Eating exercise calories?

tbnjnichols

Okay, I have hit a plateau and I was looking through my food diary for the last 3 months. I haven't ever eaten my calories from exercise. What are any of your suggestions for eating or not eating exercise calories? I have already decreased my calories to lose 2 pounds per week and the calories I burned from working out I just counted as an added bonus for extra weight loss. Just curious because I need to get the scale moving again! I still have 40 pounds to lose Thanks in advance for any of your suggestions!

merzback

Eat them! Seriously! You need your fuel- start looking at it as having to refuel your body!

rlw77

I seem to lose more if I set my account to lose 1 pound per week and eat most of my exercise calories.

CMmrsfloyd

A lot of people that don't eat their exercise calories seem to notice that the weight starts coming off again if they up their calories a bit. (either increasing their goal or eating part or all of their exercise calories). I say, if what you're doing now doesn't seem to be working, try something different for a couple of weeks and see what happens. If that doesn't work either, try something new. Some people feel like working out and not eating exercise calories works great for them, others feel they need to eat all of their exercise calories or they plateau, others are somewhere in the middle eating part but not all of their exercise calories. I go for the happy medium. I aim to eat about half of my exercise calories - sometimes it's more (okay, usually it's more LOL), sometimes it's less. Just depends on the day. From what I've seen discussed on the forums here, sometimes you just need to switch up your routine if your body has gotten a little too used to doing what you've been doing. Good luck. :-)

patio1313

I usually make it a point to NOT eat my exercise calories at least during the week...And then I allow myself one day on the weekend to do that...This way it kind of "jumpstarts" my metabolism and "fools" my body into thinking it needs to burn more.

rm830

L:ike others have said, I have also noticed I start losing weight if I up my calories a little bit. I changed my goal from 2 lbs a week to 1.5 lbs a week and I truly lost 1.5 lb in the last week.

sryan8408

You need to 1. Move down to 1 lb a week. 2. Decide after a week if the new calorie addition requires you to eat back your calories. If you're burning over 400 though, I would recommend eating at least half of them.

Onesnap

VERY common topic on here, I encourage you to use the search tool and check out what other people have said.

I reached my goal in September and ALWAYS ate back my exercise cals.

Here's why:

My MFP goal was 1,260/day to lose 1lb/week.

I often burned 300-500 cals in my daily workouts.

If I HAD NOT eaten my exercise cals back I would have been NET 760 many days each week for weeks and weeks. At 5'6" and very active...how in the world would I have fueled my body on 760???????????

BodyWontBreak

I was talking with my trainer about having hit another plateau this morning. He said my body might be shutting down, so he suggested one day eating 1700 calories and then eating 1400 calories for two days and then on the fourth day eating about 2200 calories. So I am trying that this week. The trick (for me at least) is eating the calories from nutritious foods - not just calorie dense foods.

Good luck with getting over your plateau! I have been hitting lots of plateaus lately myself. The biggest thing is to just keep working. Eventually something will happen, and unfortunately, most of weight loss is about food. Weight loss happens anywhere from 60-80% in the kitchen.

cckeimig

I recommend eating most of them, but also make SURE you're drinking the water. That, specifically, is a large part of what made me stumble recently (in my so-called maintenance phase) and go back to having to re-drop those last 5-7 lbs. :sad:

radio_flyer

Like everyone else is saying ... you need to eat them ... otherwise your body goes into storage mode and that is counterproductive to your goals. If you have a light workout, like just going for a walk -- then I wouldn't eat them back, but if you're doing something high intensity .. then yea -- you need to fuel your body.

bcattoes

I lost a lot of weight before I joined this site or tracked anything but once I started I saw that I was indeed eating my exercise calories. I get hungry if I don't eat them. Exercise makes me hungry. Go figure!

Hellbent_Heidi

It really all depends on how much exercise you're doing each day or week, as well as how many calories you're eating now, drinking enough water? How much have you lost since you started and what are your current stats (height, weight, etc).? How long have you been on this plateau?

Asking that question on here is just going to get a lot of responses telling you blindly either to eat them, or not eat them.

tbnjnichols

Thanks for the suggestions everyone! My net calories are usually between 300 and 900 a day depending on how heavy my work-outs are. I guess I thought that what I ate was all that mattered not how much I had a net of each day. Onesnap you explained it really well though, that those 300 to 900 calories will not fuel my body

VeganGal84

I usually eat most of them. I only don't eat them if I'm not hungry for them, because I don't believe in force-feeding myself.

But, that being said, that is RARELY an issue for me. Eat them!

kapeluza

"So often people personal message me asking me if I think their calories are correct. It seems that people think there is some magical formula that only a very few can figure out. I see so many people on here just popping in numbers and following them heedless of what the numbers mean. I feel it's ULTRA important to know why MFP (and me, and a few others) gives you certain numbers. To that end I will try to empower YOU to be able to understand the basics about calories, calorie deficits, and why we recommend eating exercise calories. With this knowledge you should be able to easily figure out what your calories should be at for reasonable, healthy weight loss. So without further ado, lets get started.

1st things first, a few givens must be stated:

-Everyone's body is slightly different. ALWAYS keep in mind your numbers may not be exactly what MFP thinks simply because everyone's bodies all burn energy at a different rate. Tweaking may be needed.

- MFP's goals wizard is a "dumb" tool. That means it doesn't care whether a specific goal is healthy and/or right for you, it just subtracts the goal deficit from projected maintenance calories. This means that even if you shouldn't be trying for a 2 lb a week loss, MFP won't care, it will still try to help you get there.

-1200 calories is a generic number. It's not right for everyone. It's a baseline minimum given out as a floor by MFP based on prior research by the medical community. NOT everyone will need a minimum of 1200, very small people can go under, and bigger people need more.


OK with those facts firmly set in your mind (please go back and re-read the givens until you have them firmly planted in your skull!), we can continue. Figuring out your perfect deficit isn't magic, it's a few simple formula's base on some basic, worldwide standards, and generally with slight modefication, will work for just about anyone who (besides weight) is generally healthy.

Here's what you need:
Height, weight, age, activity level, sex

NOTE: activity level isn't as mysterious as it sounds. If you have a desk job, and do very little walking throughout the day and don't really perform any sports or physical activities, then you are sedentary, if you do some walking every day (or at least 4 days a week) or other light activity for at least 30 minutes cumulative at least 4 times a week, you are lightly active. If you do 60 minutes of light activity 5 days a week or do some kind of sport that requires walking or light jogging (say swimming or mailman or warehouse employee) then you are active, If you do a physically demanding activity (one that makes you sweat) for 4 days a week or more and for more than 1 hour a day, you are very active (like a coach that runs drills or you play volleyball). When in doubt, go down 1 level, you'd rather burn more than you think than less.

With all these numbers you can generate your BMI. Now I realize BMI is flawed, but for what we're doing it's good enough. After years on here, and doing lots and lots of research, I've been able to associate general BMI ranges with approximate goal levels. This works for about 80 to 85% of people out there (there's always a few that are outside the curve).

So now we can figure out where your goal should be.
Go to the tools section and figure out your BMI:

Generally someone with a BMI over 32 can do a 1000 calorie a day (2 lbs a week) deficit
With a BMI of 30 to 32 a deficit of 750 calories is generally correct (about 1.5 lbs a week)
With a BMI of 28 to 30 a deficit of 500 calories is about right (about 1 lb a week)
With a BMI of 26 to 28 a deficit of about 300 calories is perfect (about 1/2 lb a week)
and below 26... well this is where we get fuzzy. See now you're no longer talking about being overweight, so while it's still ok to have a small deficit, you really should shift your focus more towards muscle building, and reducing fat. This means it is EXTRA important to eat your exercise calories as your body needs to KNOW it's ok to burn fat stores, and the only way it will know is if you keep giving it the calories it needs to not enter the famine response (starvation mode).

With this quick guide you can figure out your goal rather easily. I know many people will say "I can't eat my exercise calories, I gain weight when I do". Well I have news for you, that's not correct. I submit this, if you eat your exercise calories and gain weight 1 of 3 things happened:
1 you were previously in starvation mode, and you upped your calories, and had an immediate weight gain, that's normal, to be expected, and necessary to get your body on track. Give it a month, that will stop, and you, once again, will begin to lose, but this time, in a healthy manner.
2 you incorrectly calculated something, either your exercise calories, your calorie intake, or you put in to large of a goal. Go back and check all your numbers.
3 you haven't given it enough time to work. This site promotes HEALTHY weight loss people. Healthy weight loss doesn't happen in days or weeks, it takes months and years. Each change you make in how you eat needs a month or more to work, be patient, give it time. It will happen.

And to everyone who has a trainer that doesn't agree with eating your exercise calories. I also submit this: In 90% of the cases (and I have talked to a LOT of trainers about this exact topic) they actually DO agree with this method, you just explained it wrong.
Just saying to a trainer "should I eat my exercise calories?" isn't enough, you have to explain to them that MFP already generates a deficit prior to any exercise, therefore the deficit will remain whether you exercise or not. Once you give them that idea, and you are relatively sure they understand the concept then I'll bet they change their tune.

I hope this helps, it's pretty straight forward if you've been here a while, and to you new guys, I recommend going to the message boards link, clicking on the "general diet and weight loss" area, and clicking on those first few posts that have the little mouse trap next to them, they are sticky and will always be there, and are a wealth of knowledge about this site, exercise calories, starvation mode...etc. "

ackeebee

I seem to lose more if I set my account to lose 1 pound per week and eat most of my exercise calories.

this works for me too. i had initially set my goal at 2lb a week and while i lost in the first 2 weeks, it didnt last much longer than that. revised it to 1.5lb a week and it was pretty much the same result. in the past month i have revised it again to 1 lb a week and i can say that while i have not always lost the full 1 lb every week, there has always been a loss.

i always try and eat at least some of my exercise calories back. most times it is abit too much to eat it all .