Its probably been asked a billion times but...

slimmingsiobhan

Do you guys eat back your exercise calories?
I'm running daily, and trying to do jump rope/walking along side it every other day and am ending up with a goal of 17-1800 as opposed to 1500 everyday but am not eating this amount..

Do you guys eat them or is it the whole point to burn off more than is eaten which is what I'd come to understand..
Argh probably doesn't make much sense but I know what I'm getting at! xx

Beth720

I eat back usually about half of my exercise calories - to account for underestimating calories eaten and overestimating calories burned. At first I wasn't sure about it, but I was finally convinced through reading numerous threads that yes, you do need to eat them back to prevent your body going into starvation mode. Because essentially the base calories you're given on here is designed to be the minimum you need just to lay in bed minus no more than 1000 to allow you to lose. So the calories you burn during exercise take you even below that amount below your BMR. Essentially you'll still balance out at your base calories if you think about it.

So far I've had a 4 pound loss each week doing this. Plus I'm not stomach hungry anymore by doing that.

slimmingsiobhan

Fab thankyou
I've eaten around a hundred out of 300 for the last few days so maybe I'll stick with that! xx

Holton

You are encouraged to eat back your calories earned from exercise; I typically shoot for eating back half of them, but certainly enjoy everyone of them if I eat them all back! You will lose weight doing this, as you are already eating the number of calories you need to eat to lose weight (depending on your settings) and so any calories earned will put you in a deficit if you do NOT eat them back.

slimmingsiobhan

Ahhh I understand now, so while my goal is lets say 1500 a day, and if I'm exercising 300 of those away I'm actually only eating 1200?

I see now what you mean. Maybe I'll shoot for eating half of them or move my 'activity level' down a notch xx

fitterpam

I do - but like vertical chaos mentioned, I'm not convinced that the numbers that are in the tool are 100% accurate. My method for eating back is more complex than hers though

After reading a recent post on why eating back the calories is important, I realized something I thought was critical. When I'm entering my exercise calories, I deduct my normal calorie burn from the equation (you can find it in goals - my expediture before exercise is say 2400, I'll remove 100 calories/hour from what I'm doing) since I would have burned those calories sitting on the couch and they've already been adjusted for in my before exercise calories. So if I walk for an hour and burn 274 calories, I'll remove 100 when I'm entering them so it only shows 174 calories burned.

At the end of the day, I *try* to be about 100-200 calories below the goal.

So far it seems to be working. Since I adjusted to this method, I seem to be losing more quickly than I was before and I'm eating a few hundred calories more a week.

BlackStarlight

I agree with what has already been said I try and eat about half of what i've earned during my excercise and try and remain about 100 calories below the calorie goal. It seems to be working at the moment.

gupton11

Here's a good post on starvation mode to clear up any confusion:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/81391-starvation-mode-myths-and-science

1. Assume that your activity burns less calories than the cardio machines or calculators say

2. Assume your BMR is less than the calculators say

3. Assume that food labels are always underestimating the actual amount of calories in that food

I personally try to consume between 1200-1600 calories and exercise everyday.

gupton11

I do - but like vertical chaos mentioned, I'm not convinced that the numbers that are in the tool are 100% accurate. My method for eating back is more complex than hers though

After reading a recent post on why eating back the calories is important, I realized something I thought was critical. When I'm entering my exercise calories, I deduct my normal calorie burn from the equation (you can find it in goals - my expediture before exercise is say 2400, I'll remove 100 calories/hour from what I'm doing) since I would have burned those calories sitting on the couch and they've already been adjusted for in my before exercise calories. So if I walk for an hour and burn 274 calories, I'll remove 100 when I'm entering them so it only shows 174 calories burned.

At the end of the day, I *try* to be about 100-200 calories below the goal.

So far it seems to be working. Since I adjusted to this method, I seem to be losing more quickly than I was before and I'm eating a few hundred calories more a week.

deducting those calories is great, it's something most people overlook!