Question with exercise!

Sassy9411

After you all log your exercise, do you eat the calories you gained back? I was just wondering is it bad if you stick to your 1300 a day even if you do get a lot back? I'm just unsure if I should. So any helpful advice would be nice! :laugh:

Gutengal

I would say try to stick to your 1300, as long as you're not too hungry. In order to lose weight you need to have a calorie deficit, meaning you need to have more calorie output then input (I think a deficit of 300-600 calories is about the range). However, if you find that you are too hungry with working out and eating 1300 calories then you may not have enough calories. If this happens, then you may initially lose weight but you will probably gain it back- If you haven't already, find out what your BMI is. I hope this helps!

GhostPack

I usually eat a bit more to cover what I burn. Body gets hungry. I like counting my calories, but I use a range more then a specific number. I like 1500-1700 on my non workout days and 1500-2200 on my workout days, depending on how I feel.

clee369

out what your BMI is

Please do not find out your BMI. BMI is meant to be used to study populations and not individuals. If you want to measure something measure your waist, hips and body fat%

Pandorian

If you set up your diet/ fitness profile with a loss for your weekly goal then your calories alone already are figured with your deficit to lose that amount of weight. On MFP they don't "believe" you about the planned exercise, it isn't accounted for in your calories per day until you log it as complete so for those using MFP as it's designed (rather than doing the TDEE - a deficit or other programs just using MFP to log) then you do want to eat back some of those calories so you keep your deficit at the desired rate of loss.

cinsuccess

This is a very hot topic all the time. Ultimately you have to figure out what works best for you and your body BUT there are a few things you need to consider:

1) Find out your BMR and TDEE - your BMR is the # of calories your body needs if you do absolutely nothing and your TDEE is the number of calories your bosy burns based on your normal lifestyle activities. You should not eat less than your BMR often or for long periods of time because it's not healthy. The deficit should be coming from the TDEE not the BMR.

2) MFP is set up to automatically calculate a deficit for you from your TDEE which is why they recommend eating back exercise calories. If you don't eat them back, then your deficit is much higher

3) There is no perfect forumla. If what you're doing is working, you don't feel hungry or tired, then that's great. If you feel hungry and/or tired, then you might not be giving your body enough fuel. You shoudl consider eating more.

There are a lot of threads and groups that are dedicated to the "Eat More" movement. I have found their information very helpful. For the record, I generally eat back about 50% of my exercise calories based on the information I learned in teh "Eat More" threads and I've found I have a lot more energy and lost more consistently. Hope you find your balance. :drinker:

Kanlassak

The reason exercise calories are added is because MFP doesn't assume you have very many burned by daily activity unless you set yourself to active instead of sedentary. The amount of exercise you're trying for each week isn't counted for anything until you actually do it. So if you're set to sedentary, you should probably eat some of them back, and if you're hungry eat all of them. If you're set to some level of active, you probably shouldn't eat all of them, maybe not any of them.

The default setting for MFP includes the calorie deficit you should need to lose weight (assuming you are fairly normal in metabolism). If you burn a lot by exercise and don't eat any additional, you'll end up with a larger than expected deficit and may not get the energy you need to function at full capacity.

cinsuccess

You can also check out this thread which has a lot more detailed information:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/654536-in-place-of-a-road-map-2-0-revised-7-2-12

shannonjamie

Working out makes me hungry so i eat them.

Sassy9411

Thank you! That was all very helpful!