Eating back exercise calories...??????

megalin9

This is my first post, but I have read many threads and comments. One of the things I have read the most about is folks' opinions on whether or not we should eat back our exercise calories. I thought I understood what that meant, but now I'm not so sure I do. I attend the gym at my work every day. It's free, thank goodness! And I pay for a personal trainer one day a week. She calculated how many calories I should be eating - around 1900 based on...something. I don't remember what - my BMI or BMR??? I don't think I understand the difference still (feel free to clarify that!). MFP calculates my daily goal based on something different and has it at 1760 (I obviously like 1900 better). Anyhow, she suggested that, in order to lose a pound a week, I should have a calorie deficit of 500 (500 calorie deficit/day = 3500 calorie deficit/week = 1lb lost). That makes perfect sense to me, so I always aim for having somewhere around 500 unused calories left over every day. For the sake of this example, I'm going to go by what MFP tells me I should be eating. So yesterday, I started out with 1760 calories. I ate 1947 in calories and earned 599 extra calories from exercise (net of 1348), leaving me with 412 calories remaining. Does "eating your exercise calories" mean that I should have eaten another 412 calories yesterday??? Or am I right to leave a little left over every day? Someone (or many) please explain what "eating your exercise calories" means and what your opinion is on doing it or not doing it. THANKS!

Spanaval

Your BMR is what your body needs in terms of calories to function - breathe, for the heart to beat, that sort of thing. If you lay in a coma all day long, your body still needs BMR calories to function. This is the # of calories you need to NET in a day, for your body to function. So, you would eat your BMR + any calories you burn with exercise, to NET your BMR calories for the day. As an example, let's say that your BMR is 1000 (ridiculously low, totally FAKE #). You burn 500 calories with exercise. Which means your body only has 500 calories to conduct its functions, which is not enough. So, if you were to eat, you would actually eat 1500 calories to NET 1000 for the day.

Since you're not lying comatose somewhere, the better way to go about this might be to calculate your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure - which factors in your activity level), subtract 20% from that, and eat that many calories without worrying about eating back exercise calories, since those are already factored in.

tbirely

Megan, Megan, Megan....haha You could have just come and asked me! Spanaval responded with exactly what I would have told you. :-)

megalin9

Aaaahahaha! You caught me! I was hoping you wouldn't notice. How naive of me. I feel like I've asked you this at least twice, so I didn't want you to be like, "Seriously? You still don't get this?" LoL. See you tomorrow!!!!