Should I be eating back my exercise calories?

aLatz13

I've heard comments on trying to to eat back their exercise calories, but I'm not sure if that's very healthy. My goal is to eat 1200 calories, but of course after I do a 4 mile run, that makes my net calorie intake 800 calories and I'm sure that's not enough fuel for my body or very healthy at all. When experts say that women should consume no fewer than 1200 calories/day, is that not including calories burned off from exercise or should your net calorie intake be at least 1200?

cydonian

Net calories should be at least 1,200! A lot of people may say that this isn't for everyone but I think so. Running on 800 calories is not much at all! Plus I find that if I do my bike ride prior to eating dinner, I feel much better when I have that healthy meal and hit my calorie goal (including the subtraction for the exercise) versus just letting my stomach stay empty. Definitely keep it at 1,200... also bear in mind that 1,200 is down from what you would normally intake if you weren't trying to lose weight. I would normally be at 1,450-1,500, but because I'm trying to lose, MFP has said that 1,200 with exercise should help me lose weight... that's with burning 380 calories per week in exercise. Am I making sense? I'll stop rambling, lol!