Exercise Calories

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nicolenilsson
nicolenilsson Posts: 3 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I was just wondering if you have to eat up all your exercise calories. Lately I have been having a hard time eating my regular calories let alone my exercise ones. I am still losing 2 lbs per week but am worried about going into starvation mode. I try to eat more but I tend to go to the bad foods. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

Replies

  • PhilipByrne
    PhilipByrne Posts: 276 Member
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    I was just wondering if you have to eat up all your exercise calories. Lately I have been having a hard time eating my regular calories let alone my exercise ones. I am still losing 2 lbs per week but am worried about going into starvation mode. I try to eat more but I tend to go to the bad foods. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

    This topic has been done to death on here, if you use the search facility you'll find a full range of opinions. Not sure it will help you though.

    slán
    Phil
  • Bonny272
    Bonny272 Posts: 154 Member
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    At least get your minimum calories in. If you're losing two pounds a week and you're comfortable at that calorie level than I would stay with it unless you stop losing then you'd have to up your calories a little till you started losing again. Just don't beat yourself up if you get hungry and eat all your exercise calories too. The more I work out the hungrier I get.
  • angiesteele
    angiesteele Posts: 366 Member
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    I was just wondering if you have to eat up all your exercise calories. Lately I have been having a hard time eating my regular calories let alone my exercise ones. I am still losing 2 lbs per week but am worried about going into starvation mode. I try to eat more but I tend to go to the bad foods. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

    This topic has been done to death on here, if you use the search facility you'll find a full range of opinions. Not sure it will help you though.

    slán
    Phil

    yep, what they said
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,293 Member
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    Yes you should not leave more than 100 or so cals on the table at the end of the day.

    If you don't want to eat them, then change your activity level to active to account for exercise, but this too will give you more caloreis.

    As an example say MFP gives you 1450 calories to lose 1 lb/week, and you plan on exercising 5x/week for an average of 400 cals per workout. well MFP will tell you to eat 1450 on the days you don't workout and 1850 on the days you do whereas a "professional" may tell you to eat 1750 everyday regardless if you workout.

    So for the week MFP will have you eat 12,150 (1450*2+1850*5) whereas doing it the other way will have you eat 12,250 (1750*7) almost the same number of cals for the week. The issue in not following MFP is if you don't workout the full 5 days or burn more or less than planned. If that is the case you may lose more or less than your goal, whereas MFP will have you lose your goal amount regardless how much you actually workout.

    What many MFP do is take the low 1450 and not eat back exercise calories which is wrong, if you are not eating them back then your daily activity level should reflect the higher burn with would be covered in the 1750/day above.
  • Shweedog
    Shweedog Posts: 883 Member
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    Yes eat them. At least enough back to make your NET cals 1200 or more. My suggestion? Have more than coffee for breakfast.
  • skylark94
    skylark94 Posts: 2,036 Member
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    The general consensus is yes, but I think most folks do what works best for them. I'm never hungry enough to eat all of mine, but I will use a couple hundred on most days.
  • debgcook
    debgcook Posts: 64
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    I am part of lifetime weight watcher and you only need to your you activites calories if you worked out hard in 2 hrs for example spin bike class, then you need to eat something to keep your body up.

    I find if I only eat a small amount I am ok, like fruits or nuts(almonds and cashew mix). But that is if I was so busy I did not get enough fruits/vegges in my diet.
    If I find it is after 7 pm then I am very careful what to eat out of that activities calories. I find eating Weight Watcher Chocolate ice cream fudge is perfect.

    I hope this helps. If you want to be friends, let me know.

    By the way here is a website I found to get good calories counts for activities.
    Calorie Counter http://www.my-calorie-counter.com/Calories_Burned.asp

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