Should I REALLY eat my exercise calories back?

samwichbox
samwichbox Posts: 5
in Food and Nutrition
MFP tells me that my net calorie intake is 1620 and that as this is my net, I can eat my calories from exercise back.

Can anyone with experience reassure me that it's ok to do this?

I don't always eat every single one back, but I'm often still hungry/hungrier from working out so I often eat some back.

Thanks :-)
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Replies

  • AmyRhubarb
    AmyRhubarb Posts: 6,890 Member
    I do for the most part, and 26lbs are gone and the fat is still coming off. :bigsmile:

    Easier than figuring or worrying about whether or not to eat a certain amount of exercise calories, learn your BMR and your TDEE, and eat in between those two numbers. Some days I'm hungrier, some days I'm not, but I always make sure to NET at least my BMR - gotta at least give the body the amount it needs to function in a coma. :)

    This thread is very helpful with that info: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/654536-in-place-of-a-road-map-2-0-revised-7-2-12
  • mrramsey
    mrramsey Posts: 49
    I don't eat them all back either. In fact I find it difficult to eat them all back.
  • neverstray
    neverstray Posts: 3,845 Member
    Hmmm. I've never thought of that. No one has asked that before. I'll have to give that some thought.
  • IronSmasher
    IronSmasher Posts: 3,908 Member
    You're using MFP to allocate and track your calories that are burned and consumed in order to maintain a healthy deficit.

    Or you're not, you're just randomly burning and eating a figure you're making up on a daily basis, and going through the rigour of logging everything just out of curiosity.
  • AbsoluteNG
    AbsoluteNG Posts: 1,079 Member
    You don't have to eat your exercise calories back and sometimes eating back your calories can be counter productive. The more exercise you do, the larger your deficit. No paper, diet, or journal has ever said you must eat your exercise calories back. That's a MyFitnessPal myth. If there is a journal paper that says you must eat your exercise calories back, I'd be open minded to read it.


    Edit, You should be still losing even if you eat your calories back but you don't have too.
  • Yogi_Carl
    Yogi_Carl Posts: 1,906 Member
    I guess what you mean IronSmasher is that you are advising the original poster to use MFP to track their calories consumed in a day, including activities and consuming up to them in order to maintain a healthy deficit; which has already been factored into the MFP calculation which was calculated for you when you first created your profile.

    Is that what you mean?
  • kiminikimkim
    kiminikimkim Posts: 746 Member
    I only eat them back now because I am maintaining.

    While I was losing weight, I ate 0% to 50% of my burned calories. Mostly zero though.
  • IronSmasher
    IronSmasher Posts: 3,908 Member
    I guess what you mean IronSmasher is that you are advising the original poster to use MFP to track their calories consumed in a day, including activities and consuming up to them in order to maintain a healthy deficit; which has already been factored into the MFP calculation which was calculated for you when you first created your profile.

    Is that what you mean?

    I think so. Unfortunately, what will follow, is hordes of people applying methods from other diets and calculators that do not use the same methods as MFP, and instead add calories to account for the exercise in the original calories allowance. What's best (and this is really special), some KNOW they are using a different method, but forget to mention that they're not using MFP as intended, and have actually manually changed their calorie settings.
  • Tilran
    Tilran Posts: 627 Member
    Do whatever works for you. MFP is designed so that you eat back your exercise calories...if you do not...you are creating a bigger defecit. Big defecit is not always good however because your body needs fuel....especially when burning it off exercising...otherwise why not create a massive defecit and just lose weight like crazy? just doesnt work that way....low and slow is the proper way to go. That being said...if you have a TON of weight to lose and eating alot of calories per day anyway due to that fact....not eating back exercise calories is fine.

    Others who may only have 5-10 pounds to lose...need to eat back theirexercise calories so they dont have too big of a defecit.
  • angiechimpanzee
    angiechimpanzee Posts: 536 Member
    You don't have to eat your exercise calories back and sometimes eating back your calories can be counter productive. The more exercise you do, the larger your deficit. No paper, diet, or journal has ever said you must eat your exercise calories back. That's a MyFitnessPal myth. If there is a journal paper that says you must eat your exercise calories back, I'd be open minded to read it.


    Edit, You should be still losing even if you eat your calories back but you don't have too.
    I agree with this honestly. On days I work out (3 or 4 times a week, rigorous cardio) I'm hungrier but not hungry enough to eat back EVERYTHING I burned. Maybe half.
  • TeaBea
    TeaBea Posts: 14,517 Member
    MFP tells me that my net calorie intake is 1620 and that as this is my net, I can eat my calories from exercise back.

    Can anyone with experience reassure me that it's ok to do this?

    I don't always eat every single one back, but I'm often still hungry/hungrier from working out so I often eat some back.

    Thanks :-)

    MFP as designed expects you to eat your calories back because the calorie deficit is built in BEFORE exercise. When you exercise you increase the deficit MFP gave you. When the deficit is too large you will burn fat AND muscle. One of the reasons people workout is to KEEP muscle.

    Now, the problem(s) with this ..... calorie burns can be inflated .... machine & MFP are often too high. Some people have their activity level set too high ... this means that they are alread accounting for some of their exercise calories.

    So, a suggestion would be to eat back a percentage of exercise calories ... if you stop losing weight ... you are eating too much. If you feel fatigued and run down ... you are eating too little.
  • karrielynn80
    karrielynn80 Posts: 395 Member
    depends on if your goals are set up with exercise included or not.

    and how your body feels. if you don't feel you need to eat them, don't. if you do - do...
  • IronSmasher
    IronSmasher Posts: 3,908 Member
    MFP tells me that my net calorie intake is 1620 and that as this is my net, I can eat my calories from exercise back.

    Can anyone with experience reassure me that it's ok to do this?

    I don't always eat every single one back, but I'm often still hungry/hungrier from working out so I often eat some back.

    Thanks :-)

    MFP as designed expects you to eat your calories back because the calorie deficit is built in BEFORE exercise. When you exercise you increase the deficit MFP gave you. When the deficit is too large you will burn fat AND muscle. One of the reasons people workout is to KEEP muscle.

    Now, the problem(s) with this ..... calorie burns can be inflated .... machine & MFP are often too high. Some people have their activity level set too high ... this means that they are alread accounting for some of their exercise calories.

    So, a suggestion would be to eat back a percentage of exercise calories ... if you stop losing weight ... you are eating too much. If you feel fatigued and run down ... you are eating too little.

    And while we're at it

    DOUBLE CHECK THE NUTRITION LABEL of everything you add. Most are added by users that know little about nutrition, and very often mistakes have been made. Always give it a quick glance to make sure the portion nutrition you've chosen makes sense according to the label.
    You're not going to make it through this without learning quite a bit about nutrition and labels I'm afraid.
  • MinnieInMaine
    MinnieInMaine Posts: 6,400 Member
    MFP tells me that my net calorie intake is 1620 and that as this is my net, I can eat my calories from exercise back.

    Can anyone with experience reassure me that it's ok to do this?

    I don't always eat every single one back, but I'm often still hungry/hungrier from working out so I often eat some back.

    Thanks :-)

    MFP as designed expects you to eat your calories back because the calorie deficit is built in BEFORE exercise. When you exercise you increase the deficit MFP gave you. When the deficit is too large you will burn fat AND muscle. One of the reasons people workout is to KEEP muscle.

    Now, the problem(s) with this ..... calorie burns can be inflated .... machine & MFP are often too high. Some people have their activity level set too high ... this means that they are alread accounting for some of their exercise calories.

    So, a suggestion would be to eat back a percentage of exercise calories ... if you stop losing weight ... you are eating too much. If you feel fatigued and run down ... you are eating too little.

    Excellent answer!! I've been getting my calorie burns from a Polar F6 then Polar FT4 heart rate monitor (HRM) since I started back in January 2010 and most of the time I eat all of them back. As you can see, I've lost almost 90 pounds to date. Don't pay too much attention to how long it's taken me - about 60 pounds came off the first year and I've fallen off the wagon a few times and not been in much of a rush since then.

    If you use the calorie burns from cardio machines or MFP calculations aim to eat back half to 2/3rds of the calories back. Don't force yourself or fill the calories with junk just to get to a certain number, instead try to pre-plan by keeping snacks on hand and/or by eating a slightly larger breakfast (lunch or dinner) on the days you work out.
  • Janie_bear
    Janie_bear Posts: 17 Member
    I work out with a personal trainer approximately 3 times a week doing a mixture of crossfit, circuit and strengh training, and another 2 days a week purely cardio. I have a 1300 calorie allowance plus exercise. Most of the time I eat between 1200 and 1400 calories a day depending on whether I have been to the gym and what type of exercise / training I have been doing.

    The one thing I have been told by my PT that has helped me is that providing I eat a minimum of 1200 clean nutritional calories each day I should maintain a healthy diet and weight loss. I have to admit that on this basis I have lost 1lb a week since the beginning of this year!! 44lb in total.

    Hope this helps:)
  • JohnMessmer
    JohnMessmer Posts: 536
    I don't think you "have" to eat your calories back; unless your Net is under 1200. 1200 calories a day intake is not just MFP's recommendation, it is widely accepted as the minimum caloric intake that your body needs to function correctly.

    "According to the Mayo Clinic, you do not want to lose more than one to two pounds per week, which means a safe calorie deficit would be to burn 500 to 1,000 calories per day through a reduced calorie diet AND exercise."

    Source: http://www.fitsugar.com/Why-1200-Calories-Day-Important-When-Dieting-13080864
  • kcrxgirl
    kcrxgirl Posts: 114 Member
    Weight loss is about calories in vs. calories out. So if you eat back all of those calories you will not lose as much weight or at least not lose it as quickly as you would have if you hadn't eaten those calories.
  • JustJennie1
    JustJennie1 Posts: 3,749 Member
    I don't. No matter how much exercise I do and how many calories I burn I try to eat the allotted calories that I have set for myself -- not the NET calories - period. If I go over on exercise days it's no big deal. On a night that I'm going out and I know I'm going to indulge I consider the exercise calories a "buffer" so that if I go over it's not as big a deal as it would be if I didn't exercise.
  • alicia0416
    alicia0416 Posts: 274 Member
    I started eating back my exercise calories about a month ago after hitting a month long plateau.... It DID help me get over the plateau. I don't eat all of em back. usually just half but I can see a difference... seems to have sped the process up a bit in my case..... Just eat healthy though... veggies are great calorie fillers lol.. even though they are SUPER low in calories I can eat a TON of em lol...
  • Tilran
    Tilran Posts: 627 Member
    Weight loss is about calories in vs. calories out. So if you eat back all of those calories you will not lose as much weight or at least not lose it as quickly as you would have if you hadn't eaten those calories.

    Please dont simplfy the answer that much....if people were to listen to this logic they would create huge defecits that would end up slowing down their metabolism and hurt them in the end. If I were eating 2500 calories a day, then exercising so much per day that I burned 2000-2500 a day (crazy I know but proving a point) then I would be at 0 Net and my body after a week would collapse. It is not simply calorie in vs calorie out in terms of weight loss.

    The fact is you want to maintain a healthy defecit. This is the reason you eat back your exercise calories...because the defecit is ALREADY built in to your daily calories here on MFP.

    If you were to go by TDEE...that is a different story, but MFP calculates your 1 pound loss a week defecit for you. Make all numbers hit 0 or as close as you can....its that simple.
  • alpine1994
    alpine1994 Posts: 1,915 Member
    I don't. No matter how much exercise I do and how many calories I burn I try to eat the allotted calories that I have set for myself -- not the NET calories - period. If I go over on exercise days it's no big deal. On a night that I'm going out and I know I'm going to indulge I consider the exercise calories a "buffer" so that if I go over it's not as big a deal as it would be if I didn't exercise.

    This is exactly what I do and it works for me.
  • 256Sept12
    256Sept12 Posts: 41
    i don't eat them back. I can't wrap my mind around it. If I exercise and then eat more...it makes me feel like I exercised for nothing.

    However...I also try to listen to my body. If I worked out hard and I feel hungrier...then I'll eat some extra fruit, protein, veggie.
    But If I don't feel extra hungry...then I don't eat more.
  • Tilran
    Tilran Posts: 627 Member
    i don't eat them back. I can't wrap my mind around it. If I exercise and then eat more...it makes me feel like I exercised for nothing.

    So, I guess first you need to ask yourself...is it possible to lose weight without exercising? The answer is yes. Why is that? Because you are eating at a defecit. If you exercise...you have an even bigger defecit...if you eat back your exercise calories...you are still at the original defecit before working out.

    Hopefully that helps you wrap your mind around it.
  • BeantownSooner
    BeantownSooner Posts: 254
    I don't. No matter how much exercise I do and how many calories I burn I try to eat the allotted calories that I have set for myself -- not the NET calories - period. If I go over on exercise days it's no big deal. On a night that I'm going out and I know I'm going to indulge I consider the exercise calories a "buffer" so that if I go over it's not as big a deal as it would be if I didn't exercise.

    This is exactly what I do and it works for me.

    Ditto and with another 40+ lbs of fat I'm lugging around there's another 140,000 calories available so I don't "starve" myself.
  • maro_p
    maro_p Posts: 57 Member
    First of all it kind of depends on how you calculate your TDEE and whether the exercise you are doing is already being taken into account. I am not inputting the extra exercise in my TDEE and I just claim I am doing a desk job because this is what I do.

    My BMR is 1562 Kcal a day which means that even if I was not doing anything I need that amount of energy to function.

    I have a TDEE of 1847 as my daily activity levels (excluding additional exercise) are very low. That still means that daily I would be burning almost 300 kcal more than what I need to survive from doing my daily basic activities.

    Therefore the idea is that even if I was not excercising i would be burning some calories per hour an average of 77kcal (1847/24 = 77). and probably even more than that since that would be a time that I am awake and not asleep and therefore it would be towards the higher end. Therefore if I exercise for an hour and burn for example 400 calories, I should not be eating all of them back but a maximum of 400-80 Kcal = 320Kcal and not 400kcal which is what I lost while exercising.

    Although I believe that MFP is a great tool, because of things like the above, I use it as a guidance rather than a gospel especially with anything to do with exercise.
  • spinedocmfp
    spinedocmfp Posts: 109 Member
    The settings for MFP are clear. You have a pre-arranged calorie deficit, and you need to eat those exercise calories to control your deficit.
    Others above have changed things based on their own experience, knowledge and research, and with time and experience you can do the same, if necessary.
  • minkakross
    minkakross Posts: 687 Member
    I don't and it works just fine for me but there are people who swear that eating them back is the only way they lost weight. Frankly I don't trust the exercise data base nearly enough to even try eating back my calories.
  • EmilyOfTheSun
    EmilyOfTheSun Posts: 1,548 Member
    Yes.

    I normally eat like 50-75% of mine back. Usually closer to 75%.
    Simply because I lose weight more quickly when I eat them back.
    I had kind of plateaued, and literally the DAY after I upped my calories, I started losing weight steadily again.
    Now this doesn't mean to eat them back in cake and ice cream. Eat back those calories with healthy foods :)
  • TeaBea
    TeaBea Posts: 14,517 Member
    I don't. No matter how much exercise I do and how many calories I burn I try to eat the allotted calories that I have set for myself -- not the NET calories - period. If I go over on exercise days it's no big deal. On a night that I'm going out and I know I'm going to indulge I consider the exercise calories a "buffer" so that if I go over it's not as big a deal as it would be if I didn't exercise.

    This is exactly what I do and it works for me.

    Ditto and with another 40+ lbs of fat I'm lugging around there's another 140,000 calories available so I don't "starve" myself.

    40 pounds of fat does give your body some extra fuel. HOWEVER, not everything your body needs comes from this stored fat. When your body needs to build ... say blood cells... one component is fat ... but the other components are not. This is why your body may catabolize muscle tissue when your calorie deficit is too large.
  • samwichbox
    samwichbox Posts: 5
    Thank you, that link was really helpful :-)

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