Exercise Cals

mrscollis91
mrscollis91 Posts: 18 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hey Guys,
What I am really wondering is do you eat your exercise cals or not?
Obviously if I felt hungry and water just didn't fill the void then I would grab a healthy snack but I am going to try to keep my exercise calories to build toward a larger deficit at the end of the week = more lbs lost!!!
Your thoughts would be great MFPers!!

Replies

  • sfbaumgarten
    sfbaumgarten Posts: 912 Member
    I always eat some, but rarely eat all.
  • MinnieInMaine
    MinnieInMaine Posts: 6,400 Member
    Too high of a deficit though can be unhealthy. Plan to eat back at least half of the calories - then add a healthy snack if you're still hungry.
  • mrscollis91
    mrscollis91 Posts: 18 Member
    Hi MinnieInMaine,
    Thanks for your comment. What if I don't feel hungry enough to eat back those calories? I have in the past followed similar advice and eaten for the sake of eating and felt dreadful.
  • TheEffort
    TheEffort Posts: 1,028 Member
    Depends on how hungry I am that day.
  • omma_to_3
    omma_to_3 Posts: 3,265 Member
    I would say it depends on how many calories your target is and how much exercising you're doing. If your target is reasonable (for me, I'd say maybe 1500 or so) and your exercise is light (200 to 300 burned per session) you could easily not eat them back. However, MFP is designed to eat back your calories so you need to make sure that if you're following MFPs guidelines for calorie target, that you're eating enough.

    MFP has my target at 1230 calories (to lose 1 lb per week). When I work out, I typically burn 300 to 600 calories depending on what I'm doing. So of course, I eat my calories back because my target is so low to begin with. I also, personally, find being able to eat more a huge motivator to work out.

    Think of it this way, if I weren't eating mine back, I would frequently be netting less than 800 calories a day. No one would recommend a person who wasn't exercising eat less than 800 calories per day (medical reasons excluded!). Use that as your guage. If your target is 1500, and you'd be netting 1200 per day with your exercise, I think that's OK.
  • luckydays27
    luckydays27 Posts: 552 Member
    If you have MFP set your calories for you, you are supposed to eat back your exercise cals, our at least most of them. If you are using MFP to determine your exercise cals you should eat half our even 75% of them because MFP cals burned always seems high.

    I use a hrm for exercise cals and have MFP set to sedentary and eat all the cals I get. I also eat any extra cals from my fitbit as well.

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