Eating back exercise calories

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  • mmarcy11
    mmarcy11 Posts: 38 Member
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    I'm a little new at this, but it also really depends on your weight/height. If you are a woman eating 2,000 calories a day and you burn 500 calories at the gym that would be net calories of 1500 so no probably not best to eat your exercise calories back. BUT if you are only eating 1200 calories a day and go to the gym to burn 500 pounds thats a net calories of 700 which is bad. So I would say if you are only eating the minimum amount of calories for women (1200) and exercise then you should eat your exercise calories back to keep your net calories at 1200.

    Trust me, I started losing weight in January, I lost 4 pounds (about 1 lb per week) and I wanted to lose more weight. So I started burning about 700 calories at the gym 6 days a week. I wasn't tracking my calories then, just started this past week, but I bet I was eating less than 1000 calories per day. I actually gained .5 of a lb instead of losing more weight and I was devastated. I decided to start really being serious about this site and tracking my calories and my exercise and I realized my net calories would be 600 to 800 per day. I asked for help on the discussion boards and other members told me to eat my excess calories back so that my net would not go below 1200. I've been eating them and have lost 2 pounds this past week by doing so.
  • busym0m
    busym0m Posts: 96 Member
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    I'm on Jillian michaels website and her calculation is different than MFP & that's why I'm confused.  this is what Jillian's site does:

    Set to lose 2 lbs per week, she says I should eat 1389 per day.
    Magic Number Calculation - 1389 = 1589 BMR x 1.2 activity level of lightly active + 500 exercise calories - 1000 calories to lose 2 lbs per week

    Her plan expects that you will follow her exercise routine 4 days a week and have 1 day of cardio.  You can see that she is adding 500 calories back in for exercising.  So, when you exercise and log your info on her site, you CANNOT eat the calories that you exercise off because she's already accounted for them in her "magic number calculation" with the 500 exercise calories.

    On MFP, I'm set to lose 1 lb per week and have a calorie budget of 1570.  No exercise calories are added back in, even if I put in an exercise budget.  When I actually exercise and log it, MFP tells me that I earned extra exercise calories and it INCREASES my "daily goal calories" by the amount of calories I burned for the day!

    It still doesn't makes sense why my calorie budget is so different on the two sites.  MFP is 1570 for 1 lb and Jillian's is 1389 for 2 lbs.  Yes, this is apples to oranges.  Apples to apples would be the same:

    MFP...  1570 - 500 calories for the 2nd lb per week (3500/7) + 500 exercise calories allotted per Jillian's site = 1570 and that's 181 calories more per day than Jillian's.

    Anyway, I think both systems expect you to eat back your calories.  Not sure why the calorie budgets are so different...  
  • Rays_Wife
    Rays_Wife Posts: 1,173 Member
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    I've been losing more weight since I started eating my exercise calories back. I try to net 1400 cals a day right now. Last week my average calorie intake was 1750 cals and I lost 3 pounds this week! Before when I was not eating them back, I would be lucky to lose 1 pound a week. The weight loss really dwindled off. But when I stopped starving my body, BOOM! The weight started coming off faster. Just be careful you are calculating your burns correctly. I had to get a HRM and now I am confident in eating my calories back. MFP was wildly exaggerating my calorie burns by over 200 cals! I love my HRM. If you can you should get one. It really helped me get to the next level.
  • TNoire
    TNoire Posts: 642 Member
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    I've been losing more weight since I started eating my exercise calories back. I try to net 1400 cals a day right now. Last week my average calorie intake was 1750 cals and I lost 3 pounds this week! Before when I was not eating them back, I would be lucky to lose 1 pound a week. The weight loss really dwindled off. But when I stopped starving my body, BOOM! The weight started coming off faster. Just be careful you are calculating your burns correctly. I had to get a HRM and now I am confident in eating my calories back. MFP was wildly exaggerating my calorie burns by over 200 cals! I love my HRM. If you can you should get one. It really helped me get to the next level.

    gratz on ur loss, yeah I lost 5.5 lbs since Feb 3rd til the 9th not eating mine back, everyones body is diff =)

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