Looking for some opinions

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chunkymonkey4life
chunkymonkey4life Posts: 6
in Introduce Yourself
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.

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  • arykh24
    arykh24 Posts: 64
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    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
    erickirb Posts: 12,293 Member
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    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
    bry_all01 Posts: 3,100 Member
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    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
    rml_16 Posts: 16,414 Member
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    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
    erickirb Posts: 12,293 Member
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    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
    glockster972 Posts: 704 Member
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    I work out in the morning also and eat afterwards. Afraid if I eat before I might barf!
  • Lizzy_Sunflower
    Lizzy_Sunflower Posts: 1,510 Member
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    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:

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