 Member
    Hell to the YES.

    Because more food makes me happier than less food.
  • NyssaDuck
    NyssaDuck Posts: 50
    I eat half of them back, or to make my goal (about 1300). I don't eat them all back in case the calories are a bit exaggerated... don't want to accidentally overeat.
  • mazdauk
    mazdauk Posts: 1,380 Member
    never any problem eating exercise calories! :drinker: :bigsmile:

    But what I (try to) do is to use my "normal" calories for a basic healthy diet and use my "exercise" calories for the fun stuff like wine and chocolate:happy: That way I'm not exercising just to eat more bulk, but to eat more stuff I couldn't fit into the basic calories otherwise.
  • Luckykh4
    Luckykh4 Posts: 4 Member
    .
  • Luckykh4
    Luckykh4 Posts: 4 Member
    No. Instead of eating them back, I use the handy dandy search button and read the hundreds of other posts about this very topic. (Sorry for being snarky, I'm in a snarky mood.)

    I guess snarky is the MFP way of censoring another word that ends with a Y?
  • mathairmhor
    mathairmhor Posts: 3
    I usually don't eat back the calories I burn, If I do, I'm usually well over my calories for the day.
  • Luckykh4
    Luckykh4 Posts: 4 Member
    No. Instead of eating them back, I use the handy dandy search button and read the hundreds of other posts about this very topic. (Sorry for being snarky, I'm in a snarky mood.)

    Pangea250 burned 10 calories doing 5 minutes of cardio excercises, including, "being snarky"
    Poster #1: Great burn girlfriend!!
    Poster #2: You eat those calories...You earned it!
    Pangea250: Lol thanks!

    hahahahaha
  • SmallMimi
    SmallMimi Posts: 541 Member
    only if I am hungry
  • strongmindstrongbody
    strongmindstrongbody Posts: 315 Member
    I spent the first 2 months here eating back half my exercise calories, but when I stalled for 3 weeks I had to switch it up. Stopped eating back exercise calories and lowered calorie intake, now the weight is coming off nicely again.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    never never NEVER
    I am exercising to lose weight not to stay where I am or lose a pound here and there. The goal is to lose

    I suggest a better goal is to lose fat not to lose "weight".
    Other good goals are to get fit, be healthy, be happy, be strong, find a sustainable way of eating....

    OP - I like food, I like exercise so I eat back all those delicious calories.
  • chezjuan
    chezjuan Posts: 747 Member
    When I was using the MFP method and losing weight, I ate them back. I used a HRM for steady-state cardio, so I would usually eat most of them back. When I had to use the MFP database or a number from an exercise machine rather than my HRM, I would either enter less time (for MFP's calculations), or only eat back about 80% of the reported burn.

    I have since switched to TDEE (to help with maintenance) and do not as my goal incorporates my exercise. I did some playing with Excel when I was switching to TDEE and, when I added a week of exercise calories to my MFP goal and divided by 7, my average daily calories were within about 20 calories of the TDEE number that I received using the calculator on the IIFYM site (http://iifym.com/iifym-calculator/).
  • RGv2
    RGv2 Posts: 5,789 Member
    never never NEVER
    I am exercising to lose weight not to stay where I am or lose a pound here and there. The goal is to lose

    Then you aren't using the site as designed. If you enter a goal of 2lbs per day, the caloric goal the site gives you already has the deficit built in.

    If I enter a 1lb per week loss goal I get a caloric goal of 1800. I burn roughly 700 cals in my morning workout, netting me 1100 calories for the day. Ya, there's no way I will get through the day with only 1100 net calories.
  • lesterj64
    lesterj64 Posts: 19
    Yes, and it makes me feel as if burning them off was a waste of time! I don't do this intentionally,
  • GODfidence
    GODfidence Posts: 249 Member
    My calorie intake is all over the place so I have no ideaaaa.
  • icimani
    icimani Posts: 1,454 Member
    No - I don't eat back my exercise calories.

    I know that's the way the site is designed, but if I did eat back all my exercise calories I'd be headed right back where I started. I have tried it, my food logging is fairly accurate and I do use an HRM to get a relatively accurate calorie burn but I'm more successful when I don't eat back the calories.
  • amandarawr06
    amandarawr06 Posts: 251 Member
    No. Instead of eating them back, I use the handy dandy search button and read the hundreds of other posts about this very topic. (Sorry for being snarky, I'm in a snarky mood.)

    ^ You could have simply chose not to respond to her question instead of being snarky about it. Being snarky does no good whatsoever to someone who is just trying to figure it all out.

    ^ this.
  • andreaheileman
    andreaheileman Posts: 48 Member
    I usually try not to eat them back, but I always make sure to eat my 1200 calories a day. If I am super hungry, I might eat some of the calories back.
  • andreaheileman
    andreaheileman Posts: 48 Member
    It works differently for everyone. Not everyone gets the same results :smile:

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