Eating back exercise calories

ellen1980

Quick question - when working out and buring calories I am supose to add them back into my day and eat them back right? But what if I burn 1000+ calories in a single days workouts? Do I add all 1000 calories back in? Is it even possible to re-eat that amount?

TK266

here is a good thread on the subject.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/10589-for-those-confused-or-questioning-eating-your-exercise-calo

I do eat my exercise cals and here is why I do. MFP start with setting a goal to lose X lbs a week and then sets my intake cals to meet that goal. If I eat my exercise cal then I am still at my original weight loss goal. Not eating exercise cal may help me lose weight faster, but is is not in my plan.

One of the best thing I read on MFP regarding this (and I can’t find the thread now) stated if you are medically obese, 30+bmi, don't eat exercise cal as you have them stored on your body already, if you are medically over weight, 25-30 bmi, eat a portion of your exercise cals and if you are in healthy range of your bmi then eat all the exercise cals.

That made sense to me, but that is just my opinion and it worth the price you paid for it

Also I suggest you look at the newbie sticky, there are several good post on the subject. And expect to get about a dozen different views on this subject. Good Luck with your journey.

clgiddens

haha, i keep changing my post. I think that you should do what feels right to you.

sarahenagy

This is a frequent topic here on the MFP message boards and one with varying answers. I do eat back most of my exercise calories. To loose 1 pound a week (recommended and safe) you need a 500 calorie deficit in your daily diet. If you have a bigger deficit than that for several days your body will go into "starvation mode" and start saving up calories and fat because it thinks you are starving it. Keep in mind that MFP builds in your deficit in yoru calorie goal. For a woman my size and age I need around 1700 calories a day to maintain my weight. So when I am in weight loss mode MFP gives me 1200 calories. Since the deficit is already built in you should be consuming at least some of your calories back.

Especially if you are burning thousands of calories per workout, you DEFINITELY need to eat back as much of that as you can. Just an FYI, make sure your calories burnt are accurate. Not that I don't believe you work your butt off, I'm sure you do, but I was using the calories burnt amounts from MFP. Just recently I got a heart rate monitor that tells me exactly how much I am burning and the MFP amounts were pretty far off.

karot32

I would say yes to eating back at least some of your exercise calories! But I think that sometimes MFP overestimates the amount of calories burned so I wouldn't go too crazy with it... For me I use it as a little bit of leeway in my diet but if you're not hungry then I don't think you should eat extra calories just because it tells you to.

mzenzer

For me I eat at last 80% of my exercise calories. I track calories burned with an HRM and weight the majority of my food so I'm comfortable with my burn/intake of calories being accurate, and since I told MFP I wanted to lose 1 pound per week I already have a 500 calorie deficit built in. I see nothing wrong with adding a couple hundred calories to that, but if you burn 800-1000 calories then not eating that or only eating half of that could have the opposite of the desired affect. I also agree with the post that it depends on where you are at. If you are within 10-20 pounds of your range and are working out intensely, then you might want to eat as close to all of them as possible. If you are very obese, then perhaps not. I know for me I lose pretty steadily with eating most of my calories.