should i eat my exercise calories

zanthee66

Hi i've not been on the site for a while but as of today i'am getting back on track.
Could anyone tell if i should eat my exercise calories or just some of them or none
what have you done and as it work thank you

lndgllwy

Its probably best if you dont eat your exercise calories but its very hard not too! So I go for a compromise and eat some of them but its not the end of the world if you eat all of them - you're still going to lose weight if you stick to your daily calorie limit - it'll just take a bit longer to get to your target weight!:drinker:

Kaiukas

My intention is to eat back all my exercise calories and I do that most days. This has yielded me with the 0.9 lb loss per week that I am after.

amnsetie

eat them, or most of them
here, explained
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/10589-for-those-confused-or-questioning-eating-your-exercise-calo

Nettie96fb

Hi, I never do, I regard them as the added bonus...good luck

AbsoluteNG

MyFitnessPal is the only place you will ever see someone tell you to eat your exercise calories back. No research paper, Diet, Doctor, or Dietitian has ever said such a thing. The more you exercise, the more you lose, but if you are tired and need the energy then you obviously need to eat more. Metabolism is dependent a lot more on how active you are and not how much food you eat. If metabolism was based on how much food we ate, no one would ever be fat.

Kaiukas

MyFitnessPal is the only place you will ever see someone tell you to eat your exercise calories back. No research paper, Diet, Doctor, or Dietitian has ever said such a thing. The more you exercise, the more you lose, but if you are tired and need the energy then you obviously need to eat more. Metabolism is dependent a lot more on how active you are and not how much food you eat. If metabolism was based on how much food we ate, no one would ever be fat.

I hear what you are saying, but I think it has to do with the fact that MFP's approach is based on relatively low net calorie goal (Net Calories Consumed = Total Calories Consumed - Exercise Calories Burned). It is so much more feasible to sustain this calorie goal over time when you 'earn' more calories through burning more calories through exercise. I think it applies especially to people who have less to lose and exercise a lot as sustaining only 1200 kcal intake when burning half of it would be impossible. At least for me personally. I actually tried it at first, but quickly abandoned the idea and funnily enough it has not only had a positive impact on my well-being, but my weight loss got on the right track too. Now it is pretty much to the ounce that I set as my goal.

It may be considerably different for people who have a lot of weight to lose, I am just sharing what works for me and my partner who is doing the same as me and has also lost exactly the amount that he set out to lose.

JesterMFP

Its probably best if you dont eat your exercise calories but its very hard not too! So I go for a compromise and eat some of them but its not the end of the world if you eat all of them - you're still going to lose weight if you stick to your daily calorie limit - it'll just take a bit longer to get to your target weight!:drinker:

MyFitnessPal is the only place you will ever see someone tell you to eat your exercise calories back. No research paper, Diet, Doctor, or Dietitian has ever said such a thing. The more you exercise, the more you lose, but if you are tired and need the energy then you obviously need to eat more. Metabolism is dependent a lot more on how active you are and not how much food you eat. If metabolism was based on how much food we ate, no one would ever be fat.

With all due respect, I can only assume that these posters have misunderstood how MFP is set up. MFP gives you a calorie goal based on the activity level that you say you have, that doesn't include additional exercise that you plan to do. The calorie goal it gives you has a built in calorie deficit whether you do any extra exercise or not. So, if you plan to exercise 5 times a week, have a bad week where you don't actually manage to do that exercise, if you eat at the calorie goal MFP gives you, you should still lose weight.

The calorie goal is based on the assumption that you will log exercise and eat those calories back. Otherwise, MFP would include exercise in your activity level and give you a higher goal in the first place. When people work out how much to eat using other online calculators, or when doctors/personal trainers give people calorie goals, they are usually including all exercise in that calories goal so quite rightly, you wouldn't eat back any exercise calories with those methods.

Not everyone eats their exercise calories back. Reasons include:

-they don't understand how MFP is designed and mistakenly believe that eating exercise calories back will mean that they don't have a calorie deficit and will not lose weight.
-they are using MFP in a different way, have determined their own calorie goal based on their TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) and have included all exercise in their activity level. This usually gives people a higher goal that already accounts for exercise.
-they understand how MFP works but choose to create a larger calorie deficit than MFP recommends. This may be ok for people who have very large fat stores, but is not a great idea for people who don't have much to lose.
-they use the MFP exercise database to estimate their calorie burn and don't trust it to be accurate, so only eat some of those calories back. The database can be very inaccurate so it is easy to overestimate calorie burn.

Bottom line - to work out a sensible calorie deficit, the calories that you burn off in planned exercise should be accounted for somewhere - whether it's in your initial activity level, or you log it as extra, that's up to you.

Personally, I have always eaten all my exercise calories back and have lost consistently at the rate predicted by MFP.

Kaiukas

Good post, JesterMFP! :flowerforyou:

SomeoneSomeplace

I went on a 10 mile run today. Burned just over 1000 calories. Decided for the first time to try not eating them back so I ate 1200 cals and netted about 200 calories.

Now it's 5:30 AM and I can't sleep because I'm starving.

I think it's important to keep your net at 1200...

Kaiukas

Though I have faith in what the MFP is offering, I think it is good to do a quick BMR and TDEE calculation (plenty of resources around the internet, google is your friend) and see whether what MFP has suggested aligns with that. In my case it very much does.

My net calorie goal set by MFP is 1200 kcal. I am a female, 45 years old, height: 5'9'', weight: 139 lb, I have a desk job, I do approx 400 kcal worth of exercise a day. My BMR is 1361, my TDEE (without exercise) is 1633. I want to lose 0.9 lb a week, so I need a calorie deficit of 460 kcal a day.

So if I I was maintaining my weight, I would eat 1633+400=2033 kcal a day, but as I want to lose 0.9 lb a week, I am eating 1200+400=1600 kcal a day, having a 433 kcal deficit (which is close enough )

To me it just makes perfect sense. I encourage everyone to make this little calculation just to double-check whether or not this approach is in line with their goals and just go from there :flowerforyou:

witchy_wife

Because MFP already sets a defecit on the calories, you should be able to eat your exercise calories back and still lose weight. I think MFP can over estimate so I try and eat about half of them. Generally for me this means that I lose weight faster than I have my weight loss goals set at in MFP (set to lose 1lb a week but lose 1.3 or 1.5)

Although now I am adding strength training I'm not losing weight as fast but the inches are dropping off which is great!