Calories burned

Vicw24

I would like some advice and help please in regards to eating back calories burned.
My prime goals are to lose 20kg and get fit to run a half marathon next year.

I currently eat 1550 calories a day.
I run/walk interval train 3 times a week and bike once a week. Do/should I be eating back the 400-500 calories I am burning through exercise or should I just leave them??

I am trying to increase the protein in my diet as much as I can and I am loving my runs.

Any advice greatly recieved.

Thanks

vorgas

If you have MFP set to lose X number of pounds a week, then yes you should eat them back. If you have MFP set to lose 0 lbs a weeks, then no, don't eat them back.

FWIW, my preferred method for a long time was to set MFP to 0 and not eat back exercise calories. I basically just logged them as 1 calorie burned per exercise. This maximizes what MFP is good at (tracking calories consumed) and minimizes what it's not good at (tracking calories burned).

achaye

my opinion is that if your doing cardio to be in a caloric deficit it defeats the purpose to eat them back.

good luck on the marathon!!

haymancm

I'm 5'7", 174, & have a goal to eat protein 1/2 my body weight in grams & saw that this is best according to what I've read. Contrary to what others believe, I've adjusted my starting calories under 1200 so that it matches a 2 lbs/week loss. I've played with the numbers the last few months & found that as long as I eat my calories burned back, I'm losing. I eat roughly 1500/day, but I burn more than 700 cals on average/day. So, the more I burn, the more I get to eat on average/week. I found that if I had my starting calories @ 2 lbs/week but had starting calories @ 1200, I was only losing 1 lbs/week. My advice to you is play with the numbers to get the results you want, everyone is different. I weigh myself daily just to make sure I'm on track.

Add me if you'd like.