exercise cals

ilovelife

How many of you actually use your exercise calories? And if you wanted to can you not use them???

albinogorilla

I do, but since i workout at the end of the day, i use exercise to get my calories out of the red and back to green.

Insinr8r

I'm still trying to get my head around this concept of eating back the exercise calories. As I do my exercise at night I find that eating them back makes it difficult for me to sleep. I'll stick to not eating them as I feel energetic enough, I do strength training & different forms of cardio and am still losing weight. My calorie intake is 1200 cal.

wivish72

For most days, the exercise helps me get back to green...and out of the red..since I work out at the end of the day. I try to burn at least 500-700 calories a day and MFP has me set at 1600 calories a day. On the weekends, I seem to do better and am usually way under the calories, because we work out in the morning - but I don't try to eat my exercise calories necessarily. As long as I stay at a healthy calorie intake 1400-1600 (for me), then I hope for a good reading on the scale the next morning.

ElPumaMex

You don't have to "eat your exercise calories".

You could perfectly stick to your calorie target, and any extra calories you burn would be extra weight loss !
That is what I do.

This way, it is very simple to keep calories intake under control.
If you try to "eat" your exercise calories, you may find yourself having to constantly adjust up and down your food intake.
Not good in my opinion.

Now, I have to say that if you do a LOT of exercise, then you definitively need to eat more !
But if you do moderate walks, etc (like I do), then there is no need at all to eat those extra calories you burned with exercise

gashinshotan

IMO it depends - if you're trying to reach a high fitness goal (running a race etc) you should eat all of em cuz you're not gonna get the necessary calories/nutrients to build up your body.

IronSmasher

How do you post that picture of someone flogging a dead horse?

snookumss

If I dont eat exactly my net goal (not going below) I wont lose weight. I have taken 85 days to finally figure that was the exact problem. Exercise calories allow me to eat more (I get SUPER hungry from cardio exercises, I NEED to eat more food and protein shakes when I do all the exercise so I eat most of them back.

lilyinlove

How do you post that picture of someone flogging a dead horse?

IronSmasher

Erm, why does it have to be hit in that particular area?

Insinr8r

How do you post that picture of someone flogging a dead horse?

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

gashinshotan

Cuz it feels good!

Erm, why does it have to be hit in that particular area?

4thehardman

I do, but since i workout at the end of the day, i use exercise to get my calories out of the red and back to green.

me too!

GTOgirl1969

I don't necessarily eat back all my exercise calories (on average, I burn between 500 and 700 per day), but if I'm hungry I'll eat something. I try to leave a couple hundred at the end, but if I don't, I don't beat myself up about it, either.

tasoconnor

I second that.

amyB27

How many of you actually use your exercise calories? And if you wanted to can you not use them???

This is just my take on exercise cals because I was so very lost in the beginning about them and still a little. I'm going to ask my doc about them next visit and see if I can get a little more clarity.
Ok so here it is: When you set your activity level that is your baseline (not including workouts) what you burn on a normal day by breathing, working, cleaning, and what you do normally daily. The allotment is for losing based on those not extra calories burned by workouts. Thus workout calories can & in my opinion if you don't want to hit a plateau too soon, should be eaten back for the most part. Also we all know that if we go below 1200 calories on a regular basis our body starts to shut down and gain weight. So our net calories should always be at least 1200 calories. But now that is just my opinion lol! Hope it helps!