How important is it to eat my

OliveCarsey
OliveCarsey Posts: 78
in Fitness and Exercise
How important is it to eat back my burned (exercise) calories? My daily cal intake is 2040 (I am very overweight and have it set to lose 1 lb a week- open diary anyone is welcome to look). I am eating right under the 2040 per day and burning a lot of cals- I know I could eat them if I want to but I am not hungry and i would rather not eat (eating when i wasn't hungry is what got me here afterall). I have seen some posts where people say you will not lose if you don't eat the burned cals back, is that true? I am only on week 1 here and while my official weigh in isn't till tomorrow I do weigh myself daily and the scale has gone down about 3.5lbs (water weight I am sure). Thanks

Replies

  • Aleluya17
    Aleluya17 Posts: 205 Member
    Unless i'm starving I never eat back my exercise calories. Wrong or right, why should I eat more if i'm not hungry. To me unless you are burning an obscene amount calories it kind of defeats the purpose. I have never eaten back my calories and I am still on track with my weight loss. I will say, this is only my opinion, and things of this nature tend to cause a ****storm.
  • opuntia
    opuntia Posts: 860 Member
    If you burn a lot of calories, you might not be hungry until the next day, or even the day after - as the body is still burning the calories when you are sleeping, rather than burning them all on the spot while you're exercising. For instance, I went for a 15-mile walk the other day, in addition to my regular workout, so I burned considerably more calories than I normally burn, but I wasn't particularly hungry when I came back, so I ate the amount I normally eat. I figured I'd be hungry the next day, but I wasn't, so I ate what my body wanted to eat. But the following day, I was hungry, so I ate a lot of calories that day - I went way over my calorie goal, but I didn't see that as bad, because I was catching up with the calories burnt from the walk. If you do a lot of exercise and just eat the same as what keeps you going when you don't exercise, your body is likely to get tired and you'll have less energy and you won't function so well.
  • fuego84
    fuego84 Posts: 35 Member
    I think when your daily requirement is as high as yours (and I'm in the same boat as you), I don't think you have to eat all of them back but you need to make sure you're at least netting a decent amount of calories of at least 1200.
  • Lina4Lina
    Lina4Lina Posts: 712 Member
    I generally don't eat them back. Unless you start doing hours of exercise every day or feel the need to, I wouldn't recommend it.
  • blpasquarella
    blpasquarella Posts: 57 Member
    I generally eat mine back. Then again I only eat about 1200-1400 a day and then do a vigorous 500 cal exercise. I try to never net under 1000-1200.

    I used to eat 1200 a day and exercise without eating back my cals and eventually my weight loss stalled because my body was starving. So def eat at least 1000-1200 net calories.
  • peachyxoxoxo
    peachyxoxoxo Posts: 1,178 Member
    Do you have your activity level set to sedentary?
    > if so, eat back the exercise calories.

    Do you have your activity level set to something higher?
    > don't log the exercise calories, and don't eat them back.
  • jennaworksout
    jennaworksout Posts: 1,739 Member
    Some days I do, some days I don't , I just listen to my body and if I feel like I need the energy I will eat, especially if I have an intense workout day. I am usually starving...usually though if I eat back, only about half, except weekends, i seem to eat back more during the weekends lol....darn wine :bigsmile:

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