Can you exercise the following day and make up for too many

myoldselfback

Hi I was just wondering... Everyone recommends you eat your exercise calories. Well I messed up with today being so long and everything under the sun happening and forgot I had eaten an early lunch and ended up eating a late dinner.

I over ate 177 cals which I haven't done while on mfp before. Can I exercise extra hard tomorrow and make up for those extra cals? If I burned and extra 177 tomorrow would that help?

shovav91

That's so few calories, it will make no difference in the long run. Don't punish yourself for going over; it's healthy to go over by a few hundred every so often to keep your metabolism in check.
Exercise because it's good for you, not to punish yourself.

Spacecas

I have to agree that that is not alot of cals over...you can workout extra but you don't need to do that to yourself over a few cals...:)

Toddrific

While your body does have a circadian rhythm, many functions aren't strictly daily.
Energy consumption and storage can be treated as a rolling total. Minor daily fluctuations aren't really going to throw you off.

JesterMFP

I agree that 177 is not a lot and unless your calorie deficit is very small, I presume you would still have been at a deficit (still under your Total Daily Energy Expenditure). You won't gain fat as a result of it.

Lots of people (myself included) look at calories across the week rather than just each day, and if I have one day where I'm well over goal, I do try to make up for it on other days. In this situation though, I honestly wouldn't worry about it.

RideaYeti

Shake it off and move on. I would even venture to say that 177 calories is within the expected variance of counting daily calories. Unless you have sophisticated lab equipment hooked up to you all day long, there is no way to know exactly how many calories you take in vs. burn.