Looking for some opinions

chunkymonkey4life

Hi everyone! Still fairly new to this site, but was curious if its really necessary to eat the extra calories you burn from working out? And also i go to the gym early in the mornings is it good for me to eat a healthy breakfast as soon as i get home? Let me know what you guys think? Thanks.

arykh24

I do NOT eat the exercise calories because I am still trying to lose more weight. I have always heard it is good to eat after working out.

erickirb

MFP is set you so you will lose your goal amount of weigh if you eat the extra calories you burn from working out, as your allotted calories already has a deficit built in.
Yes have something healthy to eat as soon as you get home, this should consist of carbs and protein.

bry_all01

MFP took into account everything you plugged in when determining your goals. You definitely want to try to eat back at least half, if not all of your calories, if possible.

You can eat before or after, depending on how that works for you. If before, I would not suggest too heavy a meal, as it could upset your stomach.

Good luck!!

rml_16

You're going to get a million answers to this question and it's all going to be based on what works for those individual people.

My rule is that if I'm hungry and I have extra calories, I eat them. If I'm not hungry, I don't.

Everyone is different and what works for one person may not work for others, so it's tough to take others' experiences and apply them to ourselves and expect them to work exactly the same way they worked for that person.

As for the breakfast, I don't see why not. It's usually recommended that you have a healthy carb and a protein within 45 minutes of a workout to help with recovery.

I want to add that when I first started this and ate back my exercise calories, I gained weight every week. Some people have a different experience, but to say that you *should* eat them back because MFP assigned a generic calorie goal based on percentages and averages of the population is silly. Figure out what works for you and do it.

erickirb

I do NOT eat the exercise calories because I am still trying to lose more weight. I have always heard it is good to eat after working out.

You will still lose if you eat them as you calorie goal has a built in deficit to lose your goal amount of weight, if you don't eat them your deficit becomes larger and it is possible to hurt your progress or lose muscle mass, if you deficit is too large, this is even more important the less you have to lose and where you only have 18 lbs to go I highly suggest you eat at least most of your exercise calories, or you will lose muscle and slow your metabolism down.

glockster972

I work out in the morning also and eat afterwards. Afraid if I eat before I might barf!

Lizzy_Sunflower

Welcome!

I suggest you start learning as much as you can... you can find a wealth of information here:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/23912-links-in-mfp-you-want-to-read-again-and-again

I particularly like the one titled your bodies thoughts on calories

Good luck on your journey and happy reading!

:drinker: