Should I be eating my exercise calories?

SmashleeWpg

I am sure this question has been asked time and time again, but I'm uncertain as to whether I should be eating my exercise calories or not. I always eat or go over by a little bit (50-75 calories) of my daily allowance of 1400, and then I'm burning anywhere between 350 and 700 calories a day, six days a week. Any insight or suggestions MFP veterans have to offer would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks everyone

new_me_9_67

Yes!

SaraTonin

http://www.shouldieatmyexercisecalories.com

MeganH81

Watch your "Net Calories"... make sure that adds up to you daily goal of 1400

mbakken90

I say eat about half!

WarmDontBurn

Yes. At the end of the day when you look at your home page your GOAL and Your NET should match or be very close to :flowerforyou:

Angeladobush

I always eat part of them back but never all of them.......the more you work out, the more calories your body needs.....

MeganH81

http://www.shouldieatmyexercisecalories.com

EXACTLY!!!!

NoAdditives

Yes!

Yes!

You really do need to eat at least half of your exercise calories every day to give your body enough nutrition on which to function properly.

MikeM53082

Yes, definitely eat your exercise calories. You need the energy to make it through your long workout. I have my goal set for 2 pounds a week. I try really hard to end up with zero calories left over each day.

sarahbear119

Yes!

amyker66

Well, I can give you my experience....may not be correct, but its working. I do not eat my exercise calories....I do eat my daily 1200 calorie goal. If a lb of weight loss comes from cutting 3500 calories from your diet, how can you do that if you are exercising to burn calories, but turning around and adding calories back in by eating what you just burned. Thats just my experience. Good luck!

SoFLYFireman

I would definitely eat them. Make sure your net reaches 1400

AndreaWyland

So I go back and forth with this even still and I should know better! What I think Ive come up with is if I do a big burn (more than 500/600) I eat some back if Im hungry like 200 of them or so. If I do a smaller burn (less than 500) I typically dont eat the cal back unless Im hungry, and thats my stomachs growling and Im really hungry, not Im bored and sitting in front of the tv or my husband/kids are eating so I want to too...lol:) Days that I listen to my body I dont tend to gain on days I eat back cal when Im hungry but I dont lose if I eat mindlessly just because I have extra cal to eat back, does that make sense? You really have to be in tune with your body and its so individual, even with each day. Good luck!

kimmymcd85

I would say you need to eat back a certain amount that you feel comfortable with. MFP has already worked out how many calories you need to loose your target weight each week so your under eating by X amount each day to make sure you loose weight anyways. The exercise is subtracting more calories from you total per day & you dont want your body to feel it is in starvation mode as then you wont be loosing at all as all the fat it has will be stored instead of being burnt off. Thats how I understand it all to work anyways...! :-)

liz_bolin

I dont eat my exercise calories, but I also make sure I eat my daily 1200 calories. It has worked for me.

123nikki123

I eat at least half of my exercise calories!

ToughMudderAddict

MFP already deficits your daily intake to help you lose some weight. Exercising burns even more calories and if you do not eat them back your body will say "HEY WAIT UP! I'm not getting enough food, I'm starving! Hold it here, we need to go into starvation mode!" And when that happens, you will NOT lose weight because your body is freaking the F' out!

Bottom line, eat those calories, get as close to that net goal as possible. This is not to say that you exercised and burned 400 calories so now you're going to down a bag of chips and be okay, because that's just plain being stupid.

Best of luck!

IslanderLily

I've been wondering the same thing! I read everyone's posts and I think I will use them,. Though I don't want to eat all of them, but if I'm hungry, I'm definitely going to eat what I need. I've averaged eating at least half of them over the last 8 days and have still managed to lose 5 pounds, so something is working right.

ak247

the best thing you should do is find another calculator for your resting metabolic rate, one that does not alter anything and tells you how much you burn each day without exercise.

http://www.caloriesperhour.com/index_burn.php this one is good, fill in your info and see, then you will get a multiply coefficent, which is a number you multiply your RMR with to get total daily calories used. you eat above this to gain weight and you eat below this to lose weight.

see how that compares with your MFP value, if it is above your MFP value then you can eat your exercise calories as MFP has already made you have a negative calorie intake to lose weight

SmashleeWpg

Thanks for all of the input everyone!!

I am fairly well versed as far as nutrition goes, but I have been seeing all kinds of things on MFP so then I started doubting my knowledge and thought I would touch base with everyone. I had already calculated and set my caloric intake at a custom level, not the custom one provided by MFP because at my height and activity level I know I need more than what they were alloting - that's why I upped it from 1200 to 1400. I think I'm comfortable eating SOME of my calories back on big burn days, and I definitely know that my net intake needs to be more than 1200 otherwise my body will start to go into starvation mode, so I guess it will vary day by day depending on hunger and activity levels.

Thanks again for all of your suggestions!

jkestens63

I eat most of mine. I exercise hard and if I go a few days without eating most of my exercise calories so that I'm close to netting 1200 per day, I end up going on a serious binge as though my body is telling me you're not feeding me enough so I'm going to get the calories any way I can. Like I said, I exercise hard so there are days when I eat upwards of 2400 calories and I still lose consistently. I can honestly say I've never hit a plateau. That's not to say I haven't had my ups and downs but I its always because I've fallen off track or stopped exercising for short periods of time - there's always been a concrete reason that is generally related to my not doing what I'm supposed to be doing (except for TOM, I can bloat like a camel no matter what I do some months). I've lost a lot of weight so its worked for me. You can check out my diary.

Good luck.

michelletyler38

I usually eat all my exercise calories or even more.. Oops. Sometimes I don't eat them all & have 100-200 left over. I'm losing weight still.... Just slowly.

Crystal817

http://www.shouldieatmyexercisecalories.com

Hahaha....love it