exercise /calories

imustdecrease

can you eat your exercise calories and still lose weight?

burtdesigns

Yeah, I'm unsure how that works??

leslielove

Ok. You basically want to have ~1200 (or whatever number MFP gives you) NET calories a day. If you eat 1200 and burn 200 with exercise, you're only netting 1000 calories. That's why you should eat some, if not all of the exercise calories back. Eating the exercise calories keeps your net calories at appropriate levels. When people say weight loss is 'calories in vs calories out' they mean net calories.

As far as eating the exercise calories, some people do, some people don't. Start out eating most of them, and reduce the number you eat back slowly if you're not losing weight. Its all a personal thing based on what makes your body the happiest.

dancer77

I echo leslielove..and also if you want to see more people's opinions I was just looking at a topic on this same question and here is the link

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/144912-do-you-eat-your-exercise-calories

imustdecrease

thanks. I will try that. I makes me feel a little guilty eating them.

NoAdditives

MFP already calculates a calorie deficit for you. If you look at your "Goals" page it will tell you what your Basal Metabolic Rate (how many calories you burn just staying alive) is, and what your daily calorie goal is based on this number, your height/weight/age and the amount of weight you want to lose each week.

So even if you didn't exercise you'd still lose weight because you're eating less calories than your body needs to function. If you do exercise it's a good idea to eat your exercise calories so that your body gets enough nutrition and so that your metabolism won't slow down.

burtdesigns

Thanks that helps a lot. I was also feeling bad eating the calories. I want this FAT off!