How many of your exercise calories do you eat?

momofgilliam4

Let me start by saying that I am just getting back on track. I used to walk a ton, run a bit and generally "liked" exercise. Unfortunately, the busy-ness of life got me off-track. No excuses... just let it all stop me from keeping focus on the importance of my health.

Anyway, I am doing WW and MFP together. Say you burn 300 calories doing an activity. Do you automatically eat all of those? Or do you play it by ear as to whether your body cues you to eat them? In WW you earn "activity points" and you can choose to eat them or not - but the basic gist is that if you don't eat them you amp up your weight loss. I am in no hurry to lose more than the "norm" so I plan to sometimes eat the extra calories, sometimes not. I imagine if I were burning 1,000 calories that I would need to eat a good portion of them... but I am not near that at the moment.

Just a curiosity thing... maybe there's no all or nothing answer. I just want to know what generally works for those who have had success.

TIA!
Georgia

Chief_Rocka

I donate mine to less fortunate inner-city youth

leggup

Most people on MFP will tell you to eat them back. For me personally, I don't always. Sometimes I am exercising because I went over for my calories for the day. If I wanted to stay at 1,450 calories and I ate 1,650 calories, I'm going to try to burn at least 200 calories on the elliptical. If I end up burning more, I probably won't eat them back. If I have only had 1,200 so far in the day and I take a zumba class that burns 600 calories, I am probably going to eat some of that because otherwise I'll be at 600 calories and my body uses more than 600 calories just in digestion, respiration, pumping my heart, the usual.

nineteentwenty

For weight loss alone? I personally don't' eat any back. It's just math. Why add to what you lose? That being said, if you're somehow working off enough calories to make you unhealthy, certainly eat some back (or cool it in the gym c: )

bethlaf

donate to inner thigh deficient women

Bun_Ya

In for recommendations.

freckles7732

I only eat some of the calories back, if it puts me too far under for the day. For example if I am down to 800 calories for the day, I may eat some of those back, but certainly not all of the calories burned during exercise.

magerum

All of them.

Nancy_hc

I dont eat them back - I have already accounted for them in the way I calculated my TDEE. If I work out ALOT more or for longer than normal then yes, Ill eat some back .... well... technically I am eating them back since I've figured them into my calorie goal... It depends on if you're using the MFP custom goal option or if you did your own.

mreeves261

I do what my body tells me to do. I do 2-A-Days and try to stick to only eating back 1 routines burn back. BUT, if I am truly hungry, I will eat more. The biggest difference for me was learning the difference between real hunger and mental hunger. Once I figured that out, my body started making the call on what i eat back.

p_s1984

Don't eat less than 1200 calories in one day. If your at 1200 with eating exercise calories or not then your should be ok at least to sustain your body for that day.

cwolfman13

When I was doing MFP's method I ate back most of my exercise calories with some allowance for estimation error..generally about 80% of my HRM calories for a steady state aerobic event and I used various formulas for other things. I ultimately switched to the TDEE method due to just being able to include some estimate of my exercise upfront in my activity level and not have to worry about individual burns.

I'm a firm believer in providing the body the appropriate energy and nutrients it needs to repair damage done with exercise. As good as exercise is for your health and overall well being, it is also pretty hard on the body...and if you workout like me, you are really breaking your body down on a pretty routine basis. This fact is lost on many and they simply don't understand that you need energy and nutrients to repair and recover and thus make fitness gains and be the best they can be.

jstout365

I use the TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) method and stick to a flat calorie rate every day since TDEE includes exercise calories. I'm pretty consistent with my exercise so my TDEE doesn't vary much from day to day and I end up between a 15-25% deficit with an average of TDEE -20%. I just find it easier to hit the same calorie goal every day and not worry about mucking with variable calories at the end of the day.

wamydia

I think it's a very individual thing and depends a lot on what activity you are doing and how accurately you are able to estimate your calorie burn. On WW, I used to eat all of my activity points back with no trouble whatsoever. I have found on MFP that I can sometimes have trouble losing if I eat all of my exercise calories. My suggestion would be to start at eating 75% of them back. If you aren't losing at the rate you should be, cut back to 50%. If you are losing too fast, go on up to 100%. Just be willing to play with the numbers and give your body a few weeks to adjust in between changes so you can see the full effect.

Also, the consensus seems to by the MFP is pretty accurate on calorie burn for walking, but most other things it does over estimate. And that exercise machines also typically over esimtate a little. Just something to keep in mind.

Skellwear

I try not to eat them as my weight loss goal is very high at the moment but to each their own they say =]!

momofgilliam4

I really appreciate the responses. So much valuable info!!

I should add that in whatever activity I am doing for exercise, I am faithfully using my Polar HRM (with chest strap!). Love that thing.

oldswimdawg

I try to never add them to my intake. It makes it easier to plan my menu day not accounting for exercise. Those extra calories burned I treat as a bonus towards my goals.
One concern I have is the calorie burn rate calculated by MFP. I always find those figures to be much higher than my HRM says. If I went by the MFP calories and added them to my intake I'd never lose weight.

mreeves261

I really appreciate the responses. So much valuable info!!

I should add that in whatever activity I am doing for exercise, I am faithfully using my Polar HRM (with chest strap!). Love that thing.

Best thing you can do is learn the difference in the signals your body sends when it wants food. You would be surprised how many times it is your brain telling you you to eat.

Just for reference I tend to eat between 1500-1800 during the week. The weekend it's more like 2100-2400. So it isn't like learning the difference has kept me from eating. It HAS kept me from eating food that offers little nutritional help for my exercise.

BlueBombers

As many as I possibly can

EpicMedic

Never. With MFP and my Bodymedia, I calculated my total daily energy expenditure (I refresh this number every week) and subtract 1000 from it. I eat that, every day. This averages it out, so any "extra" calories I burn winds up in my TDEE. I guess you could say I eat SOME of them back, since they are in the averaged daily burn number, but I never specifically eat back 1000 calories I burned on a good bike ride.

Kymwho

Bump