Eating excersize calories

katinab916

I just totally kicked butt at the gym today earning myself over 1000 calories back. I've had mixed emotions on whether I should try to eat those calories or not. If were a couple hundred I might be ok but over a thousand??? Any thoughts?
Thanks

lisawest

If you're hungry, eat some of them. You don't have to eat ALL of them if you don't feel comfortable doing that. On the other hand, if you are hungry, light headed, etc, EAT! That is your body trying to tell you it needs food, so give it! If you're not hungry right now, but get hungry later, or even first thing tomorrow morning, you can have some extra. (I wouldn't hold on to that "extra" and bank the calories for longer than 12-24 hours after your workout, but that's me!)

Good luck figuring out what works for you!

Dianeb412

I know what you meant- I never use them. I know if I did I would have a weight gain

ChristieisReady

I'm torn on this, too, because on the one hand, your body needs fuel to rebuild after a hard workout, but on the other, I just read an article about a study that found that calories burned at the gym don't make you lose weight (muscle gain does, tho).

So... I'm eating back some of the calories in the form of lean protein and sometimes a treat for going to the gym then leaving the rest. Because a thousand extra calories is pretty daunting...

erinsolesky

It is my opinion that you should eat your calories! If you worked really hard at the gym today and you simply can't eat ALL of those 1000 calories today, then save them for another day (within the same week). It's more about your weekly total than a daily total. Maybe on Saturday you won't make it to the gym and you have a leftover of 300 or so today. You could use the extra on a day where you just can't seem to get a high calorie burn :-) There are days where I burn 700 or more and I might have a surplus at the end of the day. Then, there are days where I burn less than 300 and go over my intake. These days will balance themselves out, but ALWAYS eat most of your calories!!! Good luck to you!

Triguy83

on a good day of training i can burn to 2k-3k + and on top of that my reg BMR Calories so we are talking close to 5K+calories. i try to break it up to 600-700 cal depending on my caloric needs but sometimes there is NO WAY i could make up what i burned in one day. Unless of course your michael phelps and don't give a crap what you put into your body otherwise I would not have to worry about it.

KLCole

The issue is more about what you eat verses if you should eat. After a workout, the body needs to refuel otherwise you start to lose the wonderful muscle you are working to put on. At that point, I eat something with a lot of protein and fiber like sliced turkey and an apple. The protein helps you build the muscle and both the apple and the turkey help to keep you full.

Before my doctor set me strait, I would drink fruit smoothies at the gym after a workout and then wondered why I didn't lose anything. They are packed with sugar (albeit natural sugar) that spikes your blood sugar and puts on weight. What made me even more angry is that the gym was promoting these shakes as something all natural to help you lose weight. Yeah right!!!

Good luck!
Karen

hplvt

(I wouldn't hold on to that "extra" and bank the calories for longer than 12-24 hours after your workout, but that's me!)

Great advice!!!

eekface

When I have a big bank of calories like that I try to think of one or two things I have been steering clear from because they dont fill me up for the amount of calories or are just plain not as healthy.

For example, yesterday i had a bunch so I had a bowl of cereal (which I have been avoiding because I realized a protein bar fills me up in the AM WAY more than cereal). I chose a healthy one, kashi go lean crunch. Keep in mind this was an after dinner snack lol.

I still had a bunch left so then I had a klondike bar. After that I still had like 300 when it was all said and done, but i knew I had something very indulgent so i was ok with having extra sitting around at the end of the night. Plus, I think these kind of rewards keep me from going back to the way I used to eat (garbage all the time)