do i eat my exercise calories???

laurahard1

hi all I'm new to this and was wondering i am on 1200 cals a day to lose 1.3lb a week i am exercising every day and burning about 500 cals a day. I wasn't sure if i still stick to eating the 1200 cals or because i have exercised do i eat them cals too? really confused by this. Thanks in advance xx

timothystulken

If you burn 500 calories, you can eat 500 more calories, so 1700 in your case. This will keep you on pace to lose your desired amount. If you don't eat those extra calories, you will lose more.

onelov3

Yes.

Your body needs fuel for a number of things. To make your organs function, including your heart, lungs, and kidneys. To "burn" to keep us warm. To give us energy, not only for exercise, but everything else you do in life.

MFP's recommendation of 1200 calories does NOT include exercise. You do eat those calories back. A better judge of how many calories you should have per day is to use an online calculator. I like this one, personally:

http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

Editing to say that if you do continue to exercise at your pace and eat 1200 calories your body will get fuel from somewhere else - most likely your muscles. The more of your muscles that disappear, the less calories you will burn in a day.

laurahard1

Thanks guys sounds simple when you put it like that thank you xx

VanillaSmile427

This is a tough question... and I suggest not eating all the calories you burn while exercising. When I joined MFP I was on 1200 cal/day and exerisicing 5 days/week. There are other threads on her about that and most people say don't eat all of them. What I found the best for me is to use the iifym calculator because it's more accurate than MFP.

http://iifym.com/iifym-calculator/

This already take into condideration your exercise so you can eat all your calories. So when I used that it gave me 1370 to eat a day. SO now I eat all of that mostly and don't have to worry about eating back any more than I have to.

Here the same question was asked but only if you use their calc.

"Do I add back calories that I burn while exercising?"

http://iifym.com/do-i-add-back-calories-that-i-burn-while-exercising/

You will be many people have had success with this method.

I don't track my exercise on MFP anymore. I just use it to make sure I'm meeting my calories and macros. I also went with the 25% fat lass and have been loosing 1.5 punds per week! So far so good!

Good luck!

janeybabe2610

As other people have said I think you should just eat some of the extra calories gained through exercise not all of them as you would would basically be exercising just to eat more and not burning the body fat .