Is it really necessary to eat the calories you burn?

1JenMilam

I thought the whole thing about calories in and calories out was to have a deficit. But I notice that my fitness pal adds the calories burned back into my calories for the day. Is it truly necessary to eat those calories? If so why?
Thanks for your help.

kburns0709

i know there are reasons to eat them, but i personally choose to use it kind of as a buffer, to not have to be as careful. I might eat some of them but i usually don't eat most or all

LngHrDntCr13

Sometimes I eat back a few of my excersize calories. I never eat all of them though. I like to use them for wiggle room if I have to. :flowerforyou:

Shell_7609

I wasn't eating them, but I've noticed when I eat at least some of them back, I get better results on the scale.

healthyliving_girl

You don't always have to...I use it to fluctuate my calories and increase metabolism...

tameko2

you don't HAVE to but if you are feeling hungry, let yourself have a few hundred of them, you probably need them and it will not sabotage your weight loss in any way. Also if you are logging huge burns like 500-1000 calories than YES, for goodness sakes eat them. Ditto if you are already a close to healthy weight and you have your loss set to 2lbs a week (which is too much if you are not obese by the way) -- eat em.

I wasn't eating mine for a while and losing just fine - my weightloss stalled out a few weeks back and I both upped my calories and started eating my exercise calories back when I felt like having them (I do have an HRM though which is a little more accurate than MFP -- MFP overestimates some things for me personally so if I was still only using MFP I'd probably eat back 2/3s or half). I feel a million times better. I'm down out of the overweight/obese ranges though --- well my BMI is still "overweight" but my bodyfat is not and thats the number that actually matters.

LessJos

Well, if you reduced your calories for weight loss already, you can eat them. If you set MFP up for maintaining (BMR calories) then you can exercise and lose weight this way. I have a deficit built in to lose weight so I can eat my exercise calories back. I don't always eat them all and can create buffers for when I need more. However, I believe in the 1200 min. a day rule and make sure I eat enough calories to reach 1200 in net calories. When you work out a lot, you need the food to fuel your body. I would never go and eat 1200 and work out for 600. That means your body only gets 600 net calories. Not enough in my opinion.

koosdel

It depends on your goals.

If you wish to be skaggy, don't eat them.
If you wish to be athletic, eat hem.


P.S. They are required for muscle recovery.

LorinaLynn

It's because most weight loss (or gain) plans factor in the amount of exercise you SAY you're going to do before you do it.

MFP doesn't factor it in UNTIL you do it. You can fill out your profile to say you'll exercise once a week for 10 minutes, or every day for 2 hours, and the calorie goal you get initially will be the same. Once you do the exercise, your goal increases.

That way, you'll lose weight whether or not you exercise, but the more you burn, the more fuel you'll need.

If you don't want to fuss with that, then adjust your activity level accordingly and don't count your exercise.

Gigi_licious

On the rare ocassion of me working out, I go with this crazy rule of thumb: if I'm hungry, I eat them. If I'm not, I don't.