So if I exercise and earn extra calories...

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Replies

  • santini1975
    santini1975 Posts: 175 Member
    Some people insist on eating them back... it doesn't make sense to me. If you are going to eat them back, that's pretty much the same as just eating 1200 calories and sitting around all day. I used to use the calories I worked off as a cushion for my "hungry" days. But then I hit a plateau for about 3 months, so I quit. BAM! Broke the plateau.
  • lillebanon
    lillebanon Posts: 214 Member
    Please take a few minutes and read my blog post that explains what BMR, TDEE, cuts, etc. are and why eating more is important...
    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/lillebanon/view/my-take-on-eating-more-to-weigh-less-254554
    Another great link...to the Eat More to Weigh Less group:
    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/forums/show/3834-eat-more-to-weigh-less
  • tigersword
    tigersword Posts: 8,059 Member
    ok there is a very divided opinion about whether to eat them back or not. personally why bother, we've all already put all this weight on, to exercise and burn calories is how to get rid of the excess weight, right? so why eat them back? you might as well stick to your calorie allowance and not bother exercising! its alright people saying well if i burn X amount of cals then i only have X amount of net calories for the day, but you havent, your exercising to burn the fat that you're trying to lose. thats how i do it, i never feel deprived, i am healthy and i lose about 1.4 to 2 lbs a week. started a new regime now so today was my new starting weight ive lost 12lbs since jan x
    OK, I'll break down the math simply. Eating 1200 calories and burning 600 calories from exercise is the physical equivalent of eating 600 calories a day.

    Do you think eating 600 calories a day is healthy? I mean, if we exercise to burn off all the calories to lose weight, why bother eating at all? Just stop eating, and you should lose weight even faster, right? After all, who cares about being healthy? :huh:
  • stephyy4632
    stephyy4632 Posts: 947 Member
    you earned them eat them read the link below ( its even stickied at the top of this page)

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/10589-for-those-confused-or-questioning-eating-your-exercise-calo
  • mzhokie
    mzhokie Posts: 349 Member
    I have been losing weight steadily since I started making sure my NET is 1200 calories. I eat back at least enough of my exercise calories to NET 1200. When I wasn't doing that my weight loss stalled.

    I know the opinions are divided here on it but I have lost more since I started to eat more. It's working for me.
  • LovingLisa2012
    LovingLisa2012 Posts: 775 Member
    from the help section on this site

    We set your nutritional target in Net Calories which we define as:

    Calories Consumed (Food) - Calories Burned (Exercise) = Net Calories

    What that means is that if you exercise, you will be able to eat more for that day. For example, if your Net Calorie goal is 2000 calories, one way to meet that goal is to eat 2,500 calories of food, but then burn 500 calories through exercise.

    Think of your Net Calories like a daily budget of calories to spend. You spend them by eating, and you earn more calories to eat by exercising.
  • jfaure23
    jfaure23 Posts: 114 Member
    Eat 'em up. Please net at least your daily caloric allowance. Do not give your body the chance to starve itself. If you exercise, it is a bonus. If you build muscle, even better. Whenever you lose 5 lbs, re-evaluate your goals.
  • AFitJamie
    AFitJamie Posts: 172 Member
    ok, so there are a few posts with really bad advice in this thread, and a few more rational - so if volume of responses helps in your decision making: (I can't figure out why people keep giving advice that is really bad advice and unhealthy when the data and details are readily available to read...)

    *IF* you are using MFP as it is basically set up and you let it determine your calorie target for you based on what you wanted to lose (and assuming those were reasonable goals, etc) then it is already taking into account what you should eat to lose weight at that pace (remember these are estimates... you may need slight adjustments to the targets for yourself, but these typically are a good starting point.) SO, if you exercise then you should eat them back to maintain the same caloric deficit.

    (But WAIT! someone asked - What the point of working out then???? It DOESN'T MAKE SENSE??!) Yes, it does. Working out provides you a number of benefits - resistance training will help you maintain the muscle you have while you lose - so a greater portion of your loss is fat and not muscle. Also cardio will provide improved cardiac fitness... It isn't all about weight.... there are other benefits... this could go on and on and on.... but on a basic "calories in" -vs- "calories out" level, you should eat approximately what you burn so you do not create too much of a deficit. This is, I believe, Tiger's point - If you eat 1200 cals and then work off 600... you are left with 600.... now lets take out the workout: If you only ate 600 and did no workout, everyone around you would agree that isn't a healthy approach to weight loss. So I can't figure out why some people INSIST on constantly saying it is ok.... it isn't healthy to eat 600 net... or 800 net...

    Eat your exercise calories - or most of them anyway (it can be hard to get great estimates of what you really have burned through exercise so it isn't like this can be worked out the the precise 1/2 calorie or anything - MFP tends to estimate your calorie burn a bit higher than is likely the real calories you have burned for a given exercise). The people who are saying "it works for me" and are essentially advocating that you eat at a very low calorie level are not helping you approach this is a healthy manner.

    ... sorry /Rant :explode:

    off to bed
  • Jorra
    Jorra Posts: 3,338 Member
    You rock, Jamie! Everyone please listen to this man.
  • Jules2Be
    Jules2Be Posts: 2,238 Member
    Soon as i started eating some of my exercise calories back I lost 5 pounds in 3 weeks...AND i feel like getting to the gym and lfiting, and not dragging.!
  • kylTKe
    kylTKe Posts: 146 Member
    Yes, eat your exercise calories.
  • iKapuniai
    iKapuniai Posts: 594 Member
    I try to eat mine. I say try because sometimes I am just not hungry.

    Damn... I wish I could say that!!!
  • indiepops
    indiepops Posts: 96
    ok there is a very divided opinion about whether to eat them back or not. personally why bother, we've all already put all this weight on, to exercise and burn calories is how to get rid of the excess weight, right? so why eat them back? you might as well stick to your calorie allowance and not bother exercising! its alright people saying well if i burn X amount of cals then i only have X amount of net calories for the day, but you havent, your exercising to burn the fat that you're trying to lose. thats how i do it, i never feel deprived, i am healthy and i lose about 1.4 to 2 lbs a week. started a new regime now so today was my new starting weight ive lost 12lbs since jan x
    OK, I'll break down the math simply. Eating 1200 calories and burning 600 calories from exercise is the physical equivalent of eating 600 calories a day.

    Do you think eating 600 calories a day is healthy? I mean, if we exercise to burn off all the calories to lose weight, why bother eating at all? Just stop eating, and you should lose weight even faster, right? After all, who cares about being healthy? :huh:
    did i say dont eat at all, dont be ridiculous. i would never encourage that. like i said there's divided opinions about whether to eat back or not, she was asking advice and i said what i do and what works for me, isnt that what forums are for...uummm i do apologize, im awfully sorry i forget we aren't aloud to have opinions :s
  • ElizabethRoad
    ElizabethRoad Posts: 5,138 Member
    If you weren't supposed to eat them, it wouldn't say you earned them.
    And this is the first time I have ever agreed with anything Elizabeth posted :drinker:

    If you don't eat them, you make your deficit bigger and potentially counter-productively so. Do a forum search for TDEE and get to reading.
    I don't even know who you are. :drinker:
  • AFitJamie
    AFitJamie Posts: 172 Member

    did i say dont eat at all, dont be ridiculous. i would never encourage that. like i said there's divided opinions about whether to eat back or not, she was asking advice and i said what i do and what works for me, isnt that what forums are for...uummm i do apologize, im awfully sorry i forget we aren't aloud to have opinions :s

    Hi Indie,

    This isn't in any way an attack on you, and absolutely we are all allowed to have opinions; however, I would suggest that there is a difference I think between an opinion (P90X rocks!) and some of the facts behind healthy advice. One of the challenges I find is often that answers have assumptions built in, but many others from all around the world on this board may not share those assumptions.... I recognize that I tend to make my posts long, and I'm sure it irritates some people, but I struggle with short answers full of assumptions... So I try to outline what I'm basing my advice on.

    You did suggest that people shouldn't eat back exercise calories. That may be based on what you do, and your workouts and eating plans may be such that not doing so doesn't create a significant daily shortfall.... Also depending on starting weight and amount over, different people will be able to handle differing levels of a daily shortfall ... However as blanket advice, it isn't necessarily complete. Many people can get very focussed on their workouts, they can burn a *lot* of calories in a workout. I have a friend here who burned almost 1000 a day or so ago... And it wasn't really a brutal workout, just a few DVD sessions and a long walk, etc... If she were to eat a 1200 target and not eat back her exercise calories, it is very much like her eating only 200 calories in a day, and that simply isn't healthy if is done on a consistent basis. So depending on what the OP has in mind for workouts, etc., advice that says you don't need to eat them back, without more, can be misleading.

    I value diversity and opinions and really like discussions like occur here on MFP... Hope you get where I'm coming from.
  • indiepops
    indiepops Posts: 96

    did i say dont eat at all, dont be ridiculous. i would never encourage that. like i said there's divided opinions about whether to eat back or not, she was asking advice and i said what i do and what works for me, isnt that what forums are for...uummm i do apologize, im awfully sorry i forget we aren't aloud to have opinions :s

    Hi Indie,

    This isn't in any way an attack on you, and absolutely we are all allowed to have opinions; however, I would suggest that there is a difference I think between an opinion (P90X rocks!) and some of the facts behind healthy advice. One of the challenges I find is often that answers have assumptions built in, but many others from all around the world on this board may not share those assumptions.... I recognize that I tend to make my posts long, and I'm sure it irritates some people, but I struggle with short answers full of assumptions... So I try to outline what I'm basing my advice on.

    You did suggest that people shouldn't eat back exercise calories. That may be based on what you do, and your workouts and eating plans may be such that not doing so doesn't create a significant daily shortfall.... Also depending on starting weight and amount over, different people will be able to handle differing levels of a daily shortfall ... However as blanket advice, it isn't necessarily complete. Many people can get very focussed on their workouts, they can burn a *lot* of calories in a workout. I have a friend here who burned almost 1000 a day or so ago... And it wasn't really a brutal workout, just a few DVD sessions and a long walk, etc... If she were to eat a 1200 target and not eat back her exercise calories, it is very much like her eating only 200 calories in a day, and that simply isn't healthy if is done on a consistent basis. So depending on what the OP has in mind for workouts, etc., advice that says you don't need to eat them back, without more, can be misleading.

    I value diversity and opinions and really like discussions like occur here on MFP... Hope you get where I'm coming from.
    i think people are taking my opinions the wrong way, obviously ruffled a few feathers here. and i wasnt saying anything about or to you hun, it was who i quoted. i was just explaining what i do, the point of what i put was to say, try what i do, try what other do and see what works for yourself, i wasnt meaning it to say 'only do it my way' that'd be silly to express on someone. you're entitled to your opinion as am i.
    but can i just point out to all you haters, i dont know any other diets that tell you to 'eat back' as far as i am aware, maybe WW as you gain extra points, but they're optional. ive only ever seen it on here, PERSONALLY before you all start quoting diets at me.
    end the end of the day, hate on me, tell me im wrong. everyones entitled to free speech

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