Why don't you eat your excercise calories???

angel101netta

I read here on the boards alot of people don't eat there excercise calories?
Just wondering why as I'm really confused if I should eat my excercise calories or not.

Jade021996

you should a good friend o' mine here told me that it fuels your body so that you're ready for the next exercise, either if it's for that day or the other. and hey! i did it and it didn't give bad results- actually resulted in better. coz it didn't make me crave for more food (which makes me over eat if i do so) and don't you just love more food without feeling guilty? hope i helped!

BeantownSooner

I read here on the boards alot of people don't eat there exercise calories?
Just wondering why as I'm really confused if I should eat my exercise calories or not.

Depends on where you are in your progress. If you're nearing your goal weight then probably a wise thing to eat them back to fuel any exercise. But, if you have ample amounts to lose (for example, 30, 40, 50, 75 lbs) then you have a fuel source to tap into. When the time comes that you stall out or can't give your best when exercising then add 100-200 calories to get things moving again.

It is not one size fits all unfortunately so you'll get opinions on both sides of the fence but do what's best for you. If you're not eating them today and still progressing toward your goal then keep doing what you're doing. If/when you stall then change it up. Listening to your body is the best recommendation I'd make. If you're hungry eat, if not don't and if you can't workout at a good intensity then you probably need a bit more food (i.e. fuel).

SoLiveItUp

Depends, are you hungry then yes. I normally leave them as a back up when I'm really hungry one day in the week or want to treat myself. Also I feel I might have overestimated them so I never eat them all.

: )

yarwell

I read here on the boards alot of people don't eat there excercise calories?
Just wondering why as I'm really confused if I should eat my excercise calories or not.

If I manage to do a couple of hundred calories of exercise I''ll put them towards weight loss. Don't see myself eating for the sake of it for example after a late night walk or run

wrbiii

As I progress further, I am sure I will eat mine, but right now due to healthier eating choices... I can eat ALLLLLL day and still have ~800 calories left over at the end of the day without even doing anything. Add a hour session on the treadmill and 30 on the bike plus a weight workout and I end up having 1500 calories left at the end of the day

crazycakez

Sometimes I "eat back" my exercise calories, sometimes I don't. I try to listen to my body. If I'm hungry, I eat! If not, I don't feel like I need to force myself.

When I make healthy choices, I find that I just don't get as hungry as I used to, especially at night. All of the protein and fiber I eat keep me pretty satisfied.

neverstray

I lost most of my weight eating back my exercise cals. So, it can work. But when I got to the last 10 lbs, the only thing that worked was to stop eating them. So, I don't know. I'm not an expert here. But, it's simple math. I think also that the estimates can be off. So, you're eating back 300 cals, but you really didn't burn 300, regardless of what your HRM says. You didn't. So, you are winding up eating more than you thin, for the day. Plus, calories are off by 20% or more, so it's not all that precise. At the end of the day, you might have eaten 20-30% more than you think you did.

All I can say is not eating my exercise cals got me to my goal weight. I was stuck for over a year. And almost gave up getting to my GW.

Edited to add: I tend to be very pessimistic toward big business. I know that they have a 20% accuracy range. That is, they only have to be accurate within around 20% on the nutrition information provided on their packaging. So, which side do you think they err on? The high side or the low side? My guess is for most, they go as low as they can legally squeak by without getting caught. That's why I say you might be eating 20% or so more than you think. Also, know one in the world, not an HRM or anything else, has any idea how many calories your body burns. So, it's kind of all silly if you think about it.

What we really should all do is set your calories at some amount, and see if you get results, like 1 lb per week. If not, drop them 100 and wait and see. Eventually, you'll hit a number that works with your workout routine and everything and you won't have to worry about it. You'll have to adjust slight for differences. On some days I go hiking or whatever, and I need a few more calories on those days. But, if you keep moving the target, it's hard to figure it all out.

myfitnessnmhoy

I do. The site is based on the premise of doing so.

Having said that, your body - your choice.

The theory is that you are already eating at a deficit to lose weight. Exercising and not eating back the calories (in quality food, by the way - not as an excuse to eat sugary junk just to meet a number!), you increase that deficit and therefore lose weight faster.

Keep the deficit small and eat a balanced diet, and the body will burn roughly equal proportions of fat and muscle to make up the difference for the energy it needs. Work out to force the body to maintain muscle and make sure you are eating plenty of protein, and that bias will lean toward burning fat. If you eat plenty of protein and work out a lot, you can actually cheat your weight loss a bit faster and still be burning a healthy amount of fat off.

If you try to accelerate that weight loss by making the deficit too large, however, you can run into dietary deficits, and particularly protein deficits, that the body simply cannot make up for by either using the amount of food you are eating or by burning fat. So the body will go to the only protein reserves it has available - muscle and organs.

So, you can lose WEIGHT quickly by making the deficit arbitrarily large, but you'll be burning less actual body fat, the stuff you really want to reduce. Once your body starts reducing your mass of muscle and organs to get protein, you won't be able to maintain effective workouts, and your overall at-rest caloric burn will drop. This means you have to keep "chasing the calorie rabbit" downward in order to sustain weight loss as your body is less able to burn calories effectively.

You are also not dropping your body FAT percentage, which is a far better indicator of health than your BMI (Body Mass Index). So you can end up being skinny as a rail, but having little muscle in your body composition, and have many of the same health risks of someone who weighs a lot more. This is sometimes referred to using the somewhat insulting, if accurate, term "skinny fat".

trophywife24

I'm sure I will eventually but as of now, it doesn't benefit me. Nothing is "one size fits all" here. What works for someone else isn't going to work for you and vise-versa.

kellicci

I eat someo f them. I don't have a lot to lose so eating themall seems a little counter productive to me but if I'm hungry I eat. On the day I exercise more I'm more hungry. I try to keep it healthy (try). I think I also underestimate my calories so not eating them all back is my reserve for the unintended overages I have. It seems ot be working I've been doing this about a month and I've lost about 3.5 pounds which is better than my .5 pounds a week goal.

helyg

I don't, because I am not convinced by the MFP estimates and I don't have a HRM.

Also I am rarely hungry enough to eat them all.

neverstray

I'm sure I will eventually but as of now, it doesn't benefit me. Nothing is "one size fits all" here. What works for someone else isn't going to work for you and vise-versa.

^^^^ sorry, huge pet peeve. This could not be any further from the truth. AlL in all, we are all exactly the same. All our bodies pretty much respond and work the same. And therefore we are not all special snowflakes. Medicine works based on the premise of science, not how you feel. Exercise and nutrition is science. This is why if you are paired with an excellent trainer and a nutritionist that both work together and plan out your life, you would be built like an olypian. It is science, and they know exactly how to get you there. You don't know how, nor do you probably want to live in that kind of way, so instead you feel like the reason things don't work is because you are special. You aren't. It is science and it works with almost everyone, with some exceptions for illnesses and disease.

Koldnomore

I do not.
My plan already includes them in what I am allowed so unless I work out WAY MORE than normal I will not eat them back. I enter exercise at the end of the day if I feel the need to see it just for information sake.

AngrySnail

I used to have access to some of the top nutritionists and exercise physiologists in the country and I asked them about this at the time. They said for the professional athletes, they recommend they eat back most of their exercise calories, only because they are high working machines and they need that fuel constantly. For the regular joe who is trying to lose weight, you don't need to eat back those calories unless you are trying to maintain, and even then, don't eat all of the calories back. They recommended to me that just eat normally, and if if I feel hungry after a workout, to eat something. Your body is the best at knowing what your needs are and once you can sit and listen to that instead of the "hey, lets eat chocolate" bit of your brain, you're home free. For me, I'll be taking the advice of the people who are the top of their field, and were paid to keep the top athletes in this country at peak performance.