Eating all the calories gained by exercise?

jlcbooth

Should I be eating them all? I feel like that defeats the purpose of working out - but I have also heard that you don't want to eat less than 1200 calories, and with my exercise today, my "net" calorie intake is 1070. Is that bad? Should I eat another 130 calories somehow? (Won't be hard ... )

Thanks for any input!

cardbucfan

Everybody is different. I usually don't eat ALL my exercise calories back especially if it's a day where I burned a ton. I like to give myself a cushion for mis-measuring foods throughout the day or putting the wrong thing in the diary. I also don't back out my existence calories for my workout time (the amount I would have burned anyway). That said, if you are hungry and you have the calories-eat. If you aren't hungry and you have eaten more than 1200 today, then don't eat.