Should I eat my exercise calories?

fit_in_MN

You need to be very careful when consuming less than 1200 calories per day - you will likely affect muscle mass rather than fat loss and that is the LAST thing you should do! In this instance it's NOT simply a "calories burned vs calories consumed" scenario. If you are having trouble consuming enough to meet your caloric goals, change the nature of your diet so that you don't fall below 1200.
I speak from experience that eating so little will likely stall your weight loss and negatively impact your exercise - not what you want for a lasting, life-long attitude to health!

Good luck!

ib5150

I don't know if you got a response to your question about eating exercise cals back. But here is the reason. The deficit you are speaking of is already built into the daily calorie consumption number. So if you eat your target cals for the day, you will already be at your target deficit. Having said this....when you exercise you are creating a bigger deficit that might not be condusive to weight loss. If for example, you set up your goals to lose 2 lbs per week, then your daily calorie amount already has a 1000 cal deficit built into it.
So if you eat your cal goal, and then burn off an additional 800 cals during exercise, you have now created a 1800 cal deficit which may not be healthy for your metabolism. This is why the exercise cals should be eaten back to put you back to the 1000 cal deficit that is healthy for a 2 lbs a week loss.

lipglossjunky73

I would say yes - because if you don't eat enough calories you could put your body into starvation mode and then you won't loose weight. I would say try and eat those calories if you can.

starvation mode is only when she has been starving for such a long time, has no body fat left, and the body is forced to do whatever she can to survive. Not many people ever get to that point. At least not people who have access to computers...

Edited to add: I rarely eat them back - and that was the only way I was able to lose weight.

ZebraHead

Here's what I think about this:



P.S. Please see this in the 'fun' spirit that it was intended, and not as a 'mean' response...