Do you use your exercise calories?

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  • lucylorelei
    lucylorelei Posts: 46 Member
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    Yes! YUM. Sometimes I work out so I can eat.
  • Pebble321
    Pebble321 Posts: 6,554 Member
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    MFP is designed to give you a calorie deficit so you will lose weight if you eat all your calories plus your exercise calories.
    It means that every day you have a stable calorie deficit - which, if you are recording food and exercise accurately, should lead to weight loss.

    If you decide that you want to have a much bigger calorie deficit some days in the hope that this will make you lose weight quicker then its up to you. This works for some people and not for others.
    Personally I don't function well on a low calorie diet (I get waaaaay too grumpy). I eat my daily allowance plus most of my exercise calories. This has worked very well for me, I've lost 40 pounds in 5 1/2 months.

    Your experience might vary, but as you are new I would suggest start out by using MFP the way it is designed then after a month start changing things if it doesn't work for you. Don't make it too hard for yourself to start - get into some good eating and exercise habits, get used to logging what you eat and then worry about the finer details once you have these down.
  • blh76820
    blh76820 Posts: 13 Member
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    What my trainers and doctor has told me is this: With the calories in, calories out method, you have a certain daily amount (mine is 1200) that you should not exceed in order to lose at least one lb a week if you are not exercising. My fitness pal calculates this for you right away. If you do add exercise, the reason it subtracts those calories is because you have burned them, and can still eat that amount. My doctor and trainers told me that because I am involved in more physical exercise, my metabolism requires more calories in order for my body to perform at it's peak.

    So, eating the exercise calories is good. If you don't want to eat them you will just have more of a deficit.You do not have to eat them, but you could become lethargic if you aren't eating enough calories for your metabolism to help out your body with the large amount of exercise. Everyone's amount is different. I personally eat all but the 100 remaining calories so I am getting enough fuel for my body, but still losing a bit more. As long as you keep under your calorie total that is listed after exercising, you will lose.
  • Kanzaki3
    Kanzaki3 Posts: 656 Member
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    I try to eat most of the calories I earn from exercise. It's hard for me to do it without going over sodium though. Went over today. Hopefully I won't go over tomorrow. =)
  • fatboypup
    fatboypup Posts: 1,873 Member
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    listen to your body most days I only net a few hundred cals or sometimes a negative amount ..... eating 1200 and burning 500 of them with exercise is not the same as only eating 700 calories
  • LeahBeah12
    LeahBeah12 Posts: 31 Member
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    Yes, I eat back most of my exercise calories. If I can I try and leave 100-200 left at the end of the day because I think the site over estimates your calorie burn and I'm trying to play it safe.
  • NewLeafEats
    NewLeafEats Posts: 37 Member
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    I lost all of my weight eating every single floggin' calorie awarded to me. I stopped losing when I tried to eat too little for my body to handle (which is somewhere around 1400 NET calories).
  • nero14
    nero14 Posts: 14
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    well-- the most important thing to consider is the NET calorie loss. This is found by subtracting the calories your body WOULD have burned had you been carrying out normal activity from the actual calories you burned while exercising. This # would be the safe amount to re-eat if you wanted. Eventually- after a month or two you'll get to the point where you won't feel like you have to- your appetite will bottom out around week 6 of a low-calorie-diet-- studies have proved this.

    I'll give you my example for today.

    I have eaten 1,400 calories on a 1,600 calorie diet (I weigh 210 so that's still a 2lb/week loss rate!).
    Tonight I went to the gym, turned the eliptical machine up to 14 and went hard for 55 minutes. Burned 800 calories. So if I went by that- I'd be at only 600 calories for today and I'd feel like I could eat 1000 more to come out even at my 1600. HOWEVER-- this would be too much because during that 55 minutes I spent exercising my body would have naturally burned some calories (sitting in the car, grocery shopping, or even sleeping!)-- my basal metabolic rate (go here to calculate yours http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/) tells me that my body would, without exercise, burn about 2,400 calories/day based on my age, weight, height... so during that 55 minutes I WOULD have burned about 100 calories if I never stepped in the gym-- this is factored into your daily goal. so in reality-- if i want to reach my 1,600 exactly I could only eat about 900 more calories.

    but I'm not hungry... so I'm gonna go to bed--

    I've lost 48 lbs in the past 125 days.

    - Scott, PharmD

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