when your calorie burn exceeds your daily intake...

KareninCanada

The last two days I have been doing major cleaning - not "housework" - I mean top-to-bottom scrubbing of houses after people have moved out. Yesterday I logged nine hours, today ten. I have more hurting muscles tonight than I do even my New Rules workouts. :ohwell:

Anyway, so I logged that in MFP. Which, after taking in my calories for the day, left me with more calories than I had started with. LOL (The estimated burn is actually about right - I wore my HRM one day while I was doing a job, just to check it out.)

Which left me curious, what some of you smart MFP-ers do when your calorie burn exceeds what you ate. Do you dive headlong into a "Gotta Have It" from Coldstone Creamery, or do you just top up with a reasonably healthy snack and call it a day? (I'm planning on landing somewhere between the two, but I'm curious what other people do.)

Twomirrors

I'm a mountain biker, and when I go for a 4 hour ride and burn around 2500 calories, I eat that ice cream I've been craving for months. Not the whole pint of ice cream, but a decent portion. And then I might go out for sushi. If you're working that hard and burning that many calories, you've earned a special treat, as long as you stay under your calorie goal for the day. Enjoy!

meshashesha2012

no i dont do anything. i'm trying to lose weight, after all. some days i get to the gym 2 or 3 times a day (i work from home and the gym is only 3 blocks away so it's not that big of a deal for me to go there) so on those days i probably burn around 1600 calories (plus my TDEE) and still eat my goal calories.

i really dont fall for that "i've earned a special treat" trap. as someone who's exercised her entire life, the reason why i got 80 pounds overweight is because i fell too often for that "i should have a special food treat today" trap. if i earn a special treat from exercise then it's a new nail polish

KareninCanada

I'm a mountain biker, and when I go for a 4 hour ride and burn around 2500 calories, I eat that ice cream I've been craving for months. Not the whole pint of ice cream, but a decent portion. And then I might go out for sushi. If you're working that hard and burning that many calories, you've earned a special treat, as long as you stay under your calorie goal for the day. Enjoy!

Pretty much my perspective, too. But I decided to have PB on whole grain toast first. Then the ice cream... so I won't actually eat the whole pint. Starving + Exhausted is bad, bad, bad for dietary judgment. LOL